Opening Weekend of the 2013 Modern gun season

Deer Hunting season that is.

So Friday was a long and tiring day. Between running errands before work, a rough day at work, then having to work on the hand controls in DW's van after work (at 11:30 pm when I got home) I was just too tired, and decided I would sleep in Saturday Morning.

Saturday being opening day, and my Nephew was in from Virginia I planned to hunt the afternoon with him. We each set up in different spots and everything was quiet until about 1/2 hour before sunset. I heard him shoot...one shot, a pause, a second shot, a long pause, then a third shot. At the second shot I head for my truck and send a text asking if he got one. His reply was immediate "I think I hit him he jumped and ran". We met up in the center of the back 40 acre field. We looked and found tracks, then a doe trotted out in the field, at what turned out to be 150 yards. Brenton saw it first but said "look, there's another one...get it!"

Now I was carrying a woods rifle (large slow moving bullet, low power scope(4x), sighted in for 60 yards), my .44 Magnum single shot, and he was armed with a 30-30.








There was only about 15 minutes left to hunt (legal hours are 1/2 hour before sun rise to 1/2 hour after sunset). I took aim, missed. The doe trotted a little ways, then stopped. I reloaded, knelt down into a steadier shooting position and shot again. She was hit!! We lost sight of her over a small hill, but tried to track her with flashlights. No luck. It got too dark to see the trail and we had to give up. Thankfully it was a cold night (38 degrees F). So first thing this morning we were back out on the trail. Brenton made a great shot on a nice 6 point buck that we jumped, and we found my Doe. We had walked past her twice in the dark, she was 10 feet off the trail. The doe was cool and in the shade so I field dressed her and then we took up the trail of the buck. Sadly we were not able to recover his Buck. The blood trail crossed not only the family farm, but the farm next door, and we lost the trail at the railroad tracks a mile away.

Love your post Keith. Glad you got a deer. Too bad about the buck that you didn't get. It is always great to be able to put up venison for the winter. That .44 Mag is a great deer gun. My SIL uses that caliber. Great pictures too.

LOL for as vicious as the recoil from a .44 Mag is when in a hand gun, it is surprisingly mild when in even a light weight rifle. Yes it is good to have a store of venison for the winter. I will be trying for another one, some friends of ours are no longer allowed to hunt (legal issues) and are also poor as church mice. They have asked for any extra venison, rabbit, or squirrel from a couple of us local hunters.