My first buck

[Westcliffe01]

http://keithandseija.com/pictures/Prizebuck1.jpg

This handsome fella came in this morning just before 8am with 3 of his brothers. I am very fortunate to get this buck on the first day of firearm season here in MI. I have had nothing on my 3 trail cameras for the last week, so I was amazed when they all showed up at the same time. Head shot at about 200 yards, a Remington Accutip 20ga sabot slug. The bullet was found intact under the skin on the back of the head. He went down so fast, I thought I had missed. No meat spoiled.

[jim_k]

That's a beautiful deer, and a great shot. Thanks for sharing. I still have not gotten to the deer woods this year, and I am faunching at the bit.
Jim

[nuance231]

Congrats... Nice deer.

[irondog54]

Great deer! Glad you had a good hunt!

[Westcliffe01]

I have to make a correction, I was out the following day and it turns out the range was actually 125 yards. That would explain (the part I left out) why I missed 3 previous shots (holding about 10" high for the drop to 200 yards). I am pretty pissed with my Nikon Monarch Rangefinder. The first day it was giving me ranges over 170 yards to that area, the day after just over 100 yards. The only difference was that on the second day we had a hard frost and everything was white and I ranged slightly later when it was brighter out. However, this rangefinder cost me more money than the first Nikon I had which mysteriously disappeared sometime in summer. Now I have no idea if I can rely on the thing.

[kevin_stevens]

So what, you missed the last shot by 10", or the gun groups that large? Either way doesn't really sound like you should be taking head shots at whatever that range was. Would ask you to reconsider shot selection for the sake of the animal.

KeS

[Westcliffe01]

No, the animal was incorrectly ranged and when adding the drop compensation for the extra 75 yards, the bullets were going over its back. The last shot, given all the previous misses, I knew something had to be way off, so held with no drop compensation, which worked out, given that it was 25 yards more than the zero. If I had been off again, it would in fact have been easier to miss on the final shot, and thats what it was, a final shot.

I had just sighted in the scope the previous day and shot a 1.25" group at 100 yards, but when your rangefinder tells you that a tree in front of the deer is at 170 yards, I held for 200. That was the mistake. The bucks mistake was not running off, but confronting me instead. The next day, with frost covering the vegetation, the same rangefinder now says it is at 125 yards.

This is my 5th deer but the first buck. The first doe I shot with my 220 was in fact at 170 yards. For some reason, most of the shots I get tend to be a little over 100 yards, same as last years muzzleloader season when I also took 2 does.

If I can't figure out how to get this rangefinder to work consistently, I will put out some fiberglass driveway markers at known ranges from my blind so that I don't go through this again.

[teebirdhyzer]

Nice Buck! Congratulations

[Westcliffe01]

It took 2 and a half people from just before noon to about 6pm as it was getting dark, to process all the meat after having it sit in a refrigerator for 3 days. Until today, the weather has been too warm in Southern MI for meat to hang in the barn, even though I had been ready to do it that way. Since shooting this buck I have not seen another deer. I just had 2 yearling does show up on my trailcam yesterday, so things are looking pretty grim. Last year, which many described as a poor season, I saw herds of over 20 does at a time crossing the 100 acre property. There was standing corn on 3 sides so that provided cover and possibly a source of food.

Perhaps things will settle down again once firearm season is over. I was out this morning at 5:30 until just after 10:00 and no shot was fired anywhere near the boundary I was closest to. This morning was the coldest morning since Nov 16, when we got down locally to 11F. It was about 26F but quite a wind chill (15mph). But that did not translate into the deer being pressured to come out to feed. With the absence of snow, they have plenty to eat in the thickets.