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What time did I finally make to my stand you ask? 7:05. Yes, it was ridiculous I know. This is where the real trouble began. While climbing through the door of t
Against All Odds
(Written by Autumn McRee)
The odds may have been against me, but it was meant to be for me to get this deer. Nothing went according to plan Sunday morning. My fiancé, Casey, was suppose to meet me at 5:45am to drive to the pond. We intended to be in the shooting house by 6:10 since legal shooting light began at 6:23. He bailed on me via text message at 1:30am because he couldn’t sleep and said to go without him. My clock came on at 4:35. My initial thoughts were: “I'm exhausted.. my back is killing me… it’s 28 degrees!... I really don’t feel like sitting out in this weather this morning.” I dozed in and out and wrestled with the snooze button for over an hour before deciding to get up at 5:50. “What am I doing?! I should be on the stand in half an hour if I was going. I haven’t had much time to go lately… I’d better just go anyway.”
he shooting house, I somehow managed to hit my “very sensitive” Leupold scope on a metal chair. Something told me I had just knocked the sights off quite bad I was sure. I settled into a chair and took the bolt out of my gun to check the sights against the bore. I looked down the bore at a small bush 50 yards away and then raised my head to see where the crosshairs were. Over 3 feet to the left and a foot or more higher than the bush. At this point I almost left my stand to go re-true my rifle. Instead, I opted to bore-sight it on the spot using the little bush. After about 10 minutes I had it where I could hit the bush presumably. This was really useless though because I didn’t expect a deer to get within 100 yards of me. Then 2 does walked out about 100 yards north of me. I watched them until they finally left the road. Then I got a crazy idea…. Maybe I could find an object about 100 yards away to bore my gun more accurately. At least then I would stand a small chance of killing something that came out close to me. My object of choice was an oak leaf dangling at the end of a limb over the road. I spent nearly an hour tinkering with my sights…mainly just passing time to prevent boredom since it was freezing and I hadn’t seen any more animals… not even a squirrel.
By 8:15 I could no longer feel my hands. I finally felt like I had the gun as close as I could get it without actually firing at a target. I hoped I could hit within a saucer at 100 yards. Then I heard a slight rustle south of me. I looked over my shoulder expecting to see a squirrel finally. Nope, it’s a large deer standing broadside at 115 yards, looking my way. I picked up my gun, carefully stood up, and moved to the other chair on the south end of the shooting house. The deer now turned to face me directly, seeing my movement. I propped my gun on the wall and looked through the scope… a nice buck at least 8 points just guessing. I didn’t have time to count.
I debated for an instant if I should risk shooting this deer. I hoped my bore sighting in the field was close enough to hit a 5 inch group around 100 yards. At least then I stood a chance of killing it. My only shot was square in his neck. I said a quick prayer: “Dear Lord, please let me get a clean miss or a clean kill. Don’t let me wound this beautiful creature and have him run off. Amen.” BOOM!!! He fell… He really fell!!!! I got him! He was still moving slightly. I immediately got down and went to him since I may have gotten a poor shot and needed a follow-up.
When I got to him, I saw that I had a good shot. I had hit him about 2 inches to the right and 1 inch higher than I had aimed. Not bad if I do say so myself. I knew he would bleed out, but I couldn’t wait that long. He raised his massive head 3 feet away and looked me in the eye. I couldn’t bear to let him suffer. I said “Don’t move. I'm going to go ahead and put you down. I won’t let you suffer.” He took a deep breath and lowered his head as if he understood. I fired again into his heart and lungs. He lifted his head once more, looked at me, and coughed. He then relaxed and lowered his head. I walked up and touched his face in admiration and then he was gone. The beautiful 9 point was now mine. He weighed 175 pounds and was approximately 4.5 years old. I decided to have him mounted. I wanted to keep the beautiful buck that I got against all the odds.
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