One more "First .450 buck" (updated bullet pics)
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:57 amWell, I’ve hunted deer most of my life and killed plenty but never been presented even a marginal shot on any buck bigger than a spike… it just hasn’t happened. I hunted Saturday all day – shot at a coyote & just plain missed, watched 3 does walk through my shooting lane at ~100 yards, talked to 15 turkeys that picked their way by & counted 35 shots by neighbors by noon. No shot opportunities, nothing extraordinary, just a nice day in the woods.
Sunday morning, despite being very windy, I was watching my shooting lane & scanning the area when I saw a deer step out from the right side of the lane. Antlers. First antlers I’d ever seen while actually hunting during deer season. He dropped his head behind a tree as he stopped for a second & I knew I had anywhere between two and ten seconds before he took another three steps and disappeared in the brush on the other side. I didn’t have to think long; either way, he was my biggest buck to date & I really wanted to try out the .450. I knew he was close to 100 yards since he was at the end of the lane & I’d sighted the gun in at 100. Bang.
At the shot, he reared up like a horse and fell backwards, legs flying everywhere. In fact, my first thought was that I’d shot low and hit him in the thigh or something awful like that. I gathered up all my gear and made myself wait as long as I possibly could (about 15 minutes…) before slipping down to check out the scene.
I came upon where he’d been standing at the shot and found a ball of hair and blood splattered everywhere, with an obvious blood trail leading across a branch, around a slight bend and… to the deer laying dead 22 yards away. Well that was easy. He’s no match for the brutes on some of the walls around here (He’s hardly big enough to make rattlin’ antlers with,) but he’s meat in the freezer and a break to my no-buck curse.
The 260 gr. Remington Premiere AccuTip entered right in front of the left shoulder (he was quartering to me a bit) destroyed the lungs, and lodged in the off-side shoulder. I’ll dig out the bullet when we work up the meat and send out some more pics. Ended up being a good bodied buck with a little broken 8pt rack.
Sunday morning, despite being very windy, I was watching my shooting lane & scanning the area when I saw a deer step out from the right side of the lane. Antlers. First antlers I’d ever seen while actually hunting during deer season. He dropped his head behind a tree as he stopped for a second & I knew I had anywhere between two and ten seconds before he took another three steps and disappeared in the brush on the other side. I didn’t have to think long; either way, he was my biggest buck to date & I really wanted to try out the .450. I knew he was close to 100 yards since he was at the end of the lane & I’d sighted the gun in at 100. Bang.
At the shot, he reared up like a horse and fell backwards, legs flying everywhere. In fact, my first thought was that I’d shot low and hit him in the thigh or something awful like that. I gathered up all my gear and made myself wait as long as I possibly could (about 15 minutes…) before slipping down to check out the scene.
I came upon where he’d been standing at the shot and found a ball of hair and blood splattered everywhere, with an obvious blood trail leading across a branch, around a slight bend and… to the deer laying dead 22 yards away. Well that was easy. He’s no match for the brutes on some of the walls around here (He’s hardly big enough to make rattlin’ antlers with,) but he’s meat in the freezer and a break to my no-buck curse.
The 260 gr. Remington Premiere AccuTip entered right in front of the left shoulder (he was quartering to me a bit) destroyed the lungs, and lodged in the off-side shoulder. I’ll dig out the bullet when we work up the meat and send out some more pics. Ended up being a good bodied buck with a little broken 8pt rack.
