hartofthethumb
09-25-2011, 03:45 PM
Well, this weekend is youth firearm deer weekend here in MI. Last night my cousin was one one stand with his youngest son, while I was on the other with his older boy.
The stand that Devin and I sat in is located in the NE corner of a field with a fencerow across the North edge and a ditch down the East side. We are about 5 yards off the ditch in the fencerow.
We saw a ton of deer, without many opportunities, but about an hour before dark a 2.5 year old 8 gave us a shot at 89 yards. We are in a shotgun zone, but he has been shooting just fine out to 100yds so I told him he could go ahead and take the shot. I could see he was visibly shaken, but he did his best to control the nerves as he laid the gun across the shooting rail. He fired and I knew immediately the deer was hit.
The deer made his way through the ditch and up the other side, then very slowly worked through the ditch edge/cornfield on the other side. About a half hour later we were still watching him inch away behind us through the corn.
We waited until dark, then went to assess the situation, and lost blood where he crossed the fencerow on the other side of the ditch. We all talked about it and decided to wait until this morning since things were looking like a less than perfect shot.
This morning we sat on stand until about an hour after daylight, then we all met back at the bloodtrail to take up the search. Took a bit to get back on blood and even when we did it was spotty at best, but of course we kept looking. We were just about to the point of calling friends and walking the cornrows, ditch, etc, when we picked up a few more specs. 10 yards later we hit a spot where he had laid down. After that spot the trail was a red carpet for about 100 yards more then back into the ditch. In the bottom of the ditch the blood was good for about 10 yards then trickled out, but thankfully just a little farther, on the other side of some brush we saw feet in the air!
Turned out he had made a single lung/gut shot. The deer is not a 'trophy' size animal in many people's book, but sure is to Devin, and really any 2.5 year old a great deer for our area. It was a long night, worrying about finding it, and feeling bad for Devin, but what a great day today!
The stand that Devin and I sat in is located in the NE corner of a field with a fencerow across the North edge and a ditch down the East side. We are about 5 yards off the ditch in the fencerow.
We saw a ton of deer, without many opportunities, but about an hour before dark a 2.5 year old 8 gave us a shot at 89 yards. We are in a shotgun zone, but he has been shooting just fine out to 100yds so I told him he could go ahead and take the shot. I could see he was visibly shaken, but he did his best to control the nerves as he laid the gun across the shooting rail. He fired and I knew immediately the deer was hit.
The deer made his way through the ditch and up the other side, then very slowly worked through the ditch edge/cornfield on the other side. About a half hour later we were still watching him inch away behind us through the corn.
We waited until dark, then went to assess the situation, and lost blood where he crossed the fencerow on the other side of the ditch. We all talked about it and decided to wait until this morning since things were looking like a less than perfect shot.
This morning we sat on stand until about an hour after daylight, then we all met back at the bloodtrail to take up the search. Took a bit to get back on blood and even when we did it was spotty at best, but of course we kept looking. We were just about to the point of calling friends and walking the cornrows, ditch, etc, when we picked up a few more specs. 10 yards later we hit a spot where he had laid down. After that spot the trail was a red carpet for about 100 yards more then back into the ditch. In the bottom of the ditch the blood was good for about 10 yards then trickled out, but thankfully just a little farther, on the other side of some brush we saw feet in the air!
Turned out he had made a single lung/gut shot. The deer is not a 'trophy' size animal in many people's book, but sure is to Devin, and really any 2.5 year old a great deer for our area. It was a long night, worrying about finding it, and feeling bad for Devin, but what a great day today!