HuntingNet.com Forums - First Deer Yesterday! (Story inside)

Yesterday at 7:30am.

The story: A good friend and hunting bud was willing to do a push for me through an area that we had hunted previously and was full of sign. I dropped him off on a neighboring road and drove around to the other side of the property and walked in toward the direction he was coming from.

As I get out of my car, I see another guy going in ahead of me which wasn't good. I saw him but he didn't see me. So I waited and hoped that he wouldn't go all the way back to where I was planning to sit. I waited a few minutes and then walked in, sure enough he had only walked in about 75 yds or so and sat down. I went right on by him to my spot. On the way I pass ANOTHER guy sitting near where I intended to sit. Now I'm miffed but I press on and sit about 100 yds from this guy. Fortunately I was positioned in a way to see anything being pushed by my buudy before these other guys.

I get myself settled on the ground right on the edge of the woods and above a steep drop to abandoned train tracks behind me. The woods bottlenecked in front of me so there was a good chance that if there was anything being pushed it would cross in front of me. Sure enough after about 5 minutes I hear some movement and 2 doe run right in front of me. They were bounding, I was sitting, and I just didn't feel good about a confident shot, especially considering my lack of experience and desire for a humane kill. So they passed. 30 seconds later I hear 2 shots in the direction of where I walked in and the direction in which the deer were running. I thought to myself that there was my only chance to get my first deer and someone else got it. I was miffed. But I waited because my buddy hadn't yet appeared and like I said there was a lot of sign.

Not more than a minute later a good sized doe came running right toward me, along a walking trail just above the train tracks I mentioned earlier. Instead of going in front of me, she turned and stopped about 40 yds out, like she was going to go down the slope to the track bed. I had a clear lane, a broad side deer, and as a righthand shot, a nice setup for a shot to my left. I put the red dot on her and pulled the trigger.

I was pretty confident that I hit her right away. She bolted down the steep 60' slope crashing somewhat. While I was watching from above, she got to the bottom and started to stumble. She went about another 15 yds, layed down, and expired in less than a minute after the shot.

My buddy walked up and we enjoyed the moment together, my first deer and all. As I looked at her to see the shot, it seems that she must have turned toward me at the moment I shot because the entry wound was just in front of her left shoulder and the exit was behind the right shoulder. The shot perforated the heart and right lung.

We didn't have a scale but our guess was that she weighed 120 lbs. A good sized doe and provided us with a lot of meat for the freezer. A taxidermist friend experinced in aging deer guessed that she was 4 yrs old.

I know it's a long winded story for taking a doe, but it's my first and I'm pumped about it!

PS. We ran into the other guys on the way out and they got one of the other deer that passed in front of me. A smaller doe.