The White Tailed Experience

As I mentioned in my last post, I had planned on going white tail hunting. I really didn't know what i would be using for a gun and at the last second, the right one fell into my lap. Being a purist, i thought i would give my first hunting experience a shot in the old cowboy way. The gun I was using was an octagon barreled Marlin model 94 in a 38-40 caliber. Built from 1903 it really was something straight out of an old movie. Since the caliber of ammunition is difficult to find, I only had 20 shells with which to down my deer.

I had been chasing a fairly good sized buck since Monday afternoon and had taken a few shots at him but missed. First thing in the morning a curious buck had walked almost right to me but i decided to pass as he was quite small. The bigger one I had been chasing was still fairly calm when i spotted him just out of reach and across a creek. I took one shot but just scared him and then I lost sight of him. i walked and walked hoping to flush him out of the bramble he was hiding in to try to get a better shot but with no luck. As the sun came out in full force I decided to give him some time to calm down and wait until the evening and hopefully get a better shot at him. The evening came and I couldn't find him this time. In fact I didn't see any bucks until the last 10 minutes of light when i spotted 2 bucks and 3 does.

Now at 100 yards, around 1/3 of the animal was covered by the sight bead so I knew I was aiming at the body of the animal but couldn't say exactly where it was going to go. I fired one miss shot and then the second shell went through the upper rib cage but was not a kill shot. Another miss and then I hit the front leg. The buck wasn't going anywhere now but continued to stand, humped up but would not go down. Another shot came across the top of the deer breaking the spine and finally he went down but was still alive when we got up to him so a final kill shot was required into the heart from close range.

Joe helped me with whole cleaning, cutting, skinning process and I am still not sure if I could get it all done on my own without an instruction sheet next time but I have a pretty good idea of what to do. While cleaning, we recovered some of the lead I had used and I dropped that off with the head to the taxidermy for a horn mount. I am not going to mount the whole head until I get a trophy size one but I am proud of the buck I got. Although not the hugest buck, a good three pointer, he has an unusual and unique antler arrangement which has an extra tine off of the one side.

The meat is at the butcher and I am excited to get it back and really try out my self providing/living off the land skills :)