RobG
Well-known member
Maybe other people have a story to tell. Here's mine from yesterday.
Katie got her first deer yesterday. I didn't want to have her shoot something 15 minutes into her first day so we got out late. Just as well as she didn't want to get up at 5am either.
We got to the BMA about noon and walked the highlands and spotted some forkhorns on the other side of the fence. We sat around waiting for them to cross the fence, but they never did. Bored, we put a sneak on a bedded down mule deer doe (legal in this area). We got within 30 yards but the sagebrush kept her from getting a clean shot before it busted us. That's ok, the only thing worse than getting an animal 15 minutes into the hunt is getting one on your first sneak. I also wanted her to get a buck anyway so she'd have the antlers to remember.
About 5pm we gave up on the mulies and went to a bluff overlooking a river bottom. The whitetails were moving around in front of us almost immediately - but all of them were too far. We had decided 100 yards was the longest we wanted to shoot, and it was to be broadside, high shoulder.
Finally we watched a pair of bucks make their way to within 50 yards of us. They were in the willows and Katie kept having the scope black out every time they would get to an opening. Remarkably she remained calm. They eventually popped out in a field 100 yards away. Again, Katie couldn't get the scope on the first moving animal before it was in the willows, but she calmly switched to the second animal. Boom! She hit high shoulder and grazed the spine - instantly dropping the buck. Whew!
Then comes the fun part: I had her put on the laxtex gloves so we could gut the deer. When done, she took the gloves off and put them back in my pack. It turns out that she was perfectly happy letting me gut the whole thing so there was no need to throw away clean gloves. Or help daddy drag it out. Maybe next time, she still has a B tag, and an Elk.
Anyone else have a story to tell?
Katie got her first deer yesterday. I didn't want to have her shoot something 15 minutes into her first day so we got out late. Just as well as she didn't want to get up at 5am either.
We got to the BMA about noon and walked the highlands and spotted some forkhorns on the other side of the fence. We sat around waiting for them to cross the fence, but they never did. Bored, we put a sneak on a bedded down mule deer doe (legal in this area). We got within 30 yards but the sagebrush kept her from getting a clean shot before it busted us. That's ok, the only thing worse than getting an animal 15 minutes into the hunt is getting one on your first sneak. I also wanted her to get a buck anyway so she'd have the antlers to remember.
About 5pm we gave up on the mulies and went to a bluff overlooking a river bottom. The whitetails were moving around in front of us almost immediately - but all of them were too far. We had decided 100 yards was the longest we wanted to shoot, and it was to be broadside, high shoulder.
Finally we watched a pair of bucks make their way to within 50 yards of us. They were in the willows and Katie kept having the scope black out every time they would get to an opening. Remarkably she remained calm. They eventually popped out in a field 100 yards away. Again, Katie couldn't get the scope on the first moving animal before it was in the willows, but she calmly switched to the second animal. Boom! She hit high shoulder and grazed the spine - instantly dropping the buck. Whew!
Then comes the fun part: I had her put on the laxtex gloves so we could gut the deer. When done, she took the gloves off and put them back in my pack. It turns out that she was perfectly happy letting me gut the whole thing so there was no need to throw away clean gloves. Or help daddy drag it out. Maybe next time, she still has a B tag, and an Elk.
Anyone else have a story to tell?
