New rifle, first deer (long story)
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 9:54 amI grew up in Arizona and hunted just about everything that there was to offer there EXCEPT a deer. For some reason I never could put one away.
I moved to Northwest Kansas a couple months ago and decided to do some deer hunting. Unfortunately I wasn't here in time to get drawn for any species so I was stuck with an anterless Whitetail only tag. I ran around seeing Mule deer like it was going out of style with nary a sign of a whitetail. Well, my local gun shop owner felt bad for me and made a phone call and got me permission to a hunt a spot that he knew had whitetail.
I set up next to a tree in the middle of a clearing near the river and waited. While I was waiting I had a massive group of turkey come about 20 yards from me, had to have been 500 birds. As they walked away something a ways off in the trees caught my eye so I glassed it and saw a brown ass pass between some trees. I guesstimated the deer to be around 500 yards off ( I was damn lucky to have seen them). I stalked to within about 300 yards which was the furthest that I wanted to take a shot at. I sat down in a spot with a perfect shot at this big doe. I squeezed it off and she dropped like a rock, head dropped and legs gave out. I found that I must have pulled the shot a bit because I hit her at the front edge of her shoulder where it went in, broke her collar bone, destroying her lungs and actually exited cleanly out the other side after punching through a rib.
Anyway, not the greatest deer in the world but she sure is gonna taste good and is a damn good sized doe.
I moved to Northwest Kansas a couple months ago and decided to do some deer hunting. Unfortunately I wasn't here in time to get drawn for any species so I was stuck with an anterless Whitetail only tag. I ran around seeing Mule deer like it was going out of style with nary a sign of a whitetail. Well, my local gun shop owner felt bad for me and made a phone call and got me permission to a hunt a spot that he knew had whitetail.
I set up next to a tree in the middle of a clearing near the river and waited. While I was waiting I had a massive group of turkey come about 20 yards from me, had to have been 500 birds. As they walked away something a ways off in the trees caught my eye so I glassed it and saw a brown ass pass between some trees. I guesstimated the deer to be around 500 yards off ( I was damn lucky to have seen them). I stalked to within about 300 yards which was the furthest that I wanted to take a shot at. I sat down in a spot with a perfect shot at this big doe. I squeezed it off and she dropped like a rock, head dropped and legs gave out. I found that I must have pulled the shot a bit because I hit her at the front edge of her shoulder where it went in, broke her collar bone, destroying her lungs and actually exited cleanly out the other side after punching through a rib.
Anyway, not the greatest deer in the world but she sure is gonna taste good and is a damn good sized doe.