Well, our hunts didn't go quite as we hoped. We saw several deer, including one nice 8 point. He was leary of the free meal at the bottom of the draw and stayed in the brush. I saw him on top of the hill and think I know which one he was from pics.
We spent about 12 hours total in the blind over 3 days. Dad has had both knees replaced, so he gets stiff and uncomfortable after a few hours in a camp chair. Tuesday AM we only saw a small spike with a nub on one side and about 3" of bone on the other. We freshened up the corn and decided to go back last night.
We got to the blind about 2:30 yesterday and sat, and sat, and sat. The squirrels were happy to see the corn and came in up to 6 at a time picking up corn and running back up the hill to hide it away. Around 4:45 a young button buck came in and began to feed. Dad asked if I thought anything else might come in. I gave him my best answer. "You never can tell." I told him that I had pics of the deer above coming in at 5:20. It gets dark by 5:30 and the pics had just switched over to IR pics rather than color pics. The button buck fed for about 10 minutes before dad decided he would rather have a deer in the freezer than to have spent so much time with nothing to show for it. We had discussed repeatedly about taking a shot behind the shoulder, as the deer he shot about 3 years ago, he shot in the base of the neck. Old habits die hard. He took the shot and the deer jumped forward and ran about 4 yards towards and stopped perfectly broadside about 40 yards away. I told Dad "there's your shot, reload". He took the shot and the little buck spun around and headed down the ravine. I could tell by the way his tail was spinning in a staggered motion that he was hit. He dropped about 50 yards from where he was hit. Dad was using some 150 grain hollow points in his .30-.30 that I reloaded probably 15 years ago.
I drug the deer up the hill and back to the truck. Dad made some excuses about "I didn't know if anything else was going to come in" and "we were about to run out of light". I reassured him that although the buck was small, he would be nice and tender and should make some good meals. I prop my deer head upwards to dress them out. As I pulled the little buck up against a rock where I dressed my doe a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a missing chunk of skin under his neck.
I asked, "Dad, did you shoot for the neck on your first shot?" He said, "yeah, I figured I might be able to break his neck." I reminded him of how the last deer that he shot in the neck about 3 years ago ran about 1/4 mile... down the mountain. If he wants to go again this season, I'm sure we'll spend part of the hour drive discussing the finer points of shot selection.
It wasn't the buck we hoped to see, but he filled a tag and we got to spend about 12 hours sitting side by side enjoying God's creation together. We agreed that once we finish deer hunting this year, those squirrels need a little thinning...
