My doe shooting plan didn’t work

The wife said we needed one more deer for the freezer, and it’s doe season. I went to the power line blind. Plenty of open ground and deer movement. Dawn broke and here came 3 doe, with big mama out front as the sentinel. She had no fawn, so she’s the one. Put the 120 gr Ballistic Tip behind the shoulder and she sprinted a ways, but then she didn’t drop like she was supposed to. That’s odd. Oh, well, have some coffee and then go find her. Walked over to where she had been standing and expected to see a big blood trail. Not a drop of blood. Well, I know the path she took and where she entered the woods, so I walked it. No blood at all. Hmmm, that’s really odd. No way I missed at 80 yards. Went in the woods and found one tiny drop of blood. Man, this ain’t right, but I marked it with TP and looked for more blood. Finally found one more tiny drop, and tp marked it. Fought though the briars and finally found on more drop. Now I have at least a direction of movement. Time passed, but I found a little more blood. She’s just not bleeding much, and I don’t understand why not. Anyway, more tiny drops and TP marking, and the direction is clear, and there she was. Finally. Blood everywhere. She’s covered in it. Back legs are covered. An hour of blood trailing, and it’s been decades since I had to work this hard. I used to brag that I could track a lizard across dry rocks, but my skills have diminished,

Turns out that the doe was not quite sideways to me when I shot, and the bullet exited a bit far back and maybe just nicked the lungs. Bullet placement, bullet placement, bullet placement. Anyway, I don’t know who taught me to use toilet paper for blood trailing, but i’m sure glad he did, or I doubt i’d have found this big old doe. I had to chain saw a path to get that old girl out to the powerline ROW.

The whole idea of using that blind was to avoid having to do much tracking. Well, that just worked out p___ poor. But the freezer will be full now.

Makes you feel young again, great job man

Nice job staying with her. I have witnessed 5 deer that didn't bleed a drop but were stone dead within 100 yds. On two of those the shooter swore he missed but decided to go look "just in case."

120 grain what, if I may ask...

Good job sticking with it, last year my FIL said he missed a goo buck and I trusted him but that evening I saw buzzards and found his deer. I wish I would have insisted that I put fresh eyes on it, he just mus judged where the deer was standing when he shot. There was plenty of blood, just not where he was looking. Thad was a bad day!

Sometimes, the bullet just don't go where your aiming. Congrats for finding her tho, brush sounds pretty thick. It's amazing how little blood gets on the ground sometimes.

Not sure how it makes someone feel young again, I was getting tired just listening to how far he went in the story...lol, but congrats on a nice recovery

Yep, I don’t feel any younger. If anything, I feel old and tired. Maybe that’s cause I am old and tired.

Anyway...Roll-Tide, it was a Nosler Ballistic Tip. I knew I placed it well (pretty well but not great, as it turned out), so she had to be dead somewhere. She was just up in the “tangle”, which I really dreaded. I had to cut a road and take my ATV in there. Too heavy to drag very far. The 20 year old me could drag her a mile, but the 70 year old me has limitations.

It was almost good bullet placement, but almost wasn’t good enough.

Having wine at present.

I think he meant what caliber.

260 Remington. R17 powder, loaded near max. Lapua brass and CCI BR2 primers.

Yep, sometimes it happens, the ole TP has gotten me outta more than one tight spot over the years...

Congrats on filling the freezer. Glad you found her

TP has been working for years. I hope I have this dog for a long time, his nose is much better than my eyes on a trail