Tweet
After checking the weather report, I made some preliminary plans for the opening day of the Pa antlered deer season, got to bed early and, of course, couldn't sleep.
Twenty minutes before sunrise found me arriving later than I wanted, but I made good time to where I would be parking my butt until 1:00 PM. I promised to be back home early to help with Christmas cookies. The area I was hunting was very familiar to me as I hunt spring turkeys there and, in doing so, I have been honing in on the early morning doings of the local whitetails. I positioned myself between a known feeding and bedding area, found a large dead fall to sit on and settled in to wait for things to become a little brighter.
The ground where I was set up is always damp as it is on the edge of a swampy area that bisects a hardwood stand on the flat and a conifer laden hillside. I was positioned right near the lip of the hillside, but not close enough to see down over as I knew that hillside would be the final and not current location of the local whitetails. The main deer trail ran to my left, down over the hill and to my right, to the hardwoods and a field beyond that.
At around 7:30 AM I heard the deer before I could see him. He silently traversed the swampy area, but I could hear him pulling the grasses out of the ground and pawing the ground on the other side of a large hemlock that blocked my view of him. The hemlock, thankfully, blocked his view also and allowed me to turn toward him and get into a facsimile of a decent shooting position.
When he finally cleared the hemlock it was immediately apparent that he was a legal shooter. He was no wall hanger, but for my area he was nothing shameful with 4 points on one side and five on the other with a fifteen inch spread. He was angled dead on to me and had his head down grazing. The wind was in my favor and had been dead steady all morning, so that was of no concern. I looked for other deer, but unless they were hidden by the hemlock, there were none.
I laid the cross hairs at the neck/back juncture and told myself that, if I was shooting supersonics, this is where I would place one. Just drive it on through to the boiler room, but I was hunting with subsonics. I decided that I would wait for a better shot. He must have heard me thinking because he raised his head and looked right through me. He wasn't alerted, but he wasn't sure either, so I figured better to send a slug into the center chest of a stationary deer than having to shoot as he wheeled around. He was angled about ten degrees off plumb when I put the crosshairs on the juncture of his neck and his chest. My Ruger was at about his head height, so I lowered my aim slightly and angled for his heart and sent one. Forty yards later I heard the slap of the bullet as it impacted and watched him scrunch up and begin to run to his right. Five yards into his sprint I could see he was beginning to falter. Ten yards in he began to list forward on the run. Fifteen yards in I lost sight of him in the tall grass and at twenty yards I heard him crash to the ground.
The 220 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip RN passed through the neck and into the thoracic cavity unmolested by bone exhibiting a nice, double caliber hole in the cavity wall. From there it passed through the leading lobe of the left lung and entered the top of the heart exiting the heart about mid-line with the same double caliber hole. It then passed through the diaphragm and entered the stomach. The entry wound into the thoracic cavity was indicative of good expansion as was the entry and exit wounds to the heart. There was no exit wound in the stomach. I actually considered digging through about a gallon of digesting grass to find the slug, but the thought of that was just a bit too daunting and, well, nasty.
Next comes doe season . . .
One well fed whitetail
nci2qa.jpg
Entrance wound:
fmj7vd.jpg
2vnor3r.jpg
sm7spe.jpg
Heart entrance wound:
nprx9f.jpg
Heart exit wound:
fej9mr.jpg
Twenty minutes before sunrise found me arriving later than I wanted, but I made good time to where I would be parking my butt until 1:00 PM. I promised to be back home early to help with Christmas cookies. The area I was hunting was very familiar to me as I hunt spring turkeys there and, in doing so, I have been honing in on the early morning doings of the local whitetails. I positioned myself between a known feeding and bedding area, found a large dead fall to sit on and settled in to wait for things to become a little brighter.
The ground where I was set up is always damp as it is on the edge of a swampy area that bisects a hardwood stand on the flat and a conifer laden hillside. I was positioned right near the lip of the hillside, but not close enough to see down over as I knew that hillside would be the final and not current location of the local whitetails. The main deer trail ran to my left, down over the hill and to my right, to the hardwoods and a field beyond that.
At around 7:30 AM I heard the deer before I could see him. He silently traversed the swampy area, but I could hear him pulling the grasses out of the ground and pawing the ground on the other side of a large hemlock that blocked my view of him. The hemlock, thankfully, blocked his view also and allowed me to turn toward him and get into a facsimile of a decent shooting position.
When he finally cleared the hemlock it was immediately apparent that he was a legal shooter. He was no wall hanger, but for my area he was nothing shameful with 4 points on one side and five on the other with a fifteen inch spread. He was angled dead on to me and had his head down grazing. The wind was in my favor and had been dead steady all morning, so that was of no concern. I looked for other deer, but unless they were hidden by the hemlock, there were none.
I laid the cross hairs at the neck/back juncture and told myself that, if I was shooting supersonics, this is where I would place one. Just drive it on through to the boiler room, but I was hunting with subsonics. I decided that I would wait for a better shot. He must have heard me thinking because he raised his head and looked right through me. He wasn't alerted, but he wasn't sure either, so I figured better to send a slug into the center chest of a stationary deer than having to shoot as he wheeled around. He was angled about ten degrees off plumb when I put the crosshairs on the juncture of his neck and his chest. My Ruger was at about his head height, so I lowered my aim slightly and angled for his heart and sent one. Forty yards later I heard the slap of the bullet as it impacted and watched him scrunch up and begin to run to his right. Five yards into his sprint I could see he was beginning to falter. Ten yards in he began to list forward on the run. Fifteen yards in I lost sight of him in the tall grass and at twenty yards I heard him crash to the ground.
The 220 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip RN passed through the neck and into the thoracic cavity unmolested by bone exhibiting a nice, double caliber hole in the cavity wall. From there it passed through the leading lobe of the left lung and entered the top of the heart exiting the heart about mid-line with the same double caliber hole. It then passed through the diaphragm and entered the stomach. The entry wound into the thoracic cavity was indicative of good expansion as was the entry and exit wounds to the heart. There was no exit wound in the stomach. I actually considered digging through about a gallon of digesting grass to find the slug, but the thought of that was just a bit too daunting and, well, nasty.
Next comes doe season . . .
One well fed whitetail
nci2qa.jpg
Entrance wound:
fmj7vd.jpg
2vnor3r.jpg
sm7spe.jpg
Heart entrance wound:
nprx9f.jpg
Heart exit wound:
fej9mr.jpg
Comment