A little depressed about not seeing anything, we headed back to the cabin to warm up some chili and have a couple beers and talk about the days hunt and strategize for the morning.
Day 2 turned out to be much better. Within 30 minutes of being in my stand, I had a nice doe show up. She was slowly working her way across the corn field, eating as she went. I pulled my Benelli up on her and decided I needed a little more power on the scope, I dialed up the Leupold to 4x, adjusted the sling and put my crosshairs back on her. She was slightly quartering away and luck would have it that she found an ear of corn and she stopped for a morning snack. I squeezed of a shot and let the 300 grain Hornaday SST slug rip. After I shot, she slowly walked off, acting as if nothing ever happened. I was thinking to myself, the shot felt good, I took my time, controlled my breathing and felt like everything was done right. I gave her about 30 minutes, climbed down from my stand and walked north up the edge of the corn field. When I thought I had made my way far enough north, I cut into the field. A few steps in, I say my doe, piled up laying in the field. I checked the shot location and it was just about perfect. I then wanted to see how far she made it after I shot. I tracked the blood back to where I shot her and she went 15 feet! I hollered at my dad to bring the truck over to get her loaded up.
Here she is…
Once we got her loaded it, it was time to head back to the stand. After about and hour and 20 minutes, I hear a shot ring out and I knew it was someone in my hunting party and from the sound of things I figured it was my dad with his .44 mag! Shortly after the shot, he got on the radio and said there were two bucks headed up the draw towards my brother and I. About a minute later, I heard my brother shoot once. About 15 seconds later, I heard a second shot then my brother got on the radio and said he had two bucks down!
We gave the bucks some time to expire and then met up to talk about what happened. My dad started out by telling my brother and I that the smaller of the two bucks was 1st to appear. He thought to himself, a small buck is better than no buck or doe and he was out of deer meat so the little buck would fill the freezer nicely. Just about the time he was going to shoot, a larger buck showed up. He thought, well I’ll take the larger of the two! About that time, the little buck turned around and started sparing with the larger buck. This went on for 5 or so minutes. My brother could actually hear the fight going on and he thought my dad was rattling! During the fight, the larger buck was behind a large tree most of the time, eventually he did step out and my dad let him have it with his T/C G2 Contender my brother and I bought him for Christmas last year. Both bucks moved off slowly, the larger buck was hit well and the smaller buck didn’t know what to do so he stuck with the larger buck. They moved off to the north which gave my brother a shot. The first to come in to view was the smaller buck, he dropped him with a single shot. After the smaller buck was on the ground, the larger buck stepped into view so he dropped him with another well placed shot. Two bucks down in 15 seconds!
Here’s all three in the truck…
I have two permits left, my buck tag and another antlerless tag. I had both my Benelli and my S&W model 657 performance series with me this weekend. Next season I plan on hunting hard with the pistol only, I haven’t taken a deer yet with a pistol and would like dearly [no pun intended] to get a chance to harvest one with the pistol.