Deer Hunt 2003

So I bagged another eight point buck this year. I think the deer is larger (see also: Fat Ass) than the buck I got last year, but the rack seems a bit smaller.

I got the fatty at about 4:15 on Saturday evening, opening day. I was sitting in the stand now renamed *using Dr. Evil’s Voice* Number Eight, because both of the eight pointers I’ve gotten have been out of that stand. I was facing the wind, scanning the ridge where I watched deer all morning in the 2 degree below zero weather, when I remembered my older bro would be milling around in the woods behind me, so I turned around to take a look. Sure enough, I saw a doe about 160 yards away. I watched her for a few minutes and then realized she had a buck following her. I slowly turned around and waited for a shot. I had my grandpa’s 30-06 rifle (not my usual gun) resting on the hand rail in the stand and had him scoped in. I pulled the trigger and heard a click, about 2 seconds later the gun went off. “What the?” Of course I missed. I checked the chamber to see if anything else was wrong with the gun and pulled up again, hoping it wouldn’t misfire again, and shot two more times. Knowing I had only one shot left, and all confidence in the scope was lost, I aimed in with the iron-sights — and dropped him. I measured it off at 137 paces across a swamp and through the brush. It was basically a luck shot.

A few minutes later my brother radioed in: “Did you get that doe that came though?”
To which I replied “Nope… … I got the eight pointer that was following him.” He he.

The next morning he got a doe that my dad pushed his way, and that’s all we got for the weekend. Not the slaughter it was last year, but there were definitely a lot of deer around.