AlphaTrilogy.com

7 December 2008

Iowa Deer 2008 - Day 2

Posted by Darrell under: Whitetail Deer .

Sunday, December 7, 2008

It was another bitterly cold day. When we started out at 7:00 am it was 17 degrees with 20 mph winds out of the south. I don’t know what the official wind chill was, but I’ll tell you it was COLD!

The day began with me shooting at and not getting a doe. I ranged it at 148 yards and thought I’d drop it with no problem. I was wrong. The time I spent sighting in my shotgun seemed to be all for nil. I had it set dead on at 150 yards, which made the Hornady 300 grain sabot slugs I’m shooting about 3 inches high at 100 yards and 6 inches low at 200. I followed this up with 2 beautiful misses in a row. I was shooting at a doe at what I thought was 200 yards. The problem is that I have difficulty with perspective when a deer is standing in a corn field.

I aimed at the top of her back and thought each of the shots would be on. I had, earlier, ranged a spot in the fence at 180 yards. I thought she was standing 20 yards beyond that. I was wrong. I found later that she was about 70 yards beyond the spot I had ranged, which put her at 250 yards. I found clumps of hair at 250 yards. My slug must have shaved it off her belly as there wasn’t a single spot of blood and she didn’t act hurt.

A couple misses in a row sure doesn’t do anything for your psyche. Especially when you have a police sniper along for the hunt. Anyway, I was beginning to doubt 1) my gun, and 2) my general hunting ability. Fortunately, the deer here in Iowa were again much CALMER than they were at this time last year. They are running, but not nearly as fast or far.

On the next hunt I was set up as a blocker. The  spot I set up on was about 70 yards away from where I set up and got my buck last year. I was down in a brushy bottom and the drivers were walking in from the east. They were starting about a mile away so I was prepared to be waiting a while.

After about 30 really cold minutes I heard some noise back to the west of me (directly behind me) and a huge bodied buck went shooting by me on the outside of the brush and he angled down into the brushy bottom I was watching. To be honest, I never saw his rack. I saw that he had one, but I couldn’t see how nice (or not so nice) it was. The thing I was focused on was the size of this deer’s body. It was huge. Looked like a horse with horns!

I picked a spot in the brush at about 60 yards in front of me and waited for him to step into my crosshairs. When he did, I squeezed the trigger. He hunched down and I knew that I hit him. You can just imagine my surprise when he turned and came running at me full speed. I didn’t even have time to put him in my scope. I just raised pointed and fired. He was so close that I actually had blood and tissue blow back on me from the shot. I’ve never shot a deer that close before. Especially one that looked like he was intent on killing me. Everyone was kind of shocked to see this buck laying dead within 5 feet of where I was sitting!

He turned out to be an eight point. His rack was in bad shape, with several of the points wore down or broken and one of the brow tines broken completely off. He probably weighs just shy of 200 lbs field dressed, so I’ll get lots of good venison from him. He was the only buck I saw on this hunt, but apparently there was another big one with a massive rack that went some other direction than towards me.

 The next hunt was also eventful. We hunted the ranch timber and I was one of the drivers, along with Dana. I walked the south side of the timber while Dana worked the North side. Dana had deer in front of him for much of the drive. A buck and a doe went right towards Mike. Unfortunately, Mike’s rear sight had fallen off his gun and so he was in trouble. A different doe and a buck came back towards Dana and I and we heard Andy fire her (yes, Andy is a girl) muzzle loader. It was a 200 yard shot and she missed. She felt confident taking a 200 yard shot because she practices a lot and her husband is a sniper who routinely takes 1000 yard shots.

After lunch we headed over to the Danker farm. I was a blocker once again and found myself posted in the middle of brushy draw. After a few minutes a doe came into the doe on my right side and behind me. She came to within 15 feet and then took off like she was shot out of a cannon. Apparently, I was standing right in the spot where she wanted to go. Later, another doe came out of the draw about 100 yards to the west (behind) me and across a field. I couldn’t see it, but I heard it bust out of the brush and I ran to the top of the hill. I shot her at about 100 yards from behind. The shot I took is generally referred to as a Texas Heart Shot (which means right up the hiny hole) and she dropped. No meat was ruined and I had my second deer of the day.

Later in the afternoon Andy nailed a doe with her muzzle loader. She played it pretty cool, but we could all tell she was really excited. She made a perfect liver shot and the deer just dropped. It was a good conclusion to a productive day. Here are the tallies from our hunts today:

Kevin’s Place
3 Does, I did not recover one that was shot at 148 yards

Snapp West
1 Buck, (shooter)

Snapp Ditch
8 Doe, I missed one at 250 yards (shaved hair)

Granma’sTimber
2 Buck
9 Does
I got a horse like 8 pt with 60 yard and 1.5 yard shots

Ranch Timber
4 Does, 2 bucks

Danker
4 Does, I got a nice big doe that was on full run at 100 yards with texas heart shot

Snapp Ditch
9 does

Evans
2 Does, Andy took one with her muzzle loader

40 Total Deer. 5 Bucks. 3 DEAD DEER.

I meant to get pictures today, but never did (forgot to bring my camera). Hopefully, I’ll have some tomorrow, though. Iowa allows party hunting and so even once your tagged out, you can continue to hunt as long as someone in your party has unfilled tags (and doesn’t mind you filling them). So, it looks like I’ll be able to continue hunting.

I’ve jumped lots of pheasants, a dozen or more rabbits, and several coveys of quail. I might just switch over to hunting them tomorrow or Tuesday.

3 Comments so far...

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website