I was in my double wide ladder stand early Saturday morning. Beautiful morning. The temperature was finally tolerable for a change. No wind blowing, just a beautiful day to be in the woods. Shortly after getting in my stand I spotted something Black crossing the trail. I still have no idea what it was. I did not see a tail, so it probably was not a skunk. Also moving a little fast for a skunk.
About 7:30 I start hearing a noise that I thought might be a deer. As it got louder I determined it was a small group of Geese flying just over tree top high. I started seeing Red Squirrels moving around my stand. I was not hearing much gun fire at all. For the second Saturday of the Missouri Firearms Deer Season that was not a good sign. I am starting to wonder why the deer are not moving. I was sure that plenty of hunters would be in the woods. When 8 AM rolled around I had not seen a deer. At least it is a great day to be in the woods.
This all changed around 8:04. I spotted a buck headed my way. I could see he had a fair rack on one side. He was looking my direction pretty hard. I was pretty sure that he had not spotted me, but he may have been just checking the stand out. He changed directions and started across the field at an angle to me. When he started walking I took this opportunity to move Thunder Beast to the Left side of the stand. As this would be an up hill shot I had a plastic 50 cal size ammo can on its side with a sand bag on top of it. I positioned the 7.62X54R Encore on the bag, and got the second bag under the grip. Knowing things would be happening quickly I got the hammer back. The above probably took 4 or 5 seconds. I was set up by the time he was clear of a tree blocking my shot. He stopped broadside at approximately 100 yards. I had Thunder Beast sighted in 1.9 inches high at 100 yards for a dead on hold at 200 yards. I settled the cross hairs on the 2-7 Burris Ballistic Plex just behind the shoulder and squeezed the trigger. At the shot he spun and headed out of the field. I was sure the shot was good, but I started second guessing myself that I may have not held low enough for a 100 yard shot. I got on the phone and called my brother and told him I would need his help to locate the deer and get him out of the woods. I headed to the house to get my Polarus Ranger. We gave him 30 minutes just incase the shot was not as good as I thought it should have been. I had lost sight of the deer before it got out of the field, but he was headed for a large Oak in the fence row. So I had a good reference where to look for a blood trail. We did not find any blood until we got to the fence. When he went over the fence he started leaving a good blood trail in the leaves. I spotted him about 40 feet over the fence down for the count. I had placed the shot exactly where I had aimed.

I am pretty sure that he was one of the twin 8 points that we had on camera. He had one antler broken off by the second week of season.

After the long drag back to camp. We ended up with a 50 foot drag to the fence. I then tied all 4 legs together and got my old John Deer. He is still on the bale spike in this picture.

This is the exit hole. From the inside both holes looked to be about quarter size. The bullet was a 125 Nosler BT.

A picture of Thunder Beast later in the afternoon in the tower stand. Just after taking this picture I spotted a doe about 130 yards out past the Oak Tree just in front of the trigger guard. I counted coup on her, and let her go. She then bedded down for about a 15 minute nap.
Thunder Beast is an Encore with a 15.75" MGM barrel in 7.62X53R. The 7.62X53R is a .308 Bore 7.62X54R. I have it running at 308 Encore Velocity.

Bob R