Well my bro and my nephew and I went out hunting yesterday and had varied degrees of success. My nephew was able to take his first deer (Muley BTW) with my .243 ruger ultralight at 120 yards, no wind, level shot. Due to the haste in taking the shot he fired the first round off from a less than good rest and missed clean. I was spotting and saw no impact at all. The 3 does stayed put. Second shot was much better and was fired from a better position. The deer was shot on the left side (facing our left) and instantly turned 180 deg to beat feet. I saw the impact and when she turned I saw the leak in her chest. (gusher) I called it a good shot and told him not to fire again. She was down in 15 feet. When he opened her up the heart and lungs were well scrambled and he missed the spine but barely. Actually I think he shot a few inches below the spine but the damage went right up to it.
Congrats went all around and the field dressing began. In short he was a little uncomfortable with it and he kept making sounds like "eeeeuuuuwww" and quiet little blechs. But he got it done with a little help and now it is in the freezer.
I on the other hand was not so lucky. I was climbing a switchback on the atv and as I leveled off I had the chance to look back at a draw we had passed 15 minutes prior on the way in and 2 minutes prior on the way out. I saw a darker colored deer (it seemed) heading straight up the draw so I whipped out the handy dandy Vivitar 12x50 binocs and looked for antlers. I couldn't tell for sure. My brother came up behind me and got on the deer with his little whimpy 8x something binoculars. I think they are more for like watching the opera or mud wrestling match. But anyway... He and I saw it dissappear into a clump of leafless but twiggy bushes. We did not see it leave.
What a great time for a sighter shot!!! I set up the .308 and ranged it at 450. There was a rock surface very close to the bushes that is what I actually ranged. I cranked the knobs and let one fly at the rock. I didn't see an impact due to the recoil and my brother reported not seeing one either but was also looking for the deer to come bounding out of the shrubbery. No deer came out. After waiting for a short while we began to study the area above the magical bush. It seem that our woodland friend found a secret passage that took him from the bush up and around the corner of the hill. If the deer were to reappear it would have been well out of my range.
I believe it was a buck because it let us drive two atvs through the area it came from before moving to higher ground, it was alone whereas all the does we saw were at least in pairs and as many as 8 and we were over 400 yards away and it climbed nonstop until we lost sight of him in the bush.
But we came home with a deer and got over 18 miles of atv riding in and simply had a great time.
Cheers, nephew Billy.
Congrats went all around and the field dressing began. In short he was a little uncomfortable with it and he kept making sounds like "eeeeuuuuwww" and quiet little blechs. But he got it done with a little help and now it is in the freezer.
I on the other hand was not so lucky. I was climbing a switchback on the atv and as I leveled off I had the chance to look back at a draw we had passed 15 minutes prior on the way in and 2 minutes prior on the way out. I saw a darker colored deer (it seemed) heading straight up the draw so I whipped out the handy dandy Vivitar 12x50 binocs and looked for antlers. I couldn't tell for sure. My brother came up behind me and got on the deer with his little whimpy 8x something binoculars. I think they are more for like watching the opera or mud wrestling match. But anyway... He and I saw it dissappear into a clump of leafless but twiggy bushes. We did not see it leave.
What a great time for a sighter shot!!! I set up the .308 and ranged it at 450. There was a rock surface very close to the bushes that is what I actually ranged. I cranked the knobs and let one fly at the rock. I didn't see an impact due to the recoil and my brother reported not seeing one either but was also looking for the deer to come bounding out of the shrubbery. No deer came out. After waiting for a short while we began to study the area above the magical bush. It seem that our woodland friend found a secret passage that took him from the bush up and around the corner of the hill. If the deer were to reappear it would have been well out of my range.
I believe it was a buck because it let us drive two atvs through the area it came from before moving to higher ground, it was alone whereas all the does we saw were at least in pairs and as many as 8 and we were over 400 yards away and it climbed nonstop until we lost sight of him in the bush.
But we came home with a deer and got over 18 miles of atv riding in and simply had a great time.
Cheers, nephew Billy.
