Wednesday morning checked trail camera and for first time there was a buck in the morning and it was that morning. That afternoon found me in the stand ready to go at 4:05. Around 5:00 I caught movement to my left. There was a small crab claw buck sneaking through the brush, then flashes of brown from behind him. Shortly two does come out in front of me and started munching on corn I had thrown on the groung. A tall 6 point came in and pushed them away and I thought he would make a good start to my handgun hunting, but he turned an I saw he was not wide enough to be legal so I watched. The deer suddenly left and I looked around. There was a lot of movement to my left that I could see through the brush. It looked like a couple of bucks chasing a doe. The doe ran to the right and came out in front of me. I then saw horns walking toward me through the trees. He stopped, but I could not see him. After what seemed like an eternity he stepped out 10 yards from my stand. I already had the cross hair in place and hammer cocked in anticipation of his movement. At the shot he did not react like rutting bucks I had seen in the past. He kinda hopped took three steps and fell over. I could not believe what I had done, but was totally excited. I was using a SS Contender 14" 375 Winchester barrel and a 4X TC scope on top. Load was a RD 235 grain bullet propelled by 18 gr SR 4759 for 1300 fps. Needless to say no bullet was recovered. Can't wait for the next hunt.

Wow! Great buck! Nicely done!

Beautiful buck! Congrats :-)

So there is a width requirement on the rack where you hunt?
Here in Alaska we have that on moose in many places. 50" or better or 4 brow tines on one side or a spike here..

Nice buck!! Congratulations!!

Congratulations on your first; now you are hooked!

Beautiful buck.

Outstanding-way to hammer him. I bet it didn't take long for him to hit the ground. I have shot some with 375 bullets and they were "Dead right There". Good looking buck and a good way to start your hand gun hunting venture.
He looks like he might weight 200+.
Mike

Great deer! Congratulations!

Congrats on a great buck! Well done

Congrats! Nice one.

Nice buck, congrats!

nice job! good buck and story.

Nice deer. Glad it turned out well.

Congratulations 300tc! A fantastic start to your handgun hunting career!

super first. I'm still dreaming of that day myself.

Congratulations. Very nice first handgun kill.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. This was two years in the making. I had a similiar size 8 pt. in my sights last year behind my house,but did not shoot because my daughter wanted to hunt and I was going to let that be her buck. Vance, I live and hunt in north central Texas and lots of counties have antler restrictions. Only one buck can be over 13" and it sucks because I see lots of bucks that NEED to be culled, but are not legal..

375 Winnie is a deer killer.