Posted By: cameron00
Don't overlook the obvious... - 11/28/15 01:28 AM
Went out this a.m. hoping to see a monster I couldn't get a shot on a few weeks back. No such luck, but I did have 9 does, a forky, and a spike at my feeder/food plot area by the time the sun was high enough to see clearly with the overcast sky.
I waited about 45 minutes and then decided to go ahead and take a doe. I have 3 MLD tags and we have too many deer. Gotta use all 3 before January.
They were all bunched up so I got a good glimpse of size comparison. Followed 1 of 3 that were clearly grown does. There were a couple of fawns, so it was pretty easy to gauge.
Pulled the trigger with grandpa's 7mm mag I redid for my Nilgai hunt. Bought some Hornady soft tips for whitetail. Gun is perfectly on and likes this ammo.
Shot was about 165. I thought I heard the impact, but couldn't be sure. All of the deer out in front of me took off towards the tall grass another 200 or so yards back. Once deer make it there, it's very difficult to find them. I'm talking 4-5 feet high. Even the recently cut and bailed grass is back to about 2 feet now with the warm weather and rain we've had. None of the deer appeared to be injured and all made it to the tall grass where I quickly lost track of them, apart from seeing the occasional top of a head. Great. Another long search. That's not what I had in mind when I brought the 7mm mag for small whitetails, but alas...
I walk the entire food plot. Cannot find 1 drop of blood. Oh boy...did I actually miss? Shot felt great, wasn't nervous at all, was very smooth pulling trigger, didn't feel like I pulled it. Still, no blood.
Spend about half an hour searching the food plot for any trace of blood. Also walk the cut line where the deer disappeared into the tall grass. Nothing. Not a drop.
Extremely frustrated, I start considering the possibility that I may have missed. I start walking back towards stand through food plot, reliving the shot in my mind to figure out exactly where I think doe was standing. I find a teeny, tiny tuft of white hair. Drop to 1 knee and start looking at the dirt. Tiny glob of bright red blood and a chunk of bone right next to it. Roughly the size of a bb. About 2 feet due right, so very light blood coating a blade of grass where the foodplot ends and the johnson grass starts. This doesn't make any sense, that would mean that she ran straight towards the field, when all the deer I watched ran perpendicular straight back to the tall grass...
Or maybe she wasn't with them?
She's not even 10 yards off the food plot in the grass. Was dead before I even settled back in from the shot. I started my search for her convinced she had run with the pack and never even thought to look closer than I had figured.
Oh well, happy ending. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.
I waited about 45 minutes and then decided to go ahead and take a doe. I have 3 MLD tags and we have too many deer. Gotta use all 3 before January.
They were all bunched up so I got a good glimpse of size comparison. Followed 1 of 3 that were clearly grown does. There were a couple of fawns, so it was pretty easy to gauge.
Pulled the trigger with grandpa's 7mm mag I redid for my Nilgai hunt. Bought some Hornady soft tips for whitetail. Gun is perfectly on and likes this ammo.
Shot was about 165. I thought I heard the impact, but couldn't be sure. All of the deer out in front of me took off towards the tall grass another 200 or so yards back. Once deer make it there, it's very difficult to find them. I'm talking 4-5 feet high. Even the recently cut and bailed grass is back to about 2 feet now with the warm weather and rain we've had. None of the deer appeared to be injured and all made it to the tall grass where I quickly lost track of them, apart from seeing the occasional top of a head. Great. Another long search. That's not what I had in mind when I brought the 7mm mag for small whitetails, but alas...
I walk the entire food plot. Cannot find 1 drop of blood. Oh boy...did I actually miss? Shot felt great, wasn't nervous at all, was very smooth pulling trigger, didn't feel like I pulled it. Still, no blood.
Spend about half an hour searching the food plot for any trace of blood. Also walk the cut line where the deer disappeared into the tall grass. Nothing. Not a drop.
Extremely frustrated, I start considering the possibility that I may have missed. I start walking back towards stand through food plot, reliving the shot in my mind to figure out exactly where I think doe was standing. I find a teeny, tiny tuft of white hair. Drop to 1 knee and start looking at the dirt. Tiny glob of bright red blood and a chunk of bone right next to it. Roughly the size of a bb. About 2 feet due right, so very light blood coating a blade of grass where the foodplot ends and the johnson grass starts. This doesn't make any sense, that would mean that she ran straight towards the field, when all the deer I watched ran perpendicular straight back to the tall grass...
Or maybe she wasn't with them?
She's not even 10 yards off the food plot in the grass. Was dead before I even settled back in from the shot. I started my search for her convinced she had run with the pack and never even thought to look closer than I had figured.
Oh well, happy ending. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.
