These pictures are "next day" because the deed was done with 10minutes of shooting light left, and by the time we got him drug out of the woods for pictures, it was too late for anything but poor, flash photos. These are mo' betta.

'


140




Where the shooting took place.


Because of the brute taken last year, this fellow won't go on the wall, but he's a nice 9-point buck. Shot through the heart, actually, but he still ran about 75yd and jumped a fence. He collapsed on the other side of the fence, literally where he hit the ground. Opening day, but the shot was taken at about 1720 with the last legal time closing at 1730.

Details:
Range: Purt near right at 100yd
Rifle: Bergarra chambered in 6.5 Creedmore with some herkin' big Vector 'scope.
Ammo: Nosler Factory Ammo 140-grain Ballistic Tip

By the way... I brought a scale down from AK with me this year. This guy, hanging, with heart and lungs still in but otherwise gutted, weighed exactly 68kg/149.6lb. Live weight was very likely near 180lb.

Sorry for giving The Story short shrift, but I'll give "the rest of the story" when I get back to Alaska. Plus, there may be more dead critter pictures to come.

Paul

coool!

Good going guys !!  Nice to see big smiles .

I got lucky last Saturday morning and took my deer at 6:40 am  opening day.  It was 1 degree above zero at trigger time.  Fingers were too cold to take a picture of a dead deer so I got right on the dressing bit, got it drug out and loaded up in the trailer by 9 am.     Looking forward to seeing Recoil Junky this weekend as we head up to Craig looking for elk.  Supposed to be below zero again..........  ****.  Will keep you posted.

No more dead critter pictures. (Owen's buck was the only other kill on Rick's place this year so far.) And not much to tell really. Caitlin's buck showed up about 10 minutes before 'last legal light', and offered himself as a nice broadside shot. She promptly missed. :D She was very 'annoyed'. She expressed her annoyance with some sailor-talk she learned from God-knows-where. As she wrestled a little with chambering the second round, the buck 'pranced' off about 50 yd. He should have run into the woods. Her next shot caught him right above the heart. We watched his white flag disappear into the woods. Ugh. I really didn't want to be chasing a wounded deer through the woods in the dark. Looked like that was going to be the case though, so we climbed out of the blind and headed for where we had last seen him.

Both of us had seen his flag at the same location, so we headed for that spot. About 10 yards into the woods, we had to cross a fence, so I took Caitlin's rifle, helped her through, and then handed her her rifle and mine. The last place we had been able to see the flag was about 10 more yards into the woods. Caitlin was looking that way. I turned sideways to crawl through the fence, and... there was a dead deer. :D Apparently, the flag we had seen was a deer waiting in the woods for the buck she shot to come into the woods. No chasing wounded deer in the dark!

As I mentioned, in the woods and ending light meant only flash pictures, and on a cell phone, those aren't great. We drug him out to the edge of the woods, and wrestled and grunted and groaned and still couldn't get him into the back of the Honda 6-wheeler. (I think it's a 6-wheeler. Rick can correct me.) I didn't realize that the bed tilted. Even so, the bed of the Honda is very high off the ground so even tilting it we may not have been able to load him. We called Rick and in a few moments, he was on site with the other vehicle and with its lower bed and three people, we got the buck loaded. We headed for a remote, un-deer-occupied area, tied the buck to the bed, tilted it, and I gutted it. Shortly thereafter, we put it in the back of Rick's truck and headed for the Chronic Wasting Disease check-in station. That accomplished, since it was below freezing, we left it in the back of Rick's truck until the next morning when we took the pictures you saw in the first post, and then hung it in his barn.


That next day was Sunday, and the processor was closed. On Monday, after the morning hunt, I cut the buck's head off and we took the body to the processor. We took the head to a local fellow to be cleaned and bleached. It was back in my hands in 48 hours!


As for me, I (and Rick and John), ended up chasing one around, but we didn't find him, and I saw no other shootable bucks. Not really bothered by that. I mostly go down to MO to visit Rick and John, and the last year to hunt with my daughter. If I get one, good. If not, it's not bad. As I was leaving, John gave me a large chunk of roast that he had made into pastrami. Rick an I ate off of it the last night I was there. Great stuff. John shot a couple of does on his place when I was sitting in one of his stands, and I got the heart from each of them. I assume Rick and 'his boys' ate them the weekend Owen got his buck.

As always, it was a great time and I am very privileged to have such great friends! I'm heading back in late January to hunt squirrels and 'coons, and ice-fish for panfish. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention; while sitting in John's stand I saw a bobcat. Too far away for pictures, but very cool!


Paul

Nice buck! I like the Euro mounts. That's what I do with anything I want to hang up.

One day last year I counted 98 white tailed deer from the windows of my house. It's ridiculous.



My dog killed one earlier this year, she was as round as a barrel.