We deboned Junior today and I discovered why he stopped to look at me and allow a second shot. I didn't miss with the first shot, I was just a few inches to the left of where I was aiming.
(See The Not So Elusive Adirondack White-tail for the story of Junior's demise.)
Remember, I said he was facing away from me and I waited for him to turn about 15 degrees so I could focus on a spot just behind his right front shoulder. Instead, I hit him in the right rear hip joint shattering the upper part of his leg just below the ball. When he stopped on the other side of the tree and looked back, he was 1)in shock from the impact (probably thought it was the world's largest deer fly!) and 2)dead on his feet. When we gutted him on Thursday, I noticed a large amount of blood in the body cavity but the intestines and stomach were intact as was the liver so I thought the blood had somehow come from the neck hit. There was no sign of a hit on the outside because the bullet entered under the fur. I really didn't look that closely at the hindquarters and the fur lay back down over the entrance wound.
I feel good that I didn't miss on my first shot but we did lose some meat from the haunch because of that.
Anyway, Junior dressed out at 100 pounds hanging weight and we succeeded in putting between 45 and 50 pounds of meat on ice.
3 comments:
how can you name a deer and then shoot it???? :(
Actually it's quite easy. You name them because, when you've scouted all summer and watched five or six different bucks and an equal number of does and fawns, it gets tiring to have to say something like, "the one with the two points on the left and three on the right," or, when there are two bucks with the same number of points (Junior had just the two spikes but there is also the Duo-corn that has longer spikes--and he's still out there) it's just plain easier to use a name. The Pony--he was larger than the others (or we thought so), Junior, The Duo-corn, The Eight (only one we've seen this year), Mom and the twins (a doe who has her young'uns with her all the time, The Old Lady (a large solitary doe)...
As for shooting them...No problem. It's meat on the table. It's not like they were pets or anything.
yeah...well, i get it now but still.....how bout #s instead of names?? and ah! geez! "mama and her twins"?
ps i loved venison at one time when dad and uncle were the basement butchers! ;)
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