Here is the first (and largest) buck I shot whilst in Ireland. He was dropped with a spine shot at 120m across an open bog (behind me) that was full of snipe and wild pheasant. The deer was giving that last backwards look that proved to be fatal....I had missed him once as he sprinted across the field. It was a really nice moment when he turned finally at the edge of the pine trees and looked back through the mist (it had cleared by the time we went and got the camera).

I re-learned the important lesson of marking the area of the shot with this buck...there were a few tense moments when we couldn't find exactly where it had fallen.

BTW I don't look v pleased in the picture, probably because I was soaked to the skin and freezing! Those bogs have a way of sinking you to the waist on a regular basis!



The gun was a .270, Sako 75 with a 8x56 Schmidt & Bender scope firing 120 grain Federal Hi-shok bullets.

All in all, I shot 7 deer in 2 days. The forestry lease is full of animals and we saw many, many more than we shot. Unfortunately, the genetics for huge palms just isn't there, but I am not complaining as this keeps the 10,000 acre letting at a reasonable price.

Boghossian,

Congratulations! 7 deer in 2 days! The one in your picture looks plenty big enough to me, and it sounds like the perfect place to get some action with such a dense population.

Will you be continuing to hunt there in the future?

Erik D.