This year was another great hunt at the Reeder Handgun Hunter Challenge. Good weather and great fellowship made for an awesome hunt. This year I was hoping for a mature chocolate or white Fallow, mature Sika, or mature Blackbuck.

Day one I spent scouting (as I normally do) to see what might strike my interest. It was pretty warm and the deer weren?t up and moving very well. Seen a few Blackbuck, but not any that was mature enough for my liking. Seen several nice Sika bucks, but again, not any mature enough for my liking. This got me focused more on Fallow. I was really wanting a solid chocolate color phase or a solid white color phase. Although I seen several solid chocolate, non were mature enough to shoot. I only seen a few solid white fallow and they were all immature.

Day two the weather was much cooler and the fallow were up and about better. Seen several mature Fallow with great antlers, but still not in the color phases I was interested in (I?d killed a spotted fallow last year and wasn?t interested in another spotted).


Day three brought more cool weather and the fallow were showing a little rut activity. They were doing a little roaring and chasing that morning - things were looking promising. Seen a few new bucks that morning and all were shooters, but still not the color phase I was hoping for. Just when I?d about talked myself into shoot a really good light colored spotted, a chocolate/spotted showed up and had some nice head gear. Although not quite as big as the light spotted one, he was still a great looking deer and had a beautiful coat! Those appeared from behind me and with me trying to video the hunt, I just wasn?t able to get turned around for a shot. Lucky a couple hours later, that same group of bucks showed up again and I was able to make it happen, although the choice was very hard to make. I ended up deciding on the beautiful chocolate/spotted buck and was able to take the shot at 64 yards.



I was using a Talo edition Smith and Wesson 686 with 7? barrel. It was topped with a 2-6x Bushnell scope and shooting 158gr Speer Deep Curl. The buck stumbled and rolled about 20 yards down the mountain and was done.

Click here for video: Video.