csterner
11-27-2012, 01:47 PM
Well after passing several small bucks this year in PA and MD in bow season, I finally got a crack at a decent buck with a rifle. Got screwed up by another hunter and couldn't hunt where I wanted to first thing Saturday. I had no idea where else to go and just figured I'd go to another farm across the road and watch a creek bottom. To me, it looked like a decent spot, an escape route for deer from adjoining farms and thickets, and it certainly was. I saw 10 deer before 9AM when this guy came into view. This creek bottom has a cliff on one side that peters out to a ditch where there's a well used crossing. I was roughly 100 yards from that crossing, sitting in a fence row in some cedars. About 9AM I see this buck come flying down the hill by the cliff, headed to the crossing. He didn't make it.:D
I had the 7 mag already set on the bipod pointing that way. Flipped the safety off, found a hole to shoot through some treelimbs and waited just a few seconds before he appeared. As he came into view, the buck turned to duck into the cedars along the creek and the gun cracked. I wasn't sure I hit him as he just disappeared, but as I walked up toward where he last was, I saw movement. He was piled up, but still barely alive. Another in the neck and he was down for the count. I hit him on the run at 175 yards, high shoulder/spine shot, with a 162 Amax. I was pretty impressed at my shooting, as I don't normally shoot at running game, but the shot was perfect. Had I lung shot him, he most certainly would have made it into the creek and I'd have been swimming.
It was a nice 8 pt, a little over 17" wide. A really good deer for this area and my biggest rifle buck to date.
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/8457/20121124091651.jpg
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1835/20121124091701.jpg
I had the 7 mag already set on the bipod pointing that way. Flipped the safety off, found a hole to shoot through some treelimbs and waited just a few seconds before he appeared. As he came into view, the buck turned to duck into the cedars along the creek and the gun cracked. I wasn't sure I hit him as he just disappeared, but as I walked up toward where he last was, I saw movement. He was piled up, but still barely alive. Another in the neck and he was down for the count. I hit him on the run at 175 yards, high shoulder/spine shot, with a 162 Amax. I was pretty impressed at my shooting, as I don't normally shoot at running game, but the shot was perfect. Had I lung shot him, he most certainly would have made it into the creek and I'd have been swimming.
It was a nice 8 pt, a little over 17" wide. A really good deer for this area and my biggest rifle buck to date.
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/8457/20121124091651.jpg
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1835/20121124091701.jpg