Yesterday was the opener for our Idaho deer season & good friend Tank Hoover joined me for a handgun hunt in endless thousands of acres of prime hunting country in south east Idaho. Tank arrived a few days early so we could practice eating burrito's, fresh french fries, cinnamon rolls, huckleberry & strawberry cheesecake, homemade biscuits & gravy, fried chicken, fresh mashed potatoes, fried potatoes & great chicken fried steak!
Finally Tuesday arrived (opening day) and we headed out before daylight & 3 minutes into the hunt we spotted several deer with a nice buck in the bunch but the doe's spooked before we could get a shot so we kept going to another spot I had picked out for Jeff & we ended up seeing quite a few deer & a few more bucks but didn't get a shot because of being limited on distance with my old model flat top 44 magnum & Tank packing a Bisley 454 with heavy 45's snuggled inside.
We came back to town for lunch & went to work on El Toro's Burrito's again (wow) came home for a nap & headed back out for an evening hunt about 5pm. Tank went back to the same spot where he had seen several deer earlier & I decided to go to another spot but ended up with too much sun in my eyes so about 5:30 I decided to move across the grain field about 200 yds & get into the Quakies a little bit. It was the right decision because about 20 minutes later a deer came out of the trees about 250 yds from me & started feeding. At first I thought it was a doe because it blended in with the trees but as it fed towards me I could see it was a fork horn buck.
I had my 357 Maximum set up on the rear of my 4 wheeler in case I needed to take a long shot & needed to use a scope but as the buck got closer it looked like I would be able to use the iron sighted flat top. I eased the 44 out of my Barranti cross draw & slowly raised it up onto my leather covered rest. As the buck got closer he started to get a little bit goosy & I could tell he knew something wasn't right.
He was too close to range & was starting to move slightly to my right but still almost straight on. If he moved anymore to my right I was going to be in trouble because it would be hard to move the gun without him seeing me move. I guessed the range at 50 yds & made a little grunt to stop him. He faced me straight on but his body was just a bit to the right as I broke the shot. The 245 gr cast HP broke the right front shoulder & he whirled & ran about 30-35 yds & went down. I ranged to where he had been standing & it turned out to be 64 yds. The bullet had broken the right front shoulder & took out the right lung. I haven't skinned him yet to see what other damage was done but I'm very happy with the gun, the bullet & the results.
Dick
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DougGuy
