Opening morning

[richhodg66]

Tomorrow, legal shooting hours at 0655, I plan to be in a familiar stand waiting to bloody my Savage 99 and Ranchdog bullets.

[starmac]

300 savage or??? Hope we get a good report.

[OnHoPr]

What are you still doing up, getting a little edgey. csh csh csh csh..............csh csh csh csh csh horns. Good luck

[richhodg66]

The '99 got blooded at 0826 this morning. Awsome opening day, weather couldn't be better, full moon made the walk in easy and I dressed just the right amount (have had times when I over did it or under did it and was miserable on stand). Nice little eight pointer. Got him back to the house and gonna go outside and skin and quaretr him out.

I'm liking that Savage/Ranchdog combo.

[Hamish]

Well done. The comfortable hunts may not be as memorable years later, but at a certain age a fella can do without freezing his toes off anymore, and the meat tastes just as good,,,,,,

[richhodg66]

54811

54812

[richhodg66]

You know, this was a pretty much typical shot for me, in fact, I've killed a few from that very same tree before. About 50-60 yard shot, unalrmed deer, fro a tree stand which I prefer. There was no blood trail. I had a pretty good fix on where he was standing and I waited a full 20 munites before I started collecting up stuff and climbing down. He was out of the cover on the dry lake bed (our lake is way low, which did make getting him back to the truck a lot easier than it might have been). I lost sight of him while he was running, but he flinched enough at the shot, I was pretty sure I'd hit him good. Found a trail into the thick stuff and sure enough, there he lay. Bullet hit pretty far back in the ribs and came out low in the chest forward of the far shoulder. Niether entry or exit hole was very impressive, which suprised me. I cast these soft and I'm guessing they're exceeding 1800 FPS. I can't complain about how fast he died, couldn't have gone much more than 40 yards, and since he was in the open for most of it and able to move fast, he most likely wouldn't have gone so far in heavier terrain.

I'm gonna keep tweaking the load, maybe try some other bullets. The Ideal 31141, cast harder, I used last year made a lot more blood trail, not sure why. All in all, this is four deer in a row I've killed with cast and my second "small bore" one. I'm pretty pleased with the cast hunting so far.

[RugerFan]

Thats a nice buck (and gun).

[OnHoPr]

That's a fine buck. I glad you had good luck.

[**oneshot**]

nice buck

[EMC45]

Nice.

[smoked turkey]

Great story. Congratulations on a fine buck. It has been my experience that if you don't take the running gears out (shoulder shot) and you hit 'em just a little back from the shoulder that they have about 7 seconds of run time before the blood pressure is gone and they are done. That always seems to translate to 40-60 yards for me at least. I don't mind a shot like that because there is minimal meat damage that way.

[richhodg66]

That sounds about right for this one and most I've shot. Looking at where the shot entered and exited, I'm scratching my head wondering how it didn't center punch the heart, but it didn't touch it. No meat damage at all, both holes were suprisningly small for some reason.

I had to go back to work today, and the first weekend of the gun season here is usually crazy on the public land I hunt, usually I try to not be out there, but I'm itching to get back out so might chance it. Still gotta get the boy out to try to get one too.