Posted: 11/27/2010 6:28:28 PM EDT
Yesterday I arrived at enormjnson's deer camp for an overnight stay after a 2+ hour drive. A gentleman in his 70's was already in a ground blind right behind the camp house. While we were hanging out in the kitchen area, enormjnson noticed a buck in front of the blind, so I grabbed my camcorder. Afraid to open the door for fear of spooking the buck, I filmed through the closed window. The video is an optical illusion, as the ground blind is approximately 50 yards from the house, and the buck is around 135 yards in front of the blind. The muzzleloader fires at around the 40-second mark. Hit or miss? |
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Epic video footage through the rear legs of a hanging deer carcas. If ol' boy would have just looked right sooner he would have seen bob hanging upside down and would have gotten out of there in time!
btw the buck looked hit to me hope yall found him and you have a few pics of the kill to follow.... |
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Hit/beans
My rationale: I didn't see him make it past the blind in the video. The tail up makes me wonder, but I've had a fair amount of solid hits that the deer flagged their tail, but dropped shortly thereafter. On the beans, I'm just hoping that you guys know what constitutes good chili and didn't forget the beans. There, I said it, chili needs beans. 
ETA: I'm going to go so far as to boldly say that deer faceplanted within seconds. Don't leave me hanging too long guys.
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Okay, I'm going to ruin the poll for those who haven't seen the footage yet.
We walked out to the blind, and I met the gentleman for the first time, and informed him that I had his hunt on video. After reviewing the footage, everyone there was confident of a hit. We searched the area of the shot and inside the woods a short ways for sign (blood, hair, hoof marks, etc.), but found none. The decision was made to wait until the following morning to resume the search. In the meantime, we watched that video repeatedly both the first evening and the second morning. enormjnson and I stayed up until almost 2:00 AM, while everyone else hit the bunks early. 6:00 AM came awfully early when they came in to tell us it was tracking time.  A group of us searched hundreds of yards in each direction, and found not a single sign of a hit. Nothing. You could tell that Bo (the shooter) was highly disappointed, but he tried to hide that fact and remain cheerful. Upon returning to camp, he test fired his muzzleloader at 100 yards from a bench –– 8" low and 5" right!!! He has since re-zeroed, and is dead on for next weekend. I wish him the best of luck, especially since I know the agony of losing a good buck.
To be fair to enormjnson, he cooked the chili without beans, and cooked a pot of beans on the side for those who wanted to add them –– the proverbial Arfcom "get both".  I added beans to mine, but he didn't.  His only other negative fault is that he carries a Glock. 
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| Well, I watched the video first and the deer didn't hump up like he was hit. I thought for sure he had to be hit and it was just me cause the shot looked really close(75 Yds?). Man that sucks! Good thing is you got it on video for review. There have been times in the past I wish I had hunts on video so I could figure out what the hell happened when things went wrong! |
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Quoted:
I think the round impacted the off side leg. That would explain the lack of spoor, as well as that reaction to being shot. I've done it. It sucks. eta - watch how he lands on that far leg after he hops to the shot. I really think he hit it. The way he landed is what made me think it was a hit. It looked to me like he was going to go down, but the blind was blocking the view. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I think the round impacted the off side leg. That would explain the lack of spoor, as well as that reaction to being shot. I've done it. It sucks. eta - watch how he lands on that far leg after he hops to the shot. I really think he hit it. The way he landed is what made me think it was a hit. It looked to me like he was going to go down, but the blind was blocking the view. The good news is that if he was hit in such a fashion, he will most likely survive...and be extremely recognizable with that new limp. |
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Quoted:
Does JB know you guys are down there shooting 2.5 year old bucks? Contrary to what some may believe we do NOT have a size or an age limit on our deer on our hunting property. There are 4 people who own the property one of them being my dad. Each owner is allowed 2 antlered deer a year. For those outside of Indiana, Indiana is a 1 buck a year state. The reason each owner is allowed 2 is so that he and either his wife or kid, or grandkid, or guest can kill an antlered deer. We have had these same rules since we bought the propety over 20 years ago. It works for us. We see and kill a bunch of mature deer. As far as the deer in the video being 2 1/2. I think from what I saw through my binos he was a 3 1/2 yr old 8 pt. I see a ton of 2 1/2 year old bucks every year and it seems around our property the bucks don't seem to grow much mass or height until they turn 3 1/2. Of course there are always exceptions. The guy who took the shot has been an owner for around 10 years. He has not taken a buck himself off the property yet (his son killed a big 10 pt about 5 years ago). That would probably be his best buck ever. If you listen in the video you can hear me saying " Bo better kill this deer" or something along those lines. |
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Quoted:
As far as the deer in the video being 2 1/2. I think from what I saw through my binos he was a 3 1/2 yr old 8 pt. I agree. The body, the tine length, and spread seem to confirm this as well. In my opinion, average 3 1/2 year old 8-pointers should go at least 125", as far as antler measurements are concerned. Quoted:
If you listen in the video you can hear me saying " Bo better kill this deer" or something along those lines. That was the earlier video where we were jibbering a lot and I restarted the video file. 
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Quoted:
For the life of me I can't understand why anyone would put a blind right behind a house...........LOL Obviously because the big deer walk right by there. Where I grew up hunting one of the guys wife would come up and hang out in the deer cabin, she'd cook our meals, make sandwiches for lunch, and spend the day reading a book and relaxing while the guys were out hunting. She kept a single shot .410 and some slugs in the cabin and it wasn't unusual for her to shoot a deer out the cabin window while we were out stomping all over the woods of Northern Minnesota. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
For the life of me I can't understand why anyone would put a blind right behind a house...........LOL Obviously because the big deer walk right by there. Since no one here is aware of the fact, BILL1959 is one of the guys who was hunting when I was there.
Glad to have met you, Bill. 
enormjnson's father took a 150" typical 12-pointer a week of so before the video was shot. It was taken within 200 yards of that house as well. No sense in going to the other end of a 1000-acre farm when you have deer by the hunt headquarters.
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