I had a similar experience...

by Bri A, Sunday, April 16, 2017, 15:44 (2716 days ago) @ Hoot

Went out one bitter cold morning with 2' of snow on the ground and more coming down. Took my old 30-06 and the Mountain Revolver loaded them in the truck and headed out with my Dad and Uncle.

When we got to the parking spot and started gearing up, I discovered I had forgot to pick up ammo for the rifle. It was getting light and I had the revolver, which I had killed several squirrels with that fall, all with head shots. Unfortunately, all I had was light loads with 8 gr. Unique under 240 SWC BB casts, but that is what the squirrels fell to, so it was sighted in for them.

Hustled through the snow to a spot where I knew the deer crossed a river, but had never hunted before, and sat down in a little clump of saplings. Not 5 minutes later a very respectable buck, at least an 8 point, came down the ridge a stopped 10 yards in front of me.

It was still too dark to make out the black sights against his hide, so I lined up the sights against the snow in front of him, drifted the gun back over his shoulder and touched it off. At the shot there was a shower of snow out of at least one sapling that was hit between us.

The buck showed no reaction to the shot, casually turned around and sauntered partially back up the ridge, stopping behind a jack pine and looked back at me from about 40 yards.

I did not know whether he was hit or not, or maybe wounded, so decided there was little to lose by taking another shot. Did the same routine of lining up the sights in the snow in front of him, sliding back and touching it off. This time a lot of snow came down from the Jack Pine in front of his shoulder that I tried to miss.

This time he did not stick around and trotted off downstream toward another crossing. I waited a short time for things to get brighter, then got up to look for hair or blood before it got buried by the falling snow.

After going back and forth over his path for an hour and finding no evidence of a hit, I found where the second slug had hit dead center in the pine and did not exit. In between where he and I had been at the first shot, I found one sapling cut off and a graze mark on another. I had not seen either of them in the dim light just before taking the shot.

Later that day I saw him tied to the top of a car that belonged to some guys hunting the other side of the river, as they drove out at lunch time. I never heard any shots from that direction and have always wondered if....