After 4 or 5 years of hard hunting, I FINALLY scored my first deer yesterday. I took a friend up to the lease for the weekend that had never been hunting before with the goal of getting him a pig or a deer and just letting him see what hunting was all about. We got there about 1:00 on Friday and unloaded everything, took care of some stuff and then hit the blind about 3:00. I took the .22 with us so he could shoot some squirrels and we shot at 3 or 4 but at 70 yards and a 3x scope, they're little targets. They were all we saw on that hunt.
Sat more of the same. Feeder didn't go off in the morning for some reason so we messed with that and topped it and another one off and hunted it again that evening with not even a squirrel to watch.
Sun morning we hunted the stand we'd hunted Fri night and the feeder didn't feed. We'd just put 3 bags of corn in it 3 or 4 weeks previous but it had managed to make corn funnel with a hole in the middle so nothing was coming out. We topped it off and spread the remaining 1/2 bag around the feeder and headed back to camp. Napped a little and decided what the hey, we'll hunt that spot again from 2 until 4:30 or 5 and then head home. So we walk over to the stand, not being overly quiet, and turn the corner from the road onto the trail to the feeder and about 4 steps into it I see a doe standing underneath it. We're about 150 yards away at this point and I don't have anything to rest the rifle on. With my nerves and adrenaline pumping there's no way I can hold the shot steady so I tell my buddy to hang tight there and I'm going to try to stalk up on her close enough that I can make a shot. I'm not dressed for this at all since we'd planned on sitting in the box blind so in tennis shoes, blue jeans, a camo T-shirt and a blue denim hat (my buddy was even less appropriately dressed, btw, and didn't really want to shoot a deer or I'd have let him have her), I begin my stalk. Over the next 15 - 30 minutes I cover about 100 yards taking a few steps at a time and hiding in the brush along the trail when she looks up from eating and finally get close enough that I can steady my rifle enough to make a shot I felt comfortable with. At this point, she's standing behind some brush and to be honest I hadn't gotten a real good look at her body size. She's looking right at me as I look at her through the scope so it's now or never. I take a breath and squeeze off a shot right between the eyes and down she goes. Success!
I got up to her and realized I'd shot a yearling and was slightly disappointed in myself for about 1/2 a second but after speding the last 4 or 5 years trying to get a deer and either not seeing does when I could shoot them or not seeing bucks big enough to meet our lease requirements or just plain not seeing deer so after all that, I'm happy starting with a young doe! Besides, the stalk was a real rush and I know she'll be nice and tender.
Venison, it's what's for dinner (finally) !
Sat more of the same. Feeder didn't go off in the morning for some reason so we messed with that and topped it and another one off and hunted it again that evening with not even a squirrel to watch.
Sun morning we hunted the stand we'd hunted Fri night and the feeder didn't feed. We'd just put 3 bags of corn in it 3 or 4 weeks previous but it had managed to make corn funnel with a hole in the middle so nothing was coming out. We topped it off and spread the remaining 1/2 bag around the feeder and headed back to camp. Napped a little and decided what the hey, we'll hunt that spot again from 2 until 4:30 or 5 and then head home. So we walk over to the stand, not being overly quiet, and turn the corner from the road onto the trail to the feeder and about 4 steps into it I see a doe standing underneath it. We're about 150 yards away at this point and I don't have anything to rest the rifle on. With my nerves and adrenaline pumping there's no way I can hold the shot steady so I tell my buddy to hang tight there and I'm going to try to stalk up on her close enough that I can make a shot. I'm not dressed for this at all since we'd planned on sitting in the box blind so in tennis shoes, blue jeans, a camo T-shirt and a blue denim hat (my buddy was even less appropriately dressed, btw, and didn't really want to shoot a deer or I'd have let him have her), I begin my stalk. Over the next 15 - 30 minutes I cover about 100 yards taking a few steps at a time and hiding in the brush along the trail when she looks up from eating and finally get close enough that I can steady my rifle enough to make a shot I felt comfortable with. At this point, she's standing behind some brush and to be honest I hadn't gotten a real good look at her body size. She's looking right at me as I look at her through the scope so it's now or never. I take a breath and squeeze off a shot right between the eyes and down she goes. Success!
I got up to her and realized I'd shot a yearling and was slightly disappointed in myself for about 1/2 a second but after speding the last 4 or 5 years trying to get a deer and either not seeing does when I could shoot them or not seeing bucks big enough to meet our lease requirements or just plain not seeing deer so after all that, I'm happy starting with a young doe! Besides, the stalk was a real rush and I know she'll be nice and tender.
Venison, it's what's for dinner (finally) !