Early afternoon I packed up everything and got changed into heavy camo clothes. After telling the dogs they are awesome, I headed out to Mike's. While driving, 7-8 deer ran through a field with one going right in front of the trucklette. I saw this as a good sign? Maybe not for hunting this year, but with the population low, seeing healthy does makes me glad the EHD outbreak wasn't worse.
Once at Mike's I got all my gear and hoofed it down to my 2-tree. In the daylight I was able to set up easily and get comfortable. Temperatures were a bit cool but with quite a bit of wind - at least the direction of the wind was almost perfect.
Not much was moving however - not even the squirrels. But I was really enjoying the time in the stand ... outdoors ... in my element. At one point I noticed a healthy-looking coyote behind me walking off to the west. Even with minimal shooting, no doubt it's had a fill of offal over the last few days.
I let my mind wander where it wanted to. I couldn't help but think how much more I like morning hunts than evening hunts. Not only does stand fatigue set in during the end of the hunt, but the world is an intensely noisy place - both literally and figuratively. Mornings are usually blessedly quiet. Somewhere not too far away someone was chain sawing with a vengeance. It was annoying, but at least far enough away that I could mostly tune it out. Much more annoying was a really, really loud dog barking all afternoon. No doubt the deer are used to it, and barking dogs living in rural areas are kind of a thing. But every time it started up again I grumbled. I was looking forward to the quiet of the following day's Thanksgiving morning hunt.
Shadows started to get long as the afternoon approached evening and I noticed movement ahead of me to my left. A small deer was very carefully working its way towards me on the ridge in front of me. I told myself that it could be a spike, although I knew it definitely wasn't. I carefully got my gun up and looked through the scope - doe confirmed. I put my gun down but kept it in my hands only to avoid more movement. I sat watching the doe.
I noticed more movement directly in front of me on the ridge. I'm not 100% sure where its path was from, but saw the hard antler of a buck; without looking closely I knew it was a shooter. I had only seconds to act so brought my gun up, the deer paused, I fired. I was a bit worried I missed as it quickly took 3 running steps, then 2 slow steps, and it dropped. I reloaded my .243 and watched for a few minutes.
I got out of my stand and walked the short distance to it. I may be am the luckiest person in the world with every deer over the last fours years a 10-point or better.
It was getting dark so I quickly packed out my stuff and returned with my knives and sled. Field-dressing was a messy issue since the Hornady SSTs have a tendency to turn the insides into deer soup - but they do work. The deer was much larger than the sled, so I had to wrap the antlers in my pull chord to lift his head when I pulled. But all things considered, it wasn't too bad getting the deer out. I paused for several minutes after crossing the creek at the bottom of the ridge. There was just enough water for a small, clear pool to exist. The moonlight reflected in the water creating visual poetry.
The drag is about a quarter-mile, but a difficult one - especially the last hill. Many deadfalls and evil honeysuckle make this much worse. I was drenched in sweat by the time I made it to my truck but was still able to slide the sled into the Maverick bed. Mike came out around this time, "Mike, you need to grow smaller deer." Mike graciously let me wash up my hands and I talked with him and his wife for a bit before heading home.
Right near home, four more does ran across the road in front of me. I slowed down to let them pass. Out the passenger window, they almost glowed in the moonlight. The next day is Thanksgiving and I have much to be thankful for.
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Post Mortem
SO suggested we hold off on our Thanksgiving feast to be able to take care of my deer. She is wonderful... And Thanksgiving day was a day of cutting, grinding and freezing followed by deer nachos for dinner. The turkey will wait.
My shot was a few inches farther back than I would have liked, but I can't argue with the buck only taking five steps.
I noticed two things while processing my deer. First, there was some kind of damage in the neck of the deer that wasn't from my bullet. I couldn't see much external damage, but a thin area in the lower neck might have been from something healing; I'm really not sure what was going on. I ended up cutting through the skin in this area so my back and forth on what to do with the deer is going towards a skull mount.
Second, I was able to recover the bullet on the offside right under the hide (48% weight retention). This is nearly perfect performance since it means that little bullet dumped every bit of energy inside the animal. Two holes may bleed more for tracking purposes, but I'll take five steps over tracking any day.
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