Shot this 10-pointer this morning at my farm. He was headed towards one of my food plots (corn and clover) around 7am. For most of the morning I could not find him as I only found 4 drops of blood spread out over about 50 yards. We finally found him after I got a friend of mine to bring his dog. We found him dead around 10:30am back in some thick woods about 250 yards from where I shot him. Because the deer was quartering away pretty sharply when I shot him, I had to shoot him pretty far back. My .300 win mag's 200 grain Swift A-Frame hit him hard but never exited as it angled across his body, as a result, no exit wound and little blood.
Anyway, what do you think?

Since you asked - that's a fine looking deer!

Nice buck - how far were you when you first shot the buck? Looks like you got some good "hide" available for the deer to move through, nice area - kinda reminds me of the old days, hunting in Texas in November in a T shirt - nope, can't do that here Very nice, and surely will be good eatin' - KMule

Spring,

Well! Happy Halloween to you. Very pretty buck.

That's a great looking buck. I have to commend you on not giving up on it which would have been easy to do. You kept in pursuit of locating the downed animal even when it got difficult. That's what hunting is all about.

Well done Spring!

Excellent S.E. whitetail. Congratulations

ED

Very fine buck very fine.

Actually I didn't start off the day wearing only that t-shirt as it was a bit cool for that, but by the time I found him at around 10:30am, it was indeed very pleasant outside. When I shot the deer, to answer Kmule's question, he was about 150 yards away. The deer was out of the woods and approaching a corn patch.

Spring:

That is very nice buck I must say. It is in the 140's EASY. I would say by the looks of it that it is a 3 1/2- 4 1/2 yr old buck. I can tell that this guy has been eating up your food plot for a good while. Good for you man!! I have been wanting for the longest to get on a good quality Georgia lease. You have definetly achieved this I can see. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Hi,
How much do you reckon that beast weighs? It certainly looks well-fed...hell it almost looks curry-combed!
BTW did you recover the bullet? It is strange that this elk/moose bullet didn't blow right through your buck.

You're right about wondering why the bullet didn't exit. I normally wouldn't be using such a bullet on whitetails, but I sighted this gun in for a trip to Africa a few weeks ago and haven't adjusted it back to 180 grains. I did recover most of my bullets when in Africa but didn't on this deer. I had a guy that works for me on my farm drop it off at the processing place as I needed to get back in town so I could at least get a few things done in my office today. Anyway, I forgot to ask my guy to tell them to look for the bullet, but if my experience in Africa is any indication, these Swifts mushroom beautifully. The fact that it didn't exit is probably a result of just how far back I had to shoot this deer. It was pretty severe angle because of how he was about to wander off.

[ 11-01-2003, 00:09: Message edited by: Spring ]

Nice deer, thats some pretty thick brush i can see how you could loose one in that.

Nice work!!!

Very nice! Congrats.

Beautiful deer. Glad to see your persistance paid off.

Great southern whitetail!

Maybe a lucky thing that you hadn't sighted your rifle back in for 180's yet

Very true and a wise observation, Heavy Varmit. A smaller bullet may not have taken him down very soon given the shot that I decided to take....

Nice buck.......congrats!! This is our opening weekend for gun season and it is supposed to be 85 here today.......

Bob

Hey Spring, Congratulations to the Dog for finding the Buck. Time to spring(pun intended) for some Dog Biscuits.

Sure appreciate you including the "under-story" behind you in the flick. Difficult for some folks to imagine how dense the Southern Swampland can be.

Before I forget, Congrats to you too!

That's a great looking buck. Looks really healthy too! Gotta love it. Congrats,

Matt

Nice Buck.

4 drops of blood and a 3.5 hour wait. God that feelings awful isn't it! Then when you finaly find it - fantastic!

Give the dog a pat 250yards and little blood is a good trailing job in thick stuff. What breed was the dog? Had it done it before? Did it air scent or blood trail?

The dog was a 10 year-old labrador retreiver that has been a very good tracker in the past. Because of age he's not as sharp as he used to be, but still he still loves to get after them.
The dog got on the trail right away and followed it well. I could tell that by the fact that I had already tracked blood and knew the intital direction the deer had gone. But after the deer got back in the thicker woods, where I had previously spooked about 10 deer when randomly wandering and looking for sign of the buck, the amount of deer scent was too much for the dog to handle without a steady blood trail. We ended up finding the deer becasue of the extra people I had with me at that point plus the dog. We were able to spread out and cover more area. The dog did find the deer, but was mostly following the directional lead of his owner who happened to be looking in the spot where the deer went down.
The dog didn't necessarily track down the deer, but having the dog, along with the people that came with him, certainly made the difference in finding him or not.

[ 11-03-2003, 17:59: Message edited by: Spring ]

Congratulations on a very nice buck.

Clay