After a long dry season of seeing absolutely no deer after Kristen took 2 deer in two days, I knew this would be the last morning (January 4th) I could hunt. Like every other time I saw nothing. As I was driving to the gate, I looked across the road into a wheat field and at the far end saw several deer. I do not have permission across the road, but since it was a weekday morning, I thought I would call the ranch foreman on his cell and ask (worst he could say was, "No"). As luck would have it not only did I get a hold of the foreman, but the owner was with him. He said "Yes" and then I had to plan on how to get to them without very much cover. To make a long story short I crawled for over 150 yards. When I made it to a pile of wood I had cover, but no way to get a good rest. I was trying to find a rest when the deer decided they wanted to move to a different location. My heart rate was up from a hurried crawling (all fours and stomach). My season was walking away from me. All three does were moving from my left to right and not stopping often. As I kept struggling to get a good rest at a distance of a 150 yards (lasered it later) the last doe came into the opening. I was unsteady, but I though I was on enough to make a lethal shot. Simply said, I missed.
The does alerted, still didn't have a clue where I was moved into another field of brome and stopped trying to decide which way to go.
From this angle I was able to move and get a solid rest. I had earlier turned my Burris 3-12 LER down to 8x expecting a closer shot. The doe was facing me slightly quartering. I put the crosshair just left of center so I could get the vitals. Even through the recoil I could tell she was hit, not to mention my rest was secure this time. She took off with the other two does into some trees a short distance away. I was certain I had a dead deer, but proof is in the seeing. Sure enough I got my doe and my Thor 6.5-57R (rimmed) drew blood for the very first time.
I like this SP a lot.
