Youth hunt doe harvest.
09-29-2019, 04:25 AM
#1
Typical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Free Union, VA
Posts: 750
Youth hunt doe harvest.
Last weekend, we set up a two man blind in some woods on the side of a steep hill that overlooks a rolling hayfield. I used a pole chainsaw to cut some shooting lanes, allowing a view of about 1/2 the field. Yesterday and today are Youth and apprentice deer hunting weekend in Virginia, and yesterday morning my 17 year old daughter took her first deer. We got settled in at 6:25. Sunrise was 7:06 and first legal light was 6:36. Around 6:45 she asked if I thought she would see anything today. Because of the unusual warm spell, we are having in our area, we only planned to hunt until 8, but I told her I thought the chances were pretty good. At 6:55 she saw a doe and a fawn at 143 yds and we watched them slowly work thru the field. We were whispering to each other about how amazing it is that they manage to just appear in the field sometimes and you don't see how they came in. I watched the fawn work it's way up toward a gully in the field and disappear from sight with momma not far behind. Very soon after, there were two more does in the same area and I told her to put on her hearing protection and sight in on them. We verified both were adults and she started following one, waiting for it to turn but it moved out of her shooting lane, One of them emerged in the next shooting lane, eating grass just in front of a fence on the far side of the field, I told her to sight in and I turned her scope magnification up to 9. I had ranged the fence at 162 yds when it first got light, so I knew it was a shot she could make. I was watching with binoculars when she fired. The deer went down and rolled, got up and ran 5 yds, fell then got up and jumped over the fence into a swampy brush field. She had another round in the chamber, just in case. It was a great hit and she was excited. I told her we would sit there for 10 minutes before walking down to find the deer. As we were waiting, another doe came from the opposite direction, heading toward the exact spot she had shot the first. I told her to kill it. She sighted in on it and waited. When it stopped, she fired. The deer took off running, slightly toward us, and toward the gully. She whispered that she missed and I said I didn't think so, since it had run into some scrub along a creek that runs thru the field and I didn't see it come out. It was 7:15 and she had just shot two does. We retrieved both deer, gutted them and took them to the butcher in the next county. She helped make a few cuts during the field dressing process and held the leg to make it easier for me to finish, and helped me get the deer on and off the truck, and into the cooler. It was a great ride to and from the butcher, . When we got there, there was a father and son taking in a nice buck that he had shot. Her deer were the 4th and 5th that had been brought in that day. By the time we filled out our paperwork , hung the deer and left, there were two more deer brought in. Both 8 pointers, one of them a real bruiser. She made a comment about wishing she had seen a buck and I quickly said "oh, no, don't do that. You killed two big does on your second ever day of hunting "( I had taken her once before, 4 years ago and we sat in a tree stand all day without seeing anything). I told her that if she put in the time, she would have an opportunity to kill a buck, but right now, she had put meat in the freezer for both us and her sister. And I also mentioned that I had hunted for 10 years before I ever killed a deer. She wants to go again.
Both shots were just over 150 yds, broadside. Full penetration. The first deer had a double lung shot that also damaged the top of the heart. The second deer was a center heart shot that destroyed about half of the heart. Neither ran more than 40 yds. She was using a Remington Model 7 in .243. It was a youth model that I bought for my son to hunt with 7 years ago. I ordered a full size stock from Remington and put that on it last month. Ammo was Federal blue box power shock 100 gr.. Both rib cages showed full expansion and the exit wound was the size of a 50 cent piece.
Both shots were just over 150 yds, broadside. Full penetration. The first deer had a double lung shot that also damaged the top of the heart. The second deer was a center heart shot that destroyed about half of the heart. Neither ran more than 40 yds. She was using a Remington Model 7 in .243. It was a youth model that I bought for my son to hunt with 7 years ago. I ordered a full size stock from Remington and put that on it last month. Ammo was Federal blue box power shock 100 gr.. Both rib cages showed full expansion and the exit wound was the size of a 50 cent piece.
