In the Fleeting hours

So, with an hour of sunlight left, on the last day of deer season, I sat, glaring at the squirrel that danced circles around my tree stand. I hadn't seen a single deer in 3 days of hunting, and was ready to admit defeat.   As any hunter can tell you, deer are stealthy creatures, they slink through the woods with only the occasional crinkle of a leaf to give away their position and they are a shade of brown that simply disappeaars into the colors of the autumn woods.  Squirrels on the other hand, are the woodland equivelant to an elephant walking through a field of bubble wrap.   So, when I heard a huff come from behind me, with only an hour of the season left, I kney that once again, the deer saw me before I saw it, and the squirrels have foiled me yet again.

So, I stood as slowly and silently as I could and turned, I was surpeised to see a small racked, but very large body buck with its back to me, huffing and stomping at another squirrel which was doing it's best impression of a 5 year old stomping on a pile of dry breakfast cereal.   I was sad to see the small rack, since in PA a buck needs to have atleast 3 points on one side to be considdered "legal" so I decided to get out my phone and take a picture instead....but as I zoomed in, I saw that this was not a little 4 point, but a 7 point, well fed to a good size, but poorly bred that it had such a small, yet legal, rack.

I figured "what the hell", it was too late to hope for another deer to walk by, and the yearling I harvested last weekend was hardly going to fill the freezer, so I took the shot.  Now, I have run several hundred rounds through this .357 revolver and had it's iron sights set prefectly out to 60 yards, so I lined up at 15 yards out and squeezed the trigger.....BOOM, the  leaves behind the buck exploded. and the deer hesitated, but surprisingly didn't seem too freaked out, but still ran out another 10 yards and slowed to a walk, so I shot again, Boom, more leaves behind him explode, and he deer runs out to 65 yards, turns broadside angled slightly away from me and looks back like it was really expecting more from me, and I must say I was expecting more from myself too, so I took a breath, fell back to the basics, reset my grip, counted my breathing and pulse, and gently squeezed the trigger.  Boom!!   The deer darted out of sight into the thick brush....now my brain is buzzing, and my ears were ringing, my first too shots couldn't have missed, I know the sights are dead on at 65 yards away, and I have been practicing for a shot much further away than that...so I ran the numbers in my mind,  cinsidering I was practicing on a flat range, and wasn't accounting for aiming at a downward angle, add in that a 158 grain .357 magnum bullet drops about 4-6 inches out to 50 yards from a 6" barrel, but the 200 grain ammo I was using has a higher penetration, but almost 1/3 slower average velocity, recalling my balistics chart would put this bullet drop at almost 12-16 inches out to the 65 yard mark....meaning my first too shots were aiming so high I would have been closer to actually hurting this deer had I simply shouted insults at it.  but I decided to wait 10 minutes and then check the area.  

My first stop was at my first shot, I felt the shot was good, but the track the bullet left was far too high, no sign of hair or blood, so I tracked the whole way to the second shot location, the bullet track was hidden by a bush but was easy enough to find, still no blood and no hair, so I stalked out to the last spot, I searched for about 5 minutes, the whole time texting my father that I had shot, but couldn't find any blood trail (the basic call for help in my family that results in an army of cousins and uncles showing up with flashlights to participate in the search).  My first thought was that I may have wounded it, a nightmare scenario since I have spent many nights crawling through woods looking for deer that were wounded by others.  I always swore I would not wound a deer, that I would practice until I could cleanly kill without any suffering. so, I began a basic search pattern, starting from the last known location and spiraling outward....now, had I been smart enough to just look up, the search would have been quick but I scowered every leaf and blade of grass, all of 10 feet, and almost tripped over the darn thing.  It was a clean kill, made it a meer 15 feet from the location of my last shot before he fell. one hit, at 65 yards.  In cleaning it I found that the bullet grazed both lungs, but all I found of the heart was small pieces scattered through the chest cavity.  At 65 yards, I managed to hit a target 3" across that was obscured by fur, skin and bone, with an iron sight revolver.  it was the shot I had been practicing for all year, and it only took 2 "warning shots" to get the deer in position for it.

Like I said...it was a small rack but the deer was aproximatly 200-210lbs field dressed. a big difference from my last harvest.

So, my first deer harvested with a revolver, while the rack was nothing that impressive, I have the horns for a basic mount, and will be having the hide tanned as a reminder of the hunt.

While I was processing I was a bit rushed since the butcher was closing in an hour, so I managed to take off a small chunk of my index finger and thumb while I was field dresing it....and spilled a significant ammount of blood in the back of our SUV, so here's hoping I don't end up on an episode of COPS tring to explain all of the blood stains on the interior and the apparent knife wounds on my hands....

I know the hat in the picture is goofy (not as goofy as my red beard), but I have worn that hat for hunting since I was 13.  and was a hand down from my father, who claims to have bought it back in the 70s (probably when they first started asking people wear orange for hunting.)

Auto out-