2007 Hunting Season

Well, surprise surprise! I'm no longer the only one in my family to have gotten a deer. My nephew got a big 1 1/2 year old spike buck this morning in Ohio. Then, later in the day, I went out tramping around the neighborhood here in PA too. It started to get foggy, and a little bit cooler, then it started raining, and I was about to give it up. I stopped in at one more spot, and I'm glad I did. The picture below is of the 8-point buck that I found grazing in a field. It was about 200 yards away, and I couldn't hold the gun very steady no matter what position I tried. I was soaking wet from the rain anyway, so I just flopped down in the mud and shot from a prone position. The first shot clipped off a point from his antlers, and the second shot severed his spinal cord. The Barnes TSX bullet that I've been experimenting with seemed to perform pretty well, and didn't destroy as much meat as other bullets I've used. That's exactly what I was looking for. This buck gave 68 pounds of meat.

Having sat in school basically all year, it was good to get out and walk around a few miles, and after getting out there I was thinking I should have taken a camera along, because I saw a bunch of other wildlife. There was one in particular that you'll never guess that I saw: a groundhog. That is the first time I have seen one this late in the year. It was still pretty fat, and when I saw it, it was heading for its den, but no mistake about it; it was definitely a groundhog. Of course there was an abundance of squirrels and birds and you-name-its all over the place too. I know where I'm going small game hunting over winter break if I get the chance. A few of my friends have started to get into fox hunting, so maybe we'll get to do some of that too.

My nephew is proving to be a mightier hunter than I. How many kids have this kind of success their first year of hunting? Is it called beginner's luck, or a well thought out and preplanned hunting strategy? Whatever you call it, the point is he filled both of his tags in less than a week, and he did it with a little .410 shotgun with slugs. For those of you who don't know, that's a pretty small gun, and he has no scope on it.

Here's his buck:

And here's his antlerless deer, a button buck: