D4570
Well-known member
I have been fighting with my Insurance for almost a year. I have two spots in my lower back that are compressing my spinal cord. That said, it’s been a tough season; I just can't walk far or drag anything out. My cart was an answer, but the 4-wheeler is an even better option. We have a very accommodating ranch owner; he's about my age, so he knows… My son, the ranch owner's son, and my granddaughter- we’ll call her Anny. We went on the second weekend. Wind, Wind, and more wind. The GD did get a shot at a spick, but the wind put the bullet in the next county. So we were asked to come back and try it again. We hit the road at 4 am and got there a half hour before shooting time. The boy brought his wheeler, and I brought mine too. The rancher's son is a longtime great friend of my son; he offered to drive me and GDS around in his Raiser. Even better. We were just heading out of the yard, and we saw a whitetail buck in the pasture. It was about 350, but my driver had a better plan; the shooter would have to weave the bullet through two rows of aspen trees and between two wire fences. Then it was under 150 yards. We set up, and the GD said she could see a hole that was right on the deer's shoulder, but was not sure which deer it was.
We assured her it was the right deer and that it was a good shot. She was set up on our bogpog deer-grip tripod. The 7x57AI and a 140gr hammer somehow went through the tangle without any unwanted contact, and the deer was flat on the ground without a twitch. Ten minutes into her hunt.
We hunted for around 4 hours and nothing but does. Getting in and out multiple times and 4 hours bouncing around in the cab was about as much as I wanted. I was very happy seeing her take a nice buck; I was ready to call it. BUT there was one last place that we have taken many deer over the years and we thought we had better go try it. It’s a creek bottom that's fairly flat and overgrown with pines and aspens. The deer like to get in there and bed out of sight of the road. We could drive in on one of the ranch “roads,” if you can call it that. About halfway through, my driver saw what he thought was the glint of an antler. A little farther, we all saw it. We looked really hard with the optics, and there it was: a whitetail buck looking away from us. Now it was my turn with the tripods. I found it in my scope. I had to thread the needle through 100 yards of trees and brush; there was a deer lying down behind a downed tree trunk; the head and neck were the picture. I got the 358 win and a 320 gr hammer ready. I had the boy snap a branch. The deer snapped its head around and was looking right down my scope. I touched it off and nothing; the gun fired, and the bullet came out. It was the deer; it was gone. Dam instant death. I was a little higher than I anticipated, but being 100, I sighted it in 2” high at 100. Way plenty of gun for a whitetail, but dead was dead. OK, my season is mostly over.
