First day of gun season yesterday. After 2 months of being skunked with the bow, I get to ‘see it, kill it’ setup. Went to the stand for a two hour sit during which the rain and wind brought me back to my BUDS days, so I just grinned into it,
Once the rain let up, I went ‘stalk-about’ following the wind pattern. Then I saw a 3 pointer meandering my way, close. I froze, raising my long-range, accurate .308 to my shoulder, aimed and clicked off the safety. Little pointy heard it and raised his head, but went back to grazing. I sighted in the front left shoulder, he moved, I pulled. From 10 yards….
He bounded away scared, and I watched. Then went looking for the blood trail, but nothing. And I mean nothing. After tracking in concentric circles I saw a few of his tracks in the leaves, but NO blood. WTF?
After 40 mins I went back to the scene, got way down on my hands and finally saw 6 white hairs on the leaves. I found a few more hairs along a 30m trail that confirmed a hit but nothing else. I follow the line of direction and finally saw a tuft of white 100 yards down the hill, wedged into a big pile of trees. I hadn’t missed after all.
I just barely missed the front shoulder and with a front quartering shot, had hit one lung but destroyed the guts. Lesson here, front quarter shots are a bit particular. I spent the rest of the morning hauling his weight up the hill and through downed trees before I could get him on a cart. Workout done for the day.
Anyway, thought you might enjoy the story. Happy hunting!