I was not lucky enough this year to get a trophy quality tag. I didn’t feel like spending a ton of money on gas. After some thinking I decided to just go on a short rang weapon hunt with my ML and keep the cost down. I got to the spot about an hour before light. Some local kids showed up and asked where I was going to hunt. I told them and they went in a different direction. About an hour into the hunt I saw a deer in the swamp. I closed the distance quickly to look it over, it turned out to be a small buck. I was about to make my way around this big bush when a Rooster pheasant was flying right at me. It landed right in front of the bush I was behind about 5 feet away. It started to crow like crazy so I slipped around the other side of the bush. The buck looked at the Rooster and saw me, It was now or never. I didn’t even look at the range finder. I knew the range was right about 100 yards. I couldn’t get a rest so I had to shoot off hand. The bucks body was facing away from me and his head was turned looking back. At the shot the smoke blew back in my face so I couldn’t see for a moment. When I could the deer was running to some very tall grass. I watched him go into the grass and he was gone.
I went to the place where he was standing when I shot but I couldn’t find any blood. I started to walk in the area I thought he had ran, still no blood. I was almost into the tall grass when I saw a bush move. The grass was over 6 foot tall but thin, and the bush was about 10 yards in front of me. I walked up on it ready to shoot again but the buck was done.
The 410 gr, 50 cal Hornady great plains bullet had hit in front of the flank and exited out through the shoulder. The shot ended up being 93 yards. Even though this was not a big deer I enjoyed the hunt. He exceeded my expectations for the hunt. I was ready to shoot a doe. So I am happy for this year.
The rifle is a TC Renegade with a Green Mountain 1-28 twist LRH barrel. The sights are a Lyman 57 SML peep with a Lyman 17 AML globe front sight. The 17 AML has a Lee Shavers long range insert. I was using 100 gr of pyrodex Select and the 410 was traveling at 1500 FPS. This is the second deer I have fully penetrated length wise with this load.
Sorry about the quality of the picture. I forgot my good camera so I had to use a disposable 35 MM that was junk. Out of 27 pictures I got 3 good ones, Oh well. Ron
