2011 Hunting Pictures

[DrMike]

Drivenhunter,

Yeah, I'm about reduced to that now. :lol: It does look comfy, though.

DeerTracker,

There'll be tender and tasty table fare at your table this winter. I took a whitetail doe, and I may be compelled to drop a muley doe this week. However, I'm still stalking a fat mule deer buck.

 

[Guy Miner]

Divernhunter - pretty funny photos - thanks for sharing! Hope you were bundled up warm sitting there... :grin:

Iskan - good photos of what must have been an awesome hunt! Thanks for sharing them. Dang... That looks GREAT! Moose with a .308... Okay - that does it. I've obviously got too many different rifles - all I ever really needed apparently was my old .308 and much older .30-06! Wow...

taylorce1 - gotta love those big, healthy mountain mulies! Congrats!

Guy

 

[atmoshpere]

Found him on the last day!

150 NPT @2950fps from the 284 win. approx, 40 yards broadside (thanks to some well timed cow calls from jmad). Through and through with excellent internal damage. Meat loss was minimal.

 

[DrMike]

Congratulations on a fine elk. Last day elk are perhaps the best yet. It looks as if that .284 works just fine for elk.

 

[FOTIS]

Great pictures iskan

Welcome to the forum.!

 

[hardcorehunter5]

My wife's first big game animal. This pig was taken at 300 yards with a Remington sps 270. 130gr. Sierra boattails handloads. COL 3.3 IMR 4350. Dropped in tracks, neck shot. It was totally awesome site to see!!!

-Hardcorehunter5

 

[DrMike]

Congratulations to your bride! That is another great shot. And welcome to the forum. We hope to see you posting some more photos of the fine hog hunting in Texas. Where were you hunting?

 

[IdahoCTD]

This is a friend of mine's cow he got a few days ago. Shot with a Remington 700 .50cal muzzleloader. He was in really good shape earlier in the year and while driving a dirt road on his atv in a early deer hunt he was hit by a pickup going way too fast. It just happen to be his birthday too. He spent almost a month in the hospital and only recently was able to walk with a walker. He got a handicap permit to shoot from the truck though.

 

[DrMike]

Now, that is a picture to inspire! Congratulations to your friend on his elk and on his persistence and determination. He is an encouragement to many, without doubt.

 

[hardcorehunter5]

DrMike,

That beauty was shot in northern california. Believe or not, not all residents here are communists.

-Hardcorehunter5

 

[Guest]

Congrats to your buddy! That's the kind of spirit that makes life worth living.

 

[DrMike]

Hardcore,

I know there are some great people in California. I lived in San Francisco (conducting post-doctoral work at the Medical Center). I still have friends living in California. Again, congratulations on a fine animal for your wife. I probably need to travel to the states to take a hog or two, and California wouldn't be a bad place to hunt.

 

[Guest]

Gun season opened on Saturday here in Alabama, but due to prior commitments beyond my control, I wasn't able to hunt until Sunday afternoon. I got out on the lease and it was unseasonably warm (70deg), overcast, sprinkling rain (off and on) and a southerly wind at about 10kts. I decided it would be best to stalk around a bit, since I had the place to myself. I guess everybody else didn't like the weather. So I start out making a loop around the property, and don't see anything. I'm glassing a pair of greenfields at the bottom of some terraces, and I hear a deer blow off in the woods. I shift my eyes that way, and apparently a doe has managed to spot me kneeling and glassing, from about 150yds away. She's in the woods off the south side of the terraces, so I know she didn't wind me. She blows again, and then turns and high-tails it out of there. I figure this field is likely done for the afternoon, as there's only about 45min of light left. So I walk up, and move around to another open area. Nothing in the fields, but I have this gut feeling that something might come out. I kneel down in the road about 140yds (141 on the rangefinder to a clump of shrubs on the field edge) and set up my shooting sticks. With all the cloud cover, it's getting dimmer by the minute. I'm doing my best to grow deer in the patch, and at about 15min before the end of legal shooting hours, I see a good sized doe step out in the patch. She is nibbling and walking, and I figure she's going to be in and out quick. I get set, level my crosshairs on her ribs, and as she walks up toward the eastern edge of the patch, I squeeze one off. Nice quartering broadside shot, and she hunches up at the shoulders and runs up into the tall grass between the green patch and the woods. Never hear her fall, and can't see her in the 5+ foot high tall grass. I truck it down to the patch and can't find any blood, anywhere. My headlamp starts getting dull after about 20min of looking, so I head back and get the truck, and my 3D cell MagLite. Come back up and start making systematic crossing passes in the grass. Never once do I find a drop of blood. At about 630p (a full two hours after sundown, and an hour and a half after the end of shooting light) I make a pass out into the brush and walk up on the deer. I'm pretty excited, and then I notice she is actually a small, deformed spike. Odd rack, for sure, and still glad I took him out of the gene pool. You can't see it all in the picture, but one cowhorn spike, and one four point antler, but the four point has a bunch of horizontal points on it, and a "fist" at the end of the spike they're sticking off of. Dragged him to the truck and gutted him. Hit him in the left ribs, at an upward angle (didn't realize he was above me when I shot), through that lung, and then cut the esophagus and exited via the back of the right ribs, getting diaphragm and a tiny bit of liver in the process. Just a smidge of blood on the entry and exit (four or five drops) and the rest came flooding out when I opened him up.

I was surprised, as I was shooting handloads with 180gr Nosler Ballistic Tips running about 2720fps out of my 8x57 Remington 700. Those 180's must be awfully tough. I have no doubt they'd do fine on elk, which is what the folks at Nosler told me when I called them for advice on handloading for this rifle. This is the first deer with this gun, too, so that's an added enjoyment. Always nice to get first blood with a rifle.

All in all, the season is starting out pretty nicely, and I'm anxious to get back in the woods again Wednesday!

 

[SJB358]

hardcorehunter5, congrats to your wife on the hog. Great shooting on her part!

Dubyam, glad you were able to connect with the 8mm! That is very cool!

IdahoCTD, congrats to your buddy with the elk... Looks like he did okay for being walker bound. Scotty

 

[DrMike]

Dubyam,

First blood with a rifle helps make it our own. Congratulations on taking that odd fellow out of the gene pool. The 8X57 is a great cartridge.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, guys. I was pretty excited to get this rifle bloody. I picked it up about 6yrs ago (when I was still only bowhunting) with the thought I'd make it into a 280Rem. It was the "700 Classic" for the prior year, and my local shop picked up a bunch of them NOS and was selling them for cheap. I left the store only $369 lighter in the wallet, so it was a steal. I started reading up on the 8x57, and found out I could load it to European standards as I knew the action was strong. Makes it into a 308Win/30-06 class of rifle, and that's pretty darn practical. The only thing it lacks is a good selection of medium weight bullets. All the good stuff is 180-220gr, so I'm shooting the 180gr BT's. Great rifle, about 1" all the time with this load.

 

[SJB358]

For that price, I would have one as well. That is a great hunting cartridge, without a doubt! Scotty

 

[Kodiak]

Idaho,

Good on your friend for his cow-elk harvest. He's an encouragement to us all to get out and do our best. And he's now got a freezer full of great eatin'.

Jim

 

[super-7]

More from the 2011 season: This pic is of one of my customers daughter, I pulled in to his place to get permission to hunt for moose on some of his land, and they were in the middle of a photo shoot with there girls first muley buck, and a beauty at that. You have to look hard in my pic but there is a 4" drop tine on the LH beam. Should score in the 150's or so.

 

[DrMike]

That is a great photo of a memorable moment for the young lady. Thanks for posting.