Buck Down!
Very happy to get a two year old 8 pointer yesterday afternoon about 5 minutes before end of shooting light. I hadn't seen a deer from my stand sites for two days after a blizzard dumped 4" of snow on us. temps ranged from 0-20 degrees but the wind between 20-40mph made it brutal. This kind of weather make hunting a lesson in survival. the few deer I did see while scouting and in my travels were feeding in picked bean fields. That was my clue to figure out where I could hunt near beans. I hunt public hunting and those of you that do the same know the frustration of public hunting and the hunting pressure that it bring into your hunt planning.
I finally figured out a place that looked like no other hunters had been there since the blizzard and about 1/2 mile in was a hayfield with ravines on both side and a privately owned bean field on the south end of it.
I picked a location in the fence line in front of some scrub brush and settled in on my three legged chair with a pair of shooting sticks.
The wind was WNW at 20 gusting to 30mph and I was facing straight north unprotected by any wind breaks. BRRR!
Of course the buck didn't come out till 5 minutes before the end of shooting light but that was enough to still see in the open setting of the hayfield edge. He was walking towards the beanfield on my tracks in the snow while i was getting ready for a shot. The classic "mat" sound stopped him facing me slight quartering. The shot broke clean and felt good but the fireball from the muzzle brake kept me from seeing the deer's reaction but I didn"t hear the meat report either.
The buck ran south to the field where he went out of sight. A short 100 yard walk found the buck laying about 10 yards into the field. Praise God! I had to walk back to the truck to get my phone that I forgot to call my son Brad to come and help.
He arrived and the fist bumps and congrats were plentiful. It's nice to have a young strong son who will still help Dad. we gutted him and with a little digging Brad found the jacket to the 200 grain fp bullet. We traced the rest of the bullet's path and could see it entered into the right ham but no exit hole out the hide.
While Quartering and boning him out so he wouldn't freeze solid over night, Brad traced down the lead core just inside the right ham under the membrane before it was going to leave the hide.
I weighed the bullet core and jacket after cleaning it up of all the goo and it shed 2 grains of weight from 200 to 198. I told Brad that it was hard to believe that it retained so much of the weight with core separation. we actually weighed it twice and then weighed a new bullet just to make sure. Yep 2 grains of bullet loss. Other than the core separation the bullet performed fantastic. held its weight and continued to penetrate deep and straight. This is the only bullet I have recovered so it is a one time evaluation of the bullet, however on the other 4 animals that I shot with it, all hogs, I have yet to recover a bullet. I guess I will have to keep killing with it to get more results.
Can someone transfer the photos to the post for Me?
