I thought you might enjoy another deer photo.

I had hunted hard all day and was exhausted. When I drove over to my evening spot, the truck had had a flat tire, and while changing the flat, the truck fell off the jack (soft ground). That made for a lot of extra work and I was soaked with sweat by the time I made it to my ground blind on a soybean field.

So when this big boy stepped out 150 yards away at sundown, I almost did not shoot him. I just felt too tired to deal with dragging him up the hill. But he kept coming closer and closer. At 65 yards I couldn't stand it anymore.

Basically, this buck committed suicide.

Mark you sure that was sweat and not doe sent???

LOL
Innocent

Hmmm..... That bottle of doe in heat scent did say, "WARNING: You may be attacked!"

So maybe you're right. I must have fired in self defense!

I think you made the right decision. That has some length to it.

Where (roughly) in MO? I was born in St. Charles.

We hunt in Boone County, which is central MO.

Ahh...I've got family in Columbia.

Another nice buck! Congrats!

I think you made the right choice in shooting that . hes frickin huge, I wished we had blacktails that big in washington. Nice buck

Give us the details on both, what caliber expired them and what bullet weight?

Our shooting hardware is nothing fancy, although we do prefer real wood and blued steel.

I shoot an old Ruger model 77 with the tang safety. It is topped off with an equally old Weaver 3-9x scope. I shoot hand loaded .30-06 loads with Hornaday 165 grain spire point bullets.

Meghan is actually shooting my first high powered rifle, a Remington model 700 ADL chambered in .243. It's topped off with a Redfield 3-9x scope and I have shortened the stock a little bit to fit her. We reload Speer 105 grain bullets, which seem to do a better job of passing all the way through an animal than 100 grain bullets do.

Both guns have good leather slings. Plus we use quality binoculars.

But patience and persistance (and a little bit of luck) is what tags deer.

I'll go along with patience and persistence will bring them in, but shot placement (knowing where to put the shot and being able to do it) will use up that tag.

You are right about shot placement. Too many people shoot at the whole animal, rather than picking out a particular place to aim at.

One of the things we do for practice, is to use life size deer targets cut out of cardboard. We draw the crease for the front and hind quarters with a marker, and this can be seen through the scope. Then, with a pencil, we draw in the heart, lung, and spine area - this can not be seen through the scope.

We do much of our practice in a local pasture, and place these life size targets at 100, 200, 300, and sometimes 400 yards (this last distance is just to teach us our limitations).

Most of our shooting is done in the sitting position (both with and without shooting sticks) as this is how we usually hunt. But we also practice kneeling and shooting prone over a backpack. We rarely practice standing, as we are ambush hunters.

With a little bit of practice, most people can consistantly put their bullets in the vital area out to 300 yards. And that really is a long shot, especially for the mixed woods/open fields we hunt in.

Two interesting things we have learned is: 1)the bullet has quite a bit of drop between 300 and 400 yards; 2)the wind really effects the bullet past 300 yards.

Yep not to many people put the time in necessary to be half way proficient with their rifle before hunting season and then they wonder how could they miss a shot at a deer size target, or worse an animal is hit somewhere and gets away and either dies or is crippled, but suffers none the less.

Silhouette shooting makes ethical hunters. That need to do less tracking...

No matter how much you practice your hunting shots you cant replicate when a like the one pistolero shot comes walking in and your heart and adrenaline start pumping. You need a but rarley have the oportunity to take a moment and compose yourself. Bear your right that silhouette helps make us hunters a better shot, but it still takes a bit of luck when those crosshairs a jumping all over the place. Thats why alot lot of hunters do a lot of