targetpanic
Well-known member
Saturday was one of those days where nothing was going right. Three of us spent the morning hunting around a few different areas with nothing but a far off gunshot heard. Nothing was moving, even the birds were quiet. Around 11:00 we moved to another town to meet up with some other guys. We hunted around there for a while with nothing to show for it. The 6 of us decided to get out of there and hunt 1 more piece of woods. Hopefully one of us would bump something into each other. I was taking a stand next to a small scrape on the edge of a hemlock swamp. I looked to my left and about 60yds out I saw a big wide white rack bobbing towards me. The buck stopped and turned to look back in the direction of one of the other guys. I crouched down, hoping to open up a few more lanes. I could only see his head and neck and was waiting for a better shot. He swung his head back in my direction and started loping my way. He kept getting closer and was actually at the point where he was TOO Close. He had trotted through a couple of openings but with only 1 shot I was hoping for something better. Finally at 15yds he saw me and locked up the brakes. I put the crosshairs between his front shoulder and base of his neck an pulled the trigger. He tore ass out of there and I lost sight of him but I thought I heard him crash on the other side of some thick stuff. I reloaded and started looking for hair and blood, but wasn't finding any (I only went 30 yds in the general direction he had headed at this point). I had my buddy head towards me in the direction the deer had ran off. He saw him laying dead about 40 yds in between us. We got all 6 of the guys over to the deer and had a great time with lots of smiles. We all thought he was heavier but the scale doesn't lie. He obviously lost some weight over the last couple of months. He has 10 beautiful points and was 22" wide. He weighed 160.8lbs. That ends my 2023 season with a BANG and a smile!!!
