The Encore Scores !

But it wasn't pretty ! Not even close to how I prefer to harvest Deer.

It was Thanksgiving morning. My youngest daughter Nicole had come along with me this morning, you know some father / daughter time together which we don't get much of since she move away from home out on her own.

At any rate we sat on stand for the first couple hours of the morning without seeing anything so we then decided to head to a farm where I had been hearing people had seen a decent 4x4 Buck. We approached the Cedar Trees, and glassed a bit without seeing anything moving. I told Nicole lets slip around so we can see down the sides of the shelterbelts south of the Cedar Trees.

We inched past the first shelterbelt, no deer. The second shelterbelt, no deer. About 70 yards from the third shelterbelt was the Buck standing out on a hillside in a chisel plowed bean field. I managed to find a branch sticking off the side of a tree to use as a Rifle Rest, got set up and tried to range the Buck with my Bushnell Yardage Pro 1000. The Bushnell wouldn't read off of the buck for some reason.

I turned my Bushnell Elite 3200 3x9x40mm Firefly up to 9x, placed the crosshairs on the top of the bucks back and made a mental note of where the top of the bottom post was (on 9x at 450 yards the top of the bottom post is 25" from the intersection of the crosshairs). The top of the bottom post was about 6 - 8" below the bucks chest so figuring the bucks chest would be approximately 18", I put the top of the bottom post 1/3 the way up on the bucks chest since that is my point of impact at 450 yards with my Bushnell set on 9x.

When everything looked right I started applying pressure to the trigger. The Encore roared to life, the buck rear up on it's back legs and took off running for a shelterbelt with his near side front leg dangeling and flopping around, obviously broken.

The Buck ran about 40 yards and piled up. I quickly reloaded and watched as the buck tried to get up twice but finally came to rest. I told Nicole we'd go get the Blazer and drive down along the shelterbelt to load up the buck (which we did).

Now this is where things get a bit WESTERN so to speak. When we got to where the buck was supposed to be he was not there. We got out of the Blazer and started backtracking when Nicole spotted the Buck in the Shelterbelt running west. Before I could get a shot he disappeared.

Again we started walking towards the buck, but this time when he got up he headed straight north out across another bean field, then through another shelterbelt and across another bean field with a fat old man trying to keep up. The buck would run about 10 to 20 yards and fall. Every time the buck fell the only part of him I could see was his butt and I wasn't going to shoot him in the butt.

Just as the buck neared the third shelterbelt he fell. When the buck got up this time his other front leg was broken. The buck made it into the third shelterbelt, but that was it he couldn't go anymore and I was able to put a .45 ACP slup in his head to end this ordeal. I sat my Encore down and laid on the ground gasping for air. While gasping for air I made the realization that I don't get nearly enough excercise driving a vehicle around at work all day.

About this time Nicole caught up to me, laughing uncontrolablly. I asked what was so funny, and Nicole said it was me cussing the Deer all the way across two bean fields and through 3 shelterbelts. Nicole said I hollered at the deer "don't you $($&(#*$^% get up" every time it would fall. Buy this time we are both laughing, and finally I realized we had a deer to take care of. I said to Nicole this is going to be interesting to see where I hit this deer (I thought I had drilled it through the shoulder). To find out my bullet impacted 6" lower than anticipated and broke the on side knee, it was gone with just some skin holding the lower leg on. The bullet then hit the off side knee, but did not break it totally.

The last time the buck fell in the last bean field it must have broken the other knee, thus probably the only reason I got the buck.

As I stated at the on set all of this is not how I prefer to get my deer. I am not very pleased with myself on this deal, but I do have peace of mind in knowing the buck didn't get away wounded.

We promptly field dressed the buck and grabbed the camera, only to tind the rechargable batteries were dead. Yeah I know, I am the worst person in the world for not being prepaired when it comes to photos.

After the buck was field dressed and loaded I made my way back to where the buck was standing when I shot. I was able to laser the tree I used for a rifle rest and the distance was 475 yards.

I ended up giving this deer to my brother in law and sister and they took it to a processing plant in hopes it is processed before they leave for Arizona next month.

Larry