What a day! My Father, three brothers, and I all started the last day of deer by putting on two drives at SGL.105. We saw quite a few other hunters, but the drives produced no deer. At noon we decided to give someplace else a try. One of my brothers left for home which then left us four people to work with. After arriving at our next hunting place my longest Brother, who just started hunting this year, and I set up watching a power-line. Then my Father and other Brother drove the hillside that was below the power line.

After waiting for a while my brother says “deer”–I looked across the power-line into the woods and sure enough there were deer. Before going out onto the power-line the deer stopped about 100 yards away. I put my scope on one of the deer and could see its head, kindof, thinking I better wait just in case I held off. It soon to a few steps and I confirmed that it was an anterless deer. For the first time this deer season my Remington 760 30-06 spoke. The deer ran down hill away from the other deer then made a u-turn and came back up and crossed the power-line. My brother said “Can I shoot?” Between shots I somehow managed a “yes.” To which he responded with one shot from his 30-30 at the deer. Then after crossing the power-line the deer ended up in open woods only 20 yards away! I could see it was hunched up like it was gut shot and it had one back leg dangling. Taking aim I carefully squeezed off a well aimed shot to finish it off…CLICK…wouldn’t you know it I already used my five shots. By the time I found another clip and got it pushed into my gun the deer was already gone.

Went I checked for a blood trail and found one wide and heavy. As I followed the trail my Brother suddenly piped up with “Wow, this is just like Deer Hunting Demo 2005!” That one stopped me for a couple of seconds. As we went along following the blood trail it remained just as heavy and my confidence in it increased. It just so happened that the trail was leading pretty much in the same direction as I had parked the van. Finally about 40 yards away from the van the deer jumped up from the brush dragging both hind legs. Quickly I snapped off two shots (one would have been more than enough) into its lungs ending the chase. Nice of the deer to shorten the drag to the van. My brother had one more thing to say, “That was fun!” Sounds like he wants to go hunting again next year.

This deer was a bit different skinning out and I think it will be a bit of a trouble when we butcher it for I counted that somewhere from four to six of my seven bullets hit the deer. It would have been nice if my first shot had been just a little better aimed so that it would have hit it in the heart/lungs area which would have given a quicker and more human kill.