This year I have a bunch of meat in the freezer from a moose so I was wondering if I should even get out and hunt. The consensus on that topic seemed to be get out there and give the meat away if I got one. Well, getting one isn't much of an if out here so I decided to challenge it up a bit. I dusted off the old 1860 Army .44 and did some target shooting. Five inches high at 5 to fifteen yards with a .451 ball. Yeah, I know, they are designed for a .454 but i had a box of the smaller ones that someone gave me years ago so figured I'd see how they shot. Completely acceptable accuracy, in my book. I figured I would keep the range to ten yards or less due to the low amount of energy produced by this round.
My other challenge was going to be to get a deer with my 9 year old in tow. Challenging because of the extra person and close range as I was not using a blind, and because he has a hard time sitting for more than about an hour and a half.
Opening morning, we sat 5 to 7 yards off the trail where I shot two with a bow from a treestand last year (both 7 yard shots). We were a few minutes later than I had hoped getting in there and bumped a deer on the way in. We saw no deer until we walked through the neighbor's yard on the way home where we saw four does and four fawns. The one doe without a fawn was not in range. the next morning we saw nothing after sitting in the downpour for about two hours.
Sunday evening we moved to a different location, tried rattling a little and got winded by a deer ten yards behind us over a berm that we never saw. Just before dark we saw two deer about 90 yards out that looked to be bucks by their size, but I forgot my binos.
Monday evening we moved nearer to where the two bucks were seen. As we approached the spot, we could see a buck eating an apple I threw out earlier in the day. We circled to try to get close but he blew out when we were about twenty yards away. We saw no other deer that evening.
Tuesday evening, we got there a little bit earlier, put our apples out stomped on some to spread the scent and waited. It was really windy blowing into the trees behind us. I stood up to look over a little ridge we were next to and upon sitting down saw a deer looking at me from about 20 yards back in the trees, doe. She stared for a while, the boy fidgeted a bunch, but she could not see him from her position. She finally turned as if to walk away and I saw she had a fawn with her. As I was trying to point her out through the trees, she turned and came back, watched us for a bit from about 15 yards and then walked directly across our scent trail to circle around us. About ten minutes later, they were just over the hill eating some of the apples I had put out at 7 yards. They eventually caught me taking some video of them and trotted away. Right at dark we saw another deer, probably a buck, across the way but spooked him off.
So, Wednesday evening my boy decided he did not want to go out. I told him that he knows that if he doesn't go I'll have one come by... he says yeah he knows and good luck. So, with only myself to contend with, I move to a different spot where I am much more in the open but where I have seen bucks come from across the road. I put my apples out at 10 yards down along the hill I was laying on, one at 4 yards in front of me on a stick, and I tossed one out, trying for ten yards but it rolled to about 13. About 20 minutes before the end of shooting time, I hear a deer walking where we had sat the first night but coming my way. I turned the camera on and sat there waiting. Eventually, a fork came walking by at 5 yards but was still covered by miscellaneous branches. Before he cleared them, he turned away slightly toward the 13 yard apple. At about 7 yards I aimed at the bottom of his chest (remember shoots 5 inches high) just behind his front leg and squeeze the trigger, BOOM, smoke everywhere. The deer runs, swing with him, squeeze, popBOOM, more smoke. It looked like his leg was broken as he ran but I could not see where he went into the trees. I looked at where he was standing but saw no sign of a hit. I went across the clearing to see if there was blood in the tall grass that he ran into, nothing. I called home and had my boy get ready to come help me look. We looked for about 30 minutes, finally my boy says "Dad, is this blood?" He's five steps behind me.
Sure enough, he spotted a tiny drop of blood on a leaf that I missed.
We looked for a while longer but saw nothing besides a doe and fawn that walked to within 15 yards of us and the flashlights. So we headed home to hopefully let him die out there if he was not already.
So, after a mostly sleepless night, and a lot of what ifs, I dropped my daughter at the dock for school and got in the woods at 8:30. No more blood to be seen by daylight so I just started hiking around looking, and looking, and looking. After about an hour I was about as far as I could go when I saw two fresh tracks of a running deer in the dirt. The deer here mostly run when near a road but have very little reason to do so otherwise so I followed the game trail, such that it was. It went into and around a big pile of trees that had been cut or pushed over but not removed. I heard a noise ahead and readied the shotgun hoping to see a limping deer, nope, just a doe at twenty yards. She eventually filtered off into the brush so I checked the area where she had been, nothing. I then went to circle back around the heavy area when lo and behold, I see the gray of a deer behind and under one of the downfalls. I lean down and yep it's him, but he's looking back at me. I ready the gun in case he decides to take off and slowly move in closer. He is obviously weak so I work in and pin him down and finish him off, I hate this part.
So, one hour of searching and 250 yards as the crow flies, I notch my tag. It turned out that I did shoot too far back with him still walking and I broke his left hip. So, a couple lessons learned, hunting with a pistol is a challenge, get a pistol that I can put more powder in, a single shot would be fine, wait for the deer to quit walking and be more broadside, and don't give up looking if you hit one.
Thanks for reading.
