Took this big ol' doe this morning. This is a smart doe, and I really wanted to take her out of the herd. She came in on me on the morning of October 8, along with a button buck and a decent-sized doe. She was in the rear, and got nervous as they neared the tree I was in. She got all spooky, so I shot the lead doe that morning at 9:21 AM.

Fast forward to this morning. Same big matriarch doe and button buck come ambling down the trail at almost the same time as before. Again, she is in the rear and hesitated when almost to my tree. She looked right up at me and stared. I was on the opposite side of the tree as she was, and every time I peeked around it, she was staring at me. I watched her breath fog the air, as she stared nervously. Finally, she turned around and stared quartering away back down the trail she came in on. I started to draw, but stopped short when she looked back over her shoulder. After a brief moment, she turned 90 degrees to her right and stood broadside.

By this time, she was a shade over 30 yards, and my adjustable sight was set on 20 yards. I held high on the vitals and watched the arrow arc right into the center of the lungs at 9:41 AM. She won't be teaching any more deer to look up at that tree.

I have no idea, as we didn't weigh her at the processor's. She's an older doe though, and I'm sure that the good-sized doe I shot on October 8 was her daughter from last year or the year before, and the button buck with her was from this year.

I will say that I didn't drag her anywhere, but rather went to my brother's and borrowed his Polaris Ranger. I managed to drive it all the way back in there, but will admit that it was a nightmare negotiating all the rocks, trees, and generally thick ground cover.

Muzzleloading on Saturday;
The shot was offhand, at a little over a hundred yards. He was pacing back & forth through some trees & cover, and I took a quartering towards shot - the 240gr XTP hit the left shoulder, went through both lungs & the top of heart, then broke a couple ribs on it's way out the other side. He spun around (almost end over end), & I lost sight of him in the cover. It didn't look like he really went anywhere based on blood pattern on the ground - just spun & piled up against a little tree.

This was right around 3PM, my son & I walked out to a spot that a couple buddies had seen some decent deer at earlier in the week, but they hadn't managed to get a good shot off at any. We got to the tree where they had piled up some limbs as a ground blind & hadn't even sat down yet when 2 deer flushed out around 120 yards below us. I thought they were both does at first, and we spread out to try & get shots before they ran back up into a thicket. I was making little bleat calls trying to get them to stop & look, and manged to line up a shot on the buck (very nice 7pt - he's missing an ear guard, or he'd have been a nice 8pt.)

My son did get lined up for an offhand shot on what looked like a nice doe - probably 60 yards out. But his rifle mis-fired, and she made it to cover before he could change the cap, or I could finish reloading. It was a bad 209 primer. It was his first muzzleloader hunt - but I hope to get him on another deer next Saturday during the youth gun hunt.

Hunting on public land - Quachita Natl Forest / Winona WMA.

Edit - if he looks a little 'thin' in that pic, well I had already field dressed him before toting him out. The coyotes gotta eat too...

So this is what a Winchester M70 in 300 H&H can do to Montana white tail deer.

The first one is a button buck that I shot at 207 yards in Stanford, MT opening day Oct 22nd It wasn’t the best shot I ever took. It was from the kneeling position off primos trigger sticks with my adrenalin pumping. I inadvertently got a spine shot so the head wound you see is from my S&W 686 where I had to put him down.



The second is a mature whitetail doe shot on Oct 31st outside Great Falls, MT at 314 yards.



The third is a whitetail buck shot at 344 yards also shot Oct 31st outside Great Falls MT at 344 Yards. This is the first time I ever downed two deer at one time





I got the exact range on all these thanks to the Burris Eliminator scope I used on this rifle.

I have one more white tail doe tag to fill so I'll post pics of that when I get it.

His states laws are probably like Wisconsin, you have Bucks and antlerless (under 3" antlers)

4 inch antlers count as Anterless? In KS it is "any visible antler protruding from the skull". Button bucks are "antlerless" but a 1 inch spike requires a buck tag.

Illinois, antlers 3" or less can be counted as antlerless.

Does that mean you are now hooked on deer hunting for life? Congratulations!

I sure haven't been checking in on this thread much...

Nothing very exciting to talk about this season so far. It has been all does, small bucks, etc until my best friend and hunting buddy, Chris, took a buck last week on Tuesday, October 25th. I have been busy and just now got the time to make the post and get the pics up.

I oftentimes help Chris's family during harvest at getting the crops out. It sometimes takes away from deer hunting time, but it is enjoyable nonetheless and something I really like doing. Furthermore, we always see a lot of deer harvesting which is an added bonus, and it can lead to you trying to make a setup based off what you have been spooking from the fields and the surrounding ditchrows, thickets, and woodlots. This kill was a result of such

On October 24th, we spooked some deer while opening up a field right before dark. This particular farm consists of three different fields, a couple hundred acres total. We had one field completely out and we had just started on the second field when we started really seeing deer. One of them was a very nice buck. All of these deer spooked into the adjacent standing cornfield. We also witnessed a few does come out on the other end of the field to feed right at dark. We only had the endrows and first 40 rows of corn out before calling it quits for the night.

I had to work the next day; however, Chris is an eye doctor and does not see patients on Tuesday until after lunch. Since he had the morning to hunt, we decided it would be best if he could sneak in and setup in the fencerow before it got daylight. He just took a hunting seat and sat on the ground. It was a longshot, but he thought maybe he could catch the deer traveling between fields and decided to give it a try. Shortly after daylight, he slipped an arrow into the big buck as it started to walk out of the field that we opened up the night before. The plan could not have worked any better! Chris was unsure of his shot as the buck was hit too far forwards and took off back into the standing corn. He called and told me the details, and we both came to the conclusion that the buck was probably dead as we thought it was hit in a lethal area. However, the part that made it difficult is the fact that the deer did not bleed ANY because the arrow was still in it as it ran off, and there was no exit wound. So, we were left with the task of trying to find a buck in nearly 100 acres of standing corn with no blood

Chris was unable to find him, and he had to head to the office to see patients for the afternoon. His father began harvesting late that morning, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he found it. Surprisingly, he got about 1/3 of the field out with no sign of the buck. We started to get a little pessimistic about the situation. Chris's dad took off about 2:30 in the afternoon as he has a school bus route, and I got out there about 4:00pm and began shelling corn keeping an eye out for the dead deer.

Here are some pics from the combine (I was bored)






I ran another 2 semi loads of corn and did not find the buck. By this time, Chris had gotten done seeing patients and another friend of ours came down to help with the search. The only thing we could figure is that the buck had went to water in one of the large ditches surrounding the farm. These ditches are extremely thick and grown up, and we started walking each side of them hoping to find the buck.

To make (what is becoming) a long story short, our friend that came to help assist in the search found him dead in the bottom of the ditch by a small pool of water. The buck was laying dead not 60 yards from where the graincart and semi were parked at the end of the field! The arrow was still buried into him all the way to the fletching. I would venture to say he was dead within 20 minutes of the shot. His rack was quite busted up; both main beams and one brow tine were gone. He had a HUGE body. His field-dressed weight was 232 pounds, which should have put his live weight near 285.

Here are a couple pics






Good luck and safe and happy hunting to all as the season goes on

I had sat down for a total of 12 minutes when this guy trots out of the woods coming straight to me. (I had just grunted). I do believe he was going to whip my butt. I dropped him at 18 to 20 feet with a shot just below his jaw. Marlin 336cs 30/30 loaded with 150gr Core-Lokt.

one of mine, and my Wife's first deer, both killed with .223, and yes she blooded her cheeks

DPMS REPR in .260rem, handloaded 140gr Berger VLD.
285yards, 20mph half value wind.
not a step


sister in law got a monster!