HuntingNet.com Forums - shot my first deer this year, and my second

I've been hunting for about 13 years, but only a couple times each year. When I was 14 or so I took a shot at a doe once and missed. Last year I passed on a five point because it was very dark and I was on someone else's farm; it may have been the last second of legal light but I didn't want anyone getting mad.

This year I have only had the opportunity to hunt two days, and I got two deer. The first I shot in October in SC. He was barely a four point, I didn't have any idea that he was a buck when I shot. I was hunting in a stand, and after about an hour or more it was completely light, not dawn anymore. The first time I saw him he jumped out of the woods and landed on the opposite side of the trial, he was jumping over a mud puddle. If he had taken three more steps he would have been gone in the woods on the other side. I brought the .3006 up in a flash and he was down. I was a little high, severed the spine and took out one lung.

The second deer was in November in VA. I was walking in to where I was going to sit and I spotted him walking through the woods on my left. He was passing through the trees and I could only see him on and off. I lost him and started jogging up the trail, by the time I saw him again he had crossed the trial I was on and was on the right about 100 yards away. I sat down in the middle of the trail and got the .3006 steady. He dropped like a rock. He was almost a five point, three points on the right side and a big projection on the left, but the left side is technically just a beam.

Neither deer took a single step after I fired. Here is a picture of the second one.