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 Dawn, Thanksgiving morning, arrived with clear skies, low wind, and the temperature just below freezing. (Though it would warm up and hit 71°F/22°C later in the afternoon.) This was my fourth morning out during the Oklahoma rifle season – I had seen plenty of bucks during the first three days, but none larger than a smallish 8-point – so I was still hunting. There were few deer moving right away, but after about a half hour, I started to see deer occasionally moving through the creek bottom. Thinking about company coming for Thanksgiving dinner, and other things I had to do, I eventually told myself I would stick it out until 9:30, about 3 hours after legal shooting hours started. At about 9:20, I was sitting in the blind facing north watching the occasional deer, when I pivoted my neck around to see if there was anything behind me. I was surprised to see a rather large buck standing in my food plot. I slowly turned around, hoping the buck wasn’t looking at me, and grabbed my rifle. He was facing in my direction, looking towards the blind so I held still. When he looked down, I lifted my rifle and shot very quickly. The shot went through the shoulder and lungs, but he spun around and ran into the thicket. I took another quick shot as he ran, worried that if he went too far in the thicket, he could be hard to find. I found him about 40 yards from where I shot him, dead. (The rifle, by the way, is a Tikka T-3 in 6.5x55, shooting Nosler 140 gr Accubond. I bought the rifle from an AR member six years ago!) Unfortunately, I managed to drop my scale before weighing him, so couldn’t get an accurate weight. But I am sure he is the heaviest deer I’ve killed in Oklahoma over the last 28 years, with the most interesting rack. Hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving! Jeff  Taken at the taxidermist's shop:  Leopard, Hippo, Croc - Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe, 2024 Reindeer & Geese, Iceland, 2023 Plains Game, Eastern Cape, 2023 Buff - Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe, 2022 Muskox-Greenland, 2020 Roe buck and muntjac in England, 2019 Unkomaas Valley, RSA, 2019 Kaokoland, Namibia, 2017 Wild boar hunting in Sweden, 2016 Moose hunting in Sweden, 2014 How to post photos on AR | ||
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What a cool gnarly rack!!!  | |||
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Very nice buck - that's a Thanksgiving you'll remember! Antlers Double Rifle Shooters Society Heym 450/400 3" | |||
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Beautiful deer Mike Legistine actu quod scripsi? Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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Cool rack! Looks like his Old Man was messing around with the Moose sisters :-) | |||
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C O O L rack! "Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid" -- Ronald Reagan "Ignorance of The People gives strength to totalitarians." Want to make just about anything work better? Keep the government as far away from it as possible, then step back and behold the wonderment and goodness. | |||
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Love those old gnarly non-typicals! On the plains of hesitation lie the bleached bones of ten thousand, who on the dawn of victory lay down their weary heads resting, and there resting, died. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch... Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! - Rudyard Kipling Life grows grim without senseless indulgence. | |||
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What an awesome buck...congrats!!! Bobby Μολὼν λαβέ The most important thing in life is not what we do but how and why we do it. - Nana Mouskouri | |||
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Very nice buck Congrats ________________________________________________ Maker of The Frankenstud Sling Keeper Proudly made in the USA Acepting all forms of payment | |||
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That's a really memorable buck, and taken with one of the greatest cartridges of the smokeless era, the "little Swede." Well done, sir!  There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green, author | |||
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Coooool rack! Congrats. | |||
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I have whacked a lot of whitetails in my life. I have never seen anything like that. Congrats! Very unique. | |||
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Beautiful old buck. The antlers have a palmated look. Congrats! Start young, hunt hard, and enjoy God's bounty. | |||
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That is one heck of a buck; lot's of character! Mike | |||
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Thanks all! One other interesting thing - coincidence or not - I had heard on a podcast earlier this year that mature bucks could be patterned in the sense that they would be in the same place at a given time of year from one year to the next. I have no idea if this is true, or, if so, how consistently it can be applied, but looking through some gamecam photos, I found this buck appeared for the first time in the fall of 2016, exactly one year and one hour before I shot him.  Leopard, Hippo, Croc - Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe, 2024 Reindeer & Geese, Iceland, 2023 Plains Game, Eastern Cape, 2023 Buff - Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe, 2022 Muskox-Greenland, 2020 Roe buck and muntjac in England, 2019 Unkomaas Valley, RSA, 2019 Kaokoland, Namibia, 2017 Wild boar hunting in Sweden, 2016 Moose hunting in Sweden, 2014 How to post photos on AR | |||
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That is really cool! Look up "gnarly" in the dictionary and it has a picture of that buck in it. Frank "I don't know what there is about buffalo that frightens me so.....He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you owe him money." - Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter, 1953 NRA Life, SAF Life, CRPA Life, DRSS lite | |||
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The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting American Big Game Hunting Thanksgiving Day 2017 Buck, Oklahoma
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