James's big whitetail
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This is my best deer ever. A nice 6x7 Whitetail I shot in 1996. He grossed 150 B&C.
Fred and I started the day frustrated. We had hunted the previous day all day and seen a few does but no bucks. So, we slept in at the cabin, had a late breakfast, and decided to go drive around and look for a new area to hunt. About 7:30 am we hopped into the truck and, after about 20 minutes of driving, I spontaneously turned down a dirt road. After only traveling about 1/2 mile I thought the area looked pretty "deer-like" and dropped Fred off. I told him where I was going and suggested he hunt around for an hour and meet me further down the hill. I drove another few hundred yards down the mountain and parked, exiting as quietly as I could. I had only walked a hundred yards with my eyes and ears on sharp alert when I heard the unmistakable sound of a deer trotting. I looked up to see this monster running right toward me! Quickly I lined up to fire and noticed nothing but brown hair. The buck was only about 75 yards away and my scope was cranked up to 9 power! Without time to reset the scope I fired the first shot at the now 50 yard away buck.
MISS!
Now the deer knows I'm there and knows I'm pretty serious about adding him to my freezer so he kicks in the turbo and is dashing past me like a cheetah. Thinking I didn't lead him enough (I didn't have much time to think) I got back on him and aimed at his neck figuring that was enough lead. POW!
Quicly cycling another shell into my Browning A-bolt 7mm I looked up and lost sight of the deer. With a 5 foot slash pile between me and where the deer was running to I quickly scrambled on top of the debri and looked for the deer. He was no where to be found! I strained hard in all directions listening for his hoof-falls and looking for movement and the buck was just plain gone! Then my pea-brain kicked in again, this time with a better suggestion and I looked down at the foot of the mound I was standing on.
There he was, lying in a fetal position and slowly curling up into a tighter ball, a small pool of blood visiable under his neck.
My excitement got the best of me and I started whooping and holloring. Within a minute Fred was walking downhill on the same path the deer had come. As he approached he asked what all the shooting was for. He noticed the dead buck lying at my feet, a mere 40 yards from the truck and asked what alien ship had beemed that down in front of me. Apparently he'd never even seen or heard the sneaky old bruiser and had spooked the whity right to me. THANKS FRED!!
This picture is Fred pointing at the bullet hole in the brutes swollen neck. Lucky for me I didn't miss the second shot.
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