Success!

I had planned to pack up the Bolt Hole and head back to the Aerie this afternoon but that will have to be postponed.

Before leaving I thought I would take one more slow walk with my friend the .270 and see if we could find one of the elusive white-tails.

First I went over and walked behind Mark's place because the wind was blowing in the right direction but, while the crunchy snow and leaves made the walk a bit noise for me and the deer didn't cooperate. I didn't see or hear any of them.

Then I started to walk the edge of the field on my side where some grass has been exposed and the wild honeysuckle still has leaves the deer apparently like to nibble. (Many sets of tracks we saw Saturday and Sunday detoured over to the shrub-like growths to nip at the leaves. They were also chomping on the apple buds and gnawing the tips of many of the small tree's branches.) I had barely started my walk when I spied a large brown body grazing some grasses about 75 yards ahead of me. I was standing in a patch of bare grass and my feet made no sound ass I adjusted my position and raised the rifle to my shoulder. Through the scope I could clearly see that the deer had antlers but it was not one of the big bucks we had seen earlier in the year. It took two steps toward me as it continued to graze and turned broadside. Setting the cross hairs of the scope on the shoulder I clicked off the safety and pulled the trigger.

The deer was hit! It turned and bound away through a thicket and I heard it crash into a small hemlock and then silence. I waited a few minutes and walked to where it was standing when I shot. There was blood scattered all over the snow behind where it was standing and all along the path of its "escape" route. Less than forty yards from where I had shot it, it was laying dead on the ground. I noticed it had broken off one of its antlers in its dash through the trees but I was able to find it and confirm that this deer had been a four pointer having two points on each side.

Now came the difficult part. Luckily it wasn't too far from one of the several ATV trails so I went back to the garage and got my machine. Gutting the deer took about 30 minutes and then I loaded it onto the back of the ATV and hauled it back to the barn where it is now hanging. This afternoon I'll rig up a table and start the butchering process.

This is only the second deer I've seen since hunting season began. The other fell to an arrow back in October. Neither was vary large, the first had spikes and this was a fork horn, but like I've said, "You can't eat the horns."

Suddenly my feet don't hurt as much as they did when I woke up.