Posted By: redchevy
Wife's first real buck - 11/28/16 02:52 PM
When we started dating I started taking my now wife hunting with me, tried to get her a doe for the first few years. Two years ago she shot her first buck, a 2 year old no brow 6pt, and this year we got her first real buck. Were just hunting off and on with no deer specifically in mind. Got down to the place Thursday night late and looked at the camera pictures. For the past week or so a mature looking ten point had been showing at our tower stand so we set of the next morning to get him. It was cool with thick fog we could barely see the top of the feeder poking through the fog. Around 7 am I could make out 2 does feeding at the protein feeder and shortly after the buck we were looking for appeared out of the fog in the feed pen. I got the window open and gun ready for her and she started lining up on him. The fog was blowing in/out with every eb of the breeze and she was pretty nervous about shooting through the cattle panel feed pen. I told her to forget about the panel in the big scheme of things it was a tiny chance she would hit it... which I would later come to eat those words. She finally settled in and right before she shot I decided to reposition. The shot caught me totally off guard, I didn't see the hit, all I saw was him spin around. The brush is close so I couldn't see much, but the deer acted weird to me, he didn't sprint out of there, but he didn't look hurt, maybe more confused than anything.
I convinced her to wait 10 minutes as she wanted to climb down right away. We waited our 10 minutes and I figured it was ok to at least go look at point of impact. I climbed in the pen and right away saw where he had kicked at the shot, but couldn't find any hair or blood at all. I was starting to get that sick feeling when my wife said look you said I wouldn't hit it! to see this.
At this point I was secretly thinking damn you dumb arse we should have waited, and at the same time thank got she hit the panel and it was a clean miss. Even thought at that point I had written it off as a miss due to the panel I wanted to at least check around and make double sure in the direction the deer ran off. I went to that side of the feed pen and there were 3 trails into the grass (which is about 3-4 feet tall). I walked out the trail to the west about 20 yards from the feeder and then started a circular walk around the feeder, when I got to the trail in the center I looked away from the feeder and saw a straight line in the grass that looked like someone had drug something, took a few more steps towards it and a small white patch appeared over the tips of the grass, it was his belly and hind leg. I called for the wife who was now crying and pointed it out to her. Even knowing the course he took I still never found any blood at all on the ground/grass.
Deer weight 165 lbs, originally thought he was 4 YO, when I found him my thoughts drifted to 3 YO, and after I pulled the jaw I was thinking more 5-6 as he has more wear than any buck we have ever shot. I haven't scored him yet but will when the euro is done. When I was gutting the deer there was a perfect whole through the heart. The big chunk of the bullet was stuck under the skin on the off side but there was blood on both sides. Mabey any bullet would have done it, but I have a lot of faith in the 150 grain nosler partition and even after a strand of cattle panel it few true enough and strong enough to get the job done! She was shooting my 270 win.
Here is our little boy helping skin the head of Mommy's deer
I convinced her to wait 10 minutes as she wanted to climb down right away. We waited our 10 minutes and I figured it was ok to at least go look at point of impact. I climbed in the pen and right away saw where he had kicked at the shot, but couldn't find any hair or blood at all. I was starting to get that sick feeling when my wife said look you said I wouldn't hit it! to see this.
At this point I was secretly thinking damn you dumb arse we should have waited, and at the same time thank got she hit the panel and it was a clean miss. Even thought at that point I had written it off as a miss due to the panel I wanted to at least check around and make double sure in the direction the deer ran off. I went to that side of the feed pen and there were 3 trails into the grass (which is about 3-4 feet tall). I walked out the trail to the west about 20 yards from the feeder and then started a circular walk around the feeder, when I got to the trail in the center I looked away from the feeder and saw a straight line in the grass that looked like someone had drug something, took a few more steps towards it and a small white patch appeared over the tips of the grass, it was his belly and hind leg. I called for the wife who was now crying and pointed it out to her. Even knowing the course he took I still never found any blood at all on the ground/grass.
Deer weight 165 lbs, originally thought he was 4 YO, when I found him my thoughts drifted to 3 YO, and after I pulled the jaw I was thinking more 5-6 as he has more wear than any buck we have ever shot. I haven't scored him yet but will when the euro is done. When I was gutting the deer there was a perfect whole through the heart. The big chunk of the bullet was stuck under the skin on the off side but there was blood on both sides. Mabey any bullet would have done it, but I have a lot of faith in the 150 grain nosler partition and even after a strand of cattle panel it few true enough and strong enough to get the job done! She was shooting my 270 win.
Here is our little boy helping skin the head of Mommy's deer
