In keeping with my new title as the "King of Spikes", I shot another small buck on opening day. Mostly to make my wife mad.
In reality, every year I pick one or two specific gun/load combos that I want to get an animal with. A couple years ago I wanted to use a Contender, last year was the little CZ 527 in 6.5 Grendel for deer and my 375 Ruger for elk, and this year I wanted to use either my Savage Striker in 338/375 Ruger or if I got really lucky I wanted to get one with an iron sighted revolver. I grew up meat hunting so I don't care about antlers. More importantly, I don't get a ton of time to hunt so I have a rule that the first legal animal I see is fair game.
While everyone else with a Vail permit is lined up to drive in on opening morning I'm taking a short walk behind one of the gated walk in areas where I've shot 4 other deer. Being lazy, I slept in until 7:30 and didn't even start up my truck until about 8:45. I drove the 2 miles to the gate and started walking in right at 9:05, the perfect time to hunt this particular spot. I have a pretty regular route that I walk in this area that starts with a trail at the end of a spur road in the middle of a clear cut. Then I just follow this trail as it loops through the area and ultimately makes a full circle. The whole loop takes about 2 hours to hunt and pretty much guarantees that you'll see a couple of animals. When I hunt an area like this I typically carry my longer range gun in my Eberlestock (this year it was the 338/375 Ruger Striker riding in the pack) and carry the revolver in one hand with my shooting sticks in the other hand. For a shot beyond 100 yards I usually have time to get the gun out of the pack and get a good rest off of my backpack which is something I practice all year long with different guns. With the revolver, I'm comfortable taking shots out to 75 yards off of the shooting sticks and about 40 yards off hand (I have a video of my last practice session with the 480 Ruger posted up in the guns and ammo section).
This trip out though I got lucky and kicked up this little spike about 50 yards off the old spur road in a small little bowl. I looked at him for a second before deciding to take the shot. He walked a couple more yards to right about 55 yards (I never actually ranged him) where he did the classic pause to look over his shoulder. I decided that I'll probably never get another easy shot like this and this would be the perfect opportunity to tag a deer with an iron sighted revolver. I guessed his range to be about 55 yards at a slight quartering away angle which meant that a 6 o'clock hold right be hind the shoulder and about 1/3 up from the brisket "should" drop the bullet right into his heart and miss both shoulder blades. At the shot he hunched up an jumped around the edge of the hill and out of sight. The way he hunched up and jumped had me worried that I pulled the shot and hit him a little too far back.
I walked over to where he was and found the dirt kicked up when he jumped after the impact, but didn't find any blood. I walked about 5 yards around the hill to set my pack down and take off my jacket before starting the search. The whole time I was second guessing my hit and wondering how I could poke a hole in a deer with a 275gr XPB from a 480 Ruger and not leave a drop of blood. I set my pack down, took of my jacket and put my vest back on then turned around and saw the buck 10 feet behind me! Not a single drop of blood on the ground!
I hit him on the right side with his right leg forward and it exited just in front of his left leg, just barely missing the bone. You can see the exit in this picture. I didn't clean the deer up at all for the picture; there was no blood at the exit.
His lungs were shredded to the point I didn't even bother taking a picture. I'm not shy about saying that I'm a pretty decent shot with my hunting guns when shot under hunting conditions but I was absolutely thrilled when I cut this little guy open and saw that I tore the top of his heart off with an iron sighted revolver at 55 yards off of shooting sticks. I normally like to shoot hard cast lead bullets in my hunting handguns but I switched to the 275gr Barnes XPB in the 480 about 2 years ago after some encouragement from my father-in-law; it did a great job!
Entrance
Exit. I took a pic of the external, exit but it came out pretty bad and isn't worth posting.
I will throw a big thanks to the gentleman who came down to help me drag my deer up to the spur road and then let me use the wheelbarrow in the back of his truck to roll him out. He saved my son from having to get up and come help me.
Not sure if he's a member on here but I wish him the best of luck for the rest of his season and I hope he gets the buck that he's chasing.
So once again, I find myself completely satisfied with my deer hunt this year. I take a fair bit of good humored harassment every time I shoot a little spike of fork horned buck, especially on opening day/weekend. For some people the hunt is about time in the field, the hours spent scouting or patterning a specific animal, time with their "hunting party" or family, or the quality of the trophy. For me personally, I hunt for my own selfish reasons. I work 60+ hours every week and value my time more than anything. Since my kids are at an age right now where they want to kind of do their own thing (13 and 15) they don't always have time or any desire to come out with me when I go hunting. I started hunting alone about 5 years ago and it's been the best decision I ever made. My success rates went up significantly and my satisfaction went up exponentially! I realized that I just wanted a couple hours to be left alone and be entirely selfish. I don't care if somebody doesn't like how I hunt, what I use, where I hunt, the shots I choose to take or the animals I choose to kill.
It's my time, my rules, my choice, my reasons.I hunt for the moment of the shot itself, but not in a way that I'm target shooting on live animals. I love shooting long range, well beyond 1500 yards and I'm confident that I could easily hit a deer at 1000 yards with a couple of my guns. This year I'm more proud of a 55 yard shot with an iron sighted revolver than I ever would be if I smacked a deer at 950 yards from a 14# rifle from the next ridge over. That said, next year I may decide to hunt with one of the bolt action pistols and set up at 750 yards and be just as excited with the results. Every year is different, every hunt is unique and my methods and motivations change every season. I practice for a specific scenario and then do what I can to make that scenario happen.
So after an incredibly long winded write up I'll sum it up with this:
I'm proud of my little spike. Of all the deer killed this year throughout the state, this one is the most important because it's mine and I'm happy with it.
