Hunt Day 15 - Saturday, 19 DEC

Welcome to Winter!  The thermometer read 18 degrees F at 6:30 am, but the windchill had us at 7.  Okay, that's cold.  We went out anyway.

I dropped Alex off at the bridge on Vice.  He was walking in to the creek to set up for the morning - out of the wind.

I went on top and parked on Marshall.  I took this picture of the sun coming up.

Sunrise, Saturday December 19, 2015.  Marshall's North Farm
If you look really close, you can see a star directly above the tree, 1/3rd of the way from the left.

I walked down the road and sat in the bottoms on Marshall.  I did not go more than 20 yards off the road and sat in the first row of trees on the W with a wind block to my back side (West).

At 8:00, I caught movement coming from the N.  A lone doe just meandering through the bottoms.  She'd sniff branches, chew some grass, saunter along, not paying attention to much.  I cocked my muzzle loader immediately - she was 120 yards out.  She kept coming, and at 40 yards I pulled up my gun.  She saw me move and stopped.  She pointed her body directly toward me.  No shot.  She turned, as if to go back North away from me.  At this point, she was quartering to me.  I put a 200 grain bullet in her chest.  All I saw was smoke.

I did hear her splash in the creek - so I had a general direction to track.  I texted Alex, letting him know I shot and was tracking.  I reloaded and walked E.  I went to where I thought she stood when I shot and found piles of blood in the next tree row.  It was easy tracking.  Dinner plate-sized piles of blood.  She crossed the creek onto the next property.  I did too.  And she expired in the middle of a small wheat field - approximately 80 yards from where I shot her.

A nice sized doe to add to the pot.
I know, you can't tell how large she is because there is no perspective in the photo.
Trust me - she weighed over 300 pounds by the time I got her in the truck.
She was at least 2 years old (not last year's or this year's deer).

I drug her out to the road and walked back for the truck.  Alex still wanted to hunt, so I went to town and bought some Mt. Dews.  We called it quits by 10 am and hung her in the barn.  The autopsy revealed that I had shot her almost center mass.  I clipped the heart, destroyed the lungs, and split the liver on the way out.  Thankfully I did not punch the guts!  Alex even field dressed it for me.  What a guy!

Davey was hunting on the West woods and when I sent him this photo on his phone at 8:10 - he said I did not have enough time to even get cold!  I think he was envious.  

Great day!


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