Sunday, October 27, 2013

Ground Shrinkage

I went up to another favorite little honey hole to fill my deer tag. Because of all the whitetails getting killed off by EHD, I wasn't expecting to see a lot so I set out to only shoot one if it was really nice. I was actually quite surprised to see an absolute shit-ton of whities with some really good bucks so it was obvious that EHD hadn't hit this parcel yet so I lowered my sites a little and actually figured I'd go back to the, "shoot a good whitetail if given a shot and only shoot a mule deer buck if it's a wall-hanger," mode. Yeah, I know; this ain't no wall-hanger but it is a decent buck...you should have seen his brother.

I was creeping up on a coulee when a nice whitetail came busting out.
I brought up the gun and, "click!" It mis-fired again! (That's the second time this season that my new gun has fouled and I know I had the bolt closed all the way this time.)

I ejected the shell and put another round in but it was too late. I watched him run down the drainage along with a dozen or more whitetail does and a half a dozen mule deer and thought, "dammit, there goes that fricken buck."

He circled back into the coulee a few hundred yards down-hill so I started dropping down to get off the sky-line and make a sneak. Something caught my eye so I turned back up the drainage and a big 4x4 mulie bounded up the opposite slope. I pulled up the gun again and waited for him to stop. Eventually he did and I had to take a quick shot.

"Bang! Zing!" The bullet sailed over his head and I watched him bounce over the ridge and out of sight. Man his rack looked nice sky-lined and bounding away from me.

I looked back down into the coulee from where he came out of and saw this guy bounding up the ridge. I had been so focused on the first buck that when I saw him all I could think about was, "Good buck. Soon as he stops..."

"Bang!" But this time instead of the "zing" of a bullet missing it's mark the seemingly more familiar sound of the heavy "whack" of the bullet hitting a solid mass was what came back. He went about 20 yards before tipping over.

As I walked up to him I knew he wasn't as big as his counter-part but still a good buck. And because it's far from the rut, he should be pretty good eating. I'll let you know.

Keep 'em where they live...

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