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2012 Deer season thread

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bkoenig:
Ok, let's hear your stories and see some pics!

I'll start.  Got a pretty big buck this weekend, his rack was decent sized but he had broken off several points from fighting.  Probably would have been a 5x5 if he had all of them.  You can't really see it from the pics but he also had a deformed ear that looked like it had been injured a long time ago in an encounter with another buck.  He was the heaviest deer I've ever shot - I would guess around 200lbs before field dressing.  I also got a little doe that allowed me to take the distinction of smallest deer away from my nephew, last year's reigning champion.  One of the guys I hunt with got a really nice non-typical 5x4.  He had really weird antlers that actually got thicker towards the end.  The rack on that one was a little wider than mine.

This was my first year hunting with a suppressor and it was really nice.  I was shooting down inside a ravine that really amplifies sound, so I appreciated not having to choose between wearing hearing protection and damaging my ears.  Both of my shots were close, less than 50 yards, but my 300 Blackout performed nicely regardless.  The heart and lungs on both deer were destroyed without excessive meat damage.  I wasn't totally sure about the terminal performance of a cast lead subsonic load, so I stuck to supersonic this year.  It's still pretty quiet but you get a crack from the bullet.

My daughter had been messing with my phone and it took me a while to figure out she had changed the camera settings, so the first pic looks weird.

bk09:
Got my first deer! EVER!



Saturday morning on public land near Columbus I was the magical day. I had been in the woods about 2 hours, and at about 8:45 this guy came into view. I was focused on the countless squirrels making a ruckus and heard something that sounded like it was trying to be stealthy. 15 yards away he came out from behind a pine tree and gave me a stare down for about 45 seconds before walking away to my right. As soon as he turned his back to me I swung my gun around and at the sound of my safety going off he turned broadside and at roughly 30 yards I pumped a 150gr .308 pill into him. As soon as I shot him I looked behind me and saw another deer, an even smaller sickly looking buck, staring at me and left shortly after I called my mom. He went about 30 yards where I saw him bedded down and was able to get within 5 yards before he took off again, (I would have given him some space but there was some guy who didn't speak english walking towards my deer and I was trying to shoo him away). After another 30-40 yards of tracking an impressive blood trail I found him bedded down again and waited a couple minutes for him to expire. Thought my shot was at the rear of the lung but it turns out it was right through the stomach, which made field dressing a whole lot of fun.

I then proceeded to hike my climber treestand and gun to the truck (just estimated it was .95 miles...) and get my knives to field dress it. Then after probably 30-45 minutes of field dressing I managed to not mess too much up, (started skinning the ribcage not thinking of it, and left a chunk of intestine in the pelvis). Then the REAL FUN began... Didn't have a deer cart or anything to assist in dragging. Got a couple hundred yards dragging by the hooves after stopping every 10 feet to get a new grip and catch my breath. Then I managed to find a stick small enough but sturdy enough to stick in between the tendons and bone in the hind legs to get a better hold while dragging. After 3 hours of dragging I made it back to the truck with the roughly 125lb field dressed deer.

As I'm writing this I'm waiting for some backstrap steaks to finish thawing so I can get to grilling!

Note to self: get a deer cart, get a bag to protect the deer from dirt/flies while getting it to the truck, and don't shoot the stomach.

bkoenig:
Good job!  If you gut shoot them make sure you wash them out really well.  It also helps to use a small hatchet to split the pelvic bone.  That makes it a lot easier to get the intestines and bunghole out.

It's funny how they can just sneak up on you out of nowhere.  I couldn't count all the times I've been looking one way for just a minute or two, and turn my head to see a deer just standing there a few yards away.

JimP:
Congrats, Brad!

We took 4, for four hunters.

The kids teamed up on a big bodied buck on Saturday morning, with Eldest knocking it down with a shot through both front legs just below the shoulder, but he got up and ran another 100 yards..... Jac got a shot (missed) and my nephew put him on the ground with a shot through the lower shoulders...... he was not quite expired and we usually have a .22 to shoot them in the head ...... Eldest used her 30/30 ..... and shattered his skull and broke the rack........  5 minutes later, my nephew took a shot at a fawn and did not grip the gun properly ..... scope hit him in the bridge of the nose and broke it.  Had to make a 35 mile trip to the hospital ...... he took his deer and went home to take some anti-biotics and painkillers. :(

I got a forkhorm buck Saturday evening ..... nothing unusual about him other than when I shot him through the top of the heart with a .270 at 35 yards, he reared up on his hind legs an turned 3 circles before falling over backwards ....weird, that.

On Sunday, Eldest did a textbook spot-and-stalk on a fawn in the middle of a stubble field .... used terrain masking and distraction to get within 125 yards and then put a bullet in it's chest when it stood up .... she did not think she hit it, as it took off running ..... went running about 100 yards or so and stopped ..... she shot it again ......and it ran again ....... and stopped again ..... and she shot it again.  3rd times the charm, and it laid down.  It had 3 holes in it ...... two apparently fatal shots through the chest, and on in the back leg above the hock......

The next day, we ran a 4x4 buck (2 1/2 y.o.) out of the same thicket ..... and Eldest was waiting when it ran over the hill right towards her.... 100 yard shot on a dead run broke both back legs just above the hocks .... and she ran it down and put him out......

The early mornings were brutally cold (12 degrees on Monday AM!!!).... the kids were troopers and hung with it pretty well.

I have two cut and wrapped, and the other two ready for tomorrow .....

JimP:

--- Quote ---It also helps to use a small hatchet to split the pelvic bone. 
--- End quote ---

We usually use a small hatchet to drive a knife throught the seam of the pelvic bone ..... but Eldest's knife (4-H project made from a file and a deer antler) was not up to the beating. ..... ended up chopping through w/ the hatchet ....messy.

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