Well he isn't big, but should be mighty tasty.

At the last minute yesterday I decided to go to my old standby place in the Mud Lake Bottom south of the US Dam Road. We got into position at about 6:15AM, and started the long wait till legal shooting time at 6:53AM. Shooting time came and went and no deer. We started hearing a few shots around us off in the distance and then all of a sudden a Doe and this Buck appeared.



The doe didn't stick around long but the Buck stayed a little too long. He crossed an open spot on the meadow and stopped about 20 yards short of going into a Willow Thicket. That was his mistake as I had the 15" T/C Encore Handgun set on the BR Model Harris Bipod and ready so all I had to do was point it in the right direction and cock the hammer. When the crosshairs of the 3x12x Burris LER Handgun Scope (set at 6x) settled behind the bucks shoulder I touched the Trigger on the Encore.

The roar of the .284 Winchester Cartridge being fired out of a 15" Handgun Barrel echo'd through the lake bottom, the Buck bucked like a bucking bronco and took off at top speed. Well the Buck was dead when he took off, he just didn't know it. The bullet struck exactly where I wanted it to, behind the near side shoulder, took out the lungs and a rib on exit leaving a quarter size exit hole. The buck sprinted 50 - 70 yards and piled up stone dead.

As we were getting to the Blazer to go retrieve the Buck a Coyote emerged out on the meadow coming down the same trail the buck and doe had came down. However the Coyote was doing at least MACH II. I barked a half dozen times but Mr. Coyote wasn't slowing down for nothing. Nope never even tried a shot, couldn't keep him in the field of view of the Scope.

We made out way to where the buck disappeared behind the willow thicket and dragged the buck out of the cat tails from behind the willow thicket, took a quick photo and started the field dressing chores. Just as I was opening up the buck a volley of gun shots rang out about 1/4 mile north of us. I should have told the wife and my nephew to get ready, but didn't.

All of a sudden a large doe with a much larger buck emerged from the cat tails and crossed a corner of the meadow without anyone getting a shot off.

At 11 AM this morning we took a break and drove up to Dalton Minnesota and I purchased a used Stainless-Steel G2 T/C Contender Frame and a Stainless-Steel Super 14 .22 LR Match Contender Barrel. We then drove into Fergus Falls Minnesota, had a late breakfast at Perkins and came hom in time for the afternoon hunt.

We tried a different spot this afternoon west of Rosholt on my Brother in Law's land. We were perched in a rock pile on a hill overlooking a large cat tail slough. Below the rock pile between the hill and the cat tail slough was a combined wheat field about 150 yards across. We had a shooting lane of 150 yards north to south, and it stretched east to west 1/2 mile.

We had Deer all around us this afternoon from 4:30PM till the end of shooting time. There was a fork horn buck (I have seen this buck every night crossing the state highway for 2 weeks I think), and a buck with about 6" spikes, as well as some does and fawns. At about 5:15 (with 15 minutes of shooting time left) my nephew tried a shot with the Remington Model 700 BDL SS .30-06, and missed. In his defense this is only the second time my nephew has hunted Deer with anything but a shotgun with slugs, and I grossly misjudged the range, and the down hill angle. Yep Jon shot right over the Does back.

All in all had a really good opening day. Got to spend time in the field with my wife and my nephew. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Larry

nice buck larry. good job on choosin the handgun fer doin the deed....lol.

AWESOME!!! Congrats on the deer.

Grate Story. Nice shooting

Duane

Thanks guys. Yes it was good to finally be able to get out Hunting. My poor Yellow Lab has had a heck of a fall as her and I have only gotten out Pheasant Hunting a couple times so far. Maybe if we get this first leg of Deer Season out of the way Dakota and I can get in a little Pheasant Hunting.

But first we still have 3 more tags to fill, one of which is another Buck Tag.

Larry

Congratulations!

Thanks for sharing the story, Larry. I enjoyed it alot. It does sound like you had a good day. Good luck on filling those other 3 tags.

Looks like you have taken a real shining to the Encore pistol. Firearm season in Nebraska was a bust for me. I had no solid shot to take on a deer with my Contender pistol in 357 Maximum.

Oh well, I have 15 days in January 2008 to fill my doe tags. I hope to have my 30-30 Improved barrel rocking by then.

Actually this .284 Encore is not mine, but rather it belongs to a good friend of mine. I do all of this friends loading for him, work up his loads and any light gunsmithing I can do. He is laid up and on crutches so he never applied for a Deer License this year. I was giving him a bad time one day, telling him that another year was going to go buy and he would have shoot a Deer with the .284 Encore. His reply was "Why don't you use it this year as I am not going to be hunting". Well I jumped at the chance and accepted his offer.

Truth be known, no I do not like the Encore and much, much prefer the Contender (and G2 Contender). I recently purchased 2 Stainless-Steel G2 Contender Frames with a Super 14 Stainless-Steel .22 LR Match and Super 14 Stainless-Steel .223 Remington Barrels.

Larry

Larry,

What bullet did you use in that 284 and were you happy with it's performance?

Also... I missed how long the shot was.

$bob$

The bullet was a 140gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip leaving the muzzle at 2665 FPS. The range was 150ish. I don't remember if a rib was hit on entrance, but the lungs were destroyed, a rib was struck on exit and the exit hole was about the size of a quarter.

At the shot the buck bucked like he was goosed in the rear, and took off at top speed. However he only ran about 50 - 70 yards and piled up and was stone dead when I found him in the cattails in behind a patch of willows. Yep he was dead at the shot, just had to run out of blood to convince the rest of his body he was dead.

All in all yes the bullet and cartridge did what it was supposed to do. I am also sure it will work at much greater ranges than this buck was shot at. I am still hunting, but haven't run across anything else I have wanted to squeeze the trigger at so far.

Larry

Nice Shooting. It is nice to see other people taking pride in bullet selection and performance. It makes the success more meaningful.

Bravo Zulu

Larry, Great!!!JFJ