Next was plenty of sitting in the cold trying to stay very still and listening to crackles and crunches which played plenty of tricks on my mind. We agreed to meet back up at dark. I was about 30 seconds away from packing up when 2 deer appeared from this high, dead grass (seemed like magic to me!). They were both young, the first having a small rack with about 6 points but not even close to legal. The other was a spike buck. I had the first one directly behind the spike for what seemed an eternity and then he moved far enough away from the spike for me to punch his ticket. Range was about 50-75 yards. Shot it with my Mossberg 100ATR in .270 Win and a Bushnell Banner 4-12x scope. POI was not what I had intended, but he didn't suffer which is what I care about most in a kill.
My grandfather on my mother's side was an avid hunter of all types, but he passed long before I was even a twinkle in the eye of my parents. So needless to say this made me excited as I earned it with little guidance from previous generation hunters. Steve (mom's cousin) did help a lot with the field cleaning and paper work though and I owe him many thanks for that as well as the hospitality! Steve got the hog which I posed next to for size comparison. I am 5'9" 200lbs, so you can tell that hog is a big boy! Whew...ok I'm done! Thanks for the read, and enjoy the pics.
