October 10th is the opening day of deer season, and no matter what is going on we try and make it out every year, and this year was no exception. What was a little different this year though was a change in the regulations that govern the unit. This year it was a draw hunt only (with unlimited tags) where any antlered deer was legal.
Shortly after dawn we started seeing all sorts of deer crossing the fence where we wait every year, and after we saw a dozen or so does and fawns cross over, we moved on. As we were doing so another group of five jumped the fence right where we were standing and nearly ran us over. In the group there were two tiny bucks whose ears were larger than their horns. Lacey was pushing hard for me to shoot one of them, but I told her they needed to do some growing first.
Can you see the antlers on them?
She was kind of disappointed, but the feeling was short lived. About an hour later, when we were on top of the mountain, we waited on the north end of a saddle to wait and see if Dad would kick out anything as he circled around the south end of the saddle. Just as he was walking out of sight a group of three large bucks came into view almost as though they were watching Dad and waiting for him to get out of sight.
I didn't see them at first but Lacey was quick to point them out and remind me that I needed to shoot one of them. So, after sizing them all up I chose the third one in line because he looked like he was the biggest and he was presenting the best shot. After I squeezed off the first round nothing happened. I completely missed. But, the deer didn't move except to turn their heads to look in the direction the shot came from. I knew they wouldn't hang around for long, so I quickly chambered another round and shot again.
He dropped instantly and when we got to him 228 yards later this is what we found. He has five points on the right side and four on the left.
Things are about to get messy.
Once the gut pile came out we noticed that there wasn't a heart with it. The shock of the bullet must have obliterated it.
It's a long way back to the truck, but it's all down hill so it could have been a lot worse.
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