Well I can not complain. The season started Oct. 20 here in Georgia. Opening day I shot a little spike. The earliest I have shot a deer in the area that I hunt.
Yesterday, I took my neighbor hunting (he has heart problems and can not hunt alone), well long story short we did not see anything. He had to be back at the house by 10 am. Well the hunting land is less than 10 minutes form the house, so I went back out to take up a blind and repair a tripod stand. At around 1020 am, I am walking back into the woods less than a 100 yards from the stand I heard a deer blow. Luckily, I brought my rifle with me, I unslung the rifle off my shoulder and walk slowly down to the stand. At less that 20 yards away, I saw movement off to my left, yes it was a deer, a big deer. I stopped and he walked to within 10 yards when I took the shot, the deer leaped in my direction ran by me and across the hardwood clearing and down into the thick creek bottom. Well I hunt with a single shot and he was gone by the time I reloaded. I stood there for a few minutes and then checked the spot where he was that I shot. I found nothing. I started to get concerned. I started checking back along the way he ran and I found a couple blood drops. I looked around for blood all around and found nothing. On a hunch I went down into the bottom where I thought he went. And as luck would have it I found him piled up in the bottom. I almost fell out, He was a non typical 10 pointer, 6 on one side 4 on the other, also a very big body deer ( he was close to 200 lbs.) Inside his rack went 15 1/2 inches. I had to call for help to load him in the truck. Not a bad season so far. The rut will start in the next couple weeks, now to knock down some does.
Oh yeah I forgot. I was hunting with a in the Survivor 308 heavy barrel with a monte carlo stock, topped with a 4 x 32 Nikon scope. Ammo was 180 grain Federal Fusion. I hit the deer just behind his right shoulder and it exited left mid side. Small exit hole, very little bleeding.
