6.5_sWv
Beginner
- Mar 5, 2019
- 224
- 242
I've been off work since Nov 21st and took both weeks of WV Buck Firearms season off to hunt, be with family, and just simply not work. I enjoy bow hunting but its the time spent with family that I really enjoy rifle hunting.
Opening day in Monroe / Summers county started off with a cold dense fog so thick you couldn't see more than about 40yds in front of you. The fog stayed pretty thick and hung in there like a hair in a biscuit until almost noon, then it burned off almost immediately. My wife and I spent the foggy hours in a pop up blind and we could only see the backs of 2 deer drift through the fog without being able to ID what they were. My son was hunting in another stand and he didn't see anything but a flock of 8 hen turkeys. The evening hunt was my wife and I both passed a shot opportunity on a doe.
Tuesday, my wife, or my daughter didn't want to go, and my son had to work, so it was just me and my dad. Much better visibility today. I saw 5 does in a field on my way to my blind and even though I had 2 doe tags, I decided I wanted to wait on a buck. I was hoping they would stay around the in the general area and bring a buck my way. About an hour later, I was getting comfy in a pop up blind, and I saw the same 5 does feeding my way. I watched them for a bit, when the lead doe started looking over the hill towards the creek bottom so I looked where she was looking and caught movement from a rack buck moving a good clip through the woods. I grabbed my Weatherby Mark V 280 Ackley Improved, and realized I left my shooting sticks propped up against the tree OUTSIDE the blind. So... I had to shoot off hand. I found the buck in my scope and I tried to get settled as much as possible and squeezed the trigger BOOM... he was still walking. I worked the bolt, found him again in the scope BOOM... and he dropped. I wound up breaking his back / spine. Unfortunately I ruined about 8'' worth of tenderloin. Oh well, sometimes you gotta "get 'em on the ground and eat what's left over". Not every shot is going to be perfect. He wound up being a 6pt with no brow tines. I was using a Sierra 150gr GameChanger.
Later that morning, my dad shot at a similar sized buck that was moving across a long hay field, we exhausted a search and ruled it a miss by finding no blood, hair, or evidence of a hit. He later checked his rifle, and determined he was holding too high and shot over the buck.
That evening, I hunted with my daughter, and my dad, and no one saw anything.
Wed morning, I cut up the 6pt from the day before. That evening my wife and I hunted the pop up blind overlooking the oak flat where I killed the buck the day before. We didn't see anything besides squirrels. Right near the end of the evening, my wife and I heard 2 shots near my dad's stand. He texted me and said he'd just shot a buck. I told him I'd go get the truck. When my wife and I got to my dad, he gave us the play by play saying he'd seen some deer on the neighbors property and grunted at them, then looked out in front of his stand and the buck he killed just appeared. It was about 100 yds and it was a bang flop situation, the 2nd shot was just insurance. He was using a Winchester Mod 70 Featherweight in 270win with a Sierra 140gr HP GameKing. This buck was a nice 10pt that we did not have pictures of prior to this evening.
Thanksgiving morning I went out again with my son. He went to the stand my dad had killed the buck the evening before. I spent the morning in the woods in a hollow sheltered from the wind hoping to slip up on one but I did not.
Friday morning everyone slept in, and hunted the afternoon. My wife and I hunted a field edge and saw 5 does, but it was so windy, they didn't stick around long and she was readying for a shot, but they left the field quickly and no shots were fired.
Saturday, my wife and I hunted a different farm that belongs to a friend of my wife's dad. We spent the afternoon hours in the woods overlooking a steep draw in a stand of white oaks hoping to catch movement / feeding. Around 4:15pm, we kept hearing leaves crunching and finally around 4:35pm, I spotted deer moving. Both my wife and began readying for a shot and checking the deer out for horns. There were a total of 8 deer moving our direction. Unfortunately for my wife, she was sitting in a spot where we thought the deer would come from, but like always, they came from a different direction and when we saw them they were already within 75yds so re positioning wasn't really an option. My wife tried to get as steady as possible and when the deer were about 45 - 50yds she shot and deer scattered EVERYWHERE. Neither of us could tell whether she hit the deer, and none of them were looking or acting like a wounded hit deer, and she told me to shoot. By this point, they were stopped about 65 yds and I picked out a fat doe and held dead on the shoulder and squeezed.... BOOM... the doe buckled, hit the ground and went stem over stern flipping backwards about 25yds down into the steep ravine. We spent a good 30 minutes in the fading daylight looking to see if my wife hit the deer she shot, and with no blood or hair present, she and I both determined it was a miss. After gutting my doe, we made a decision to drag downhill vs. uphill. This turned into a goat roapin' of a drag down through a dry creek bed filled with waist deep piles of leaves and after about an hour of dragging, we made it to the county road where my father in law came and picked us up. In all the haste, I didn't take a picture of where I harvested the doe so my wife took the obligatory tailgate picture. This was the first deer I had taken with my Ruger M77 RSI Mannlicher 6.5x55 Swede and I was using a Sierra 120gr ProHunter.
The 120gr Sierra Pro Hunter did a good job. This was the entrance wound.
This was the exit wound. When the bullet went through, it got the tops of both lungs, and clipped the spine.
Opening day in Monroe / Summers county started off with a cold dense fog so thick you couldn't see more than about 40yds in front of you. The fog stayed pretty thick and hung in there like a hair in a biscuit until almost noon, then it burned off almost immediately. My wife and I spent the foggy hours in a pop up blind and we could only see the backs of 2 deer drift through the fog without being able to ID what they were. My son was hunting in another stand and he didn't see anything but a flock of 8 hen turkeys. The evening hunt was my wife and I both passed a shot opportunity on a doe.
Tuesday, my wife, or my daughter didn't want to go, and my son had to work, so it was just me and my dad. Much better visibility today. I saw 5 does in a field on my way to my blind and even though I had 2 doe tags, I decided I wanted to wait on a buck. I was hoping they would stay around the in the general area and bring a buck my way. About an hour later, I was getting comfy in a pop up blind, and I saw the same 5 does feeding my way. I watched them for a bit, when the lead doe started looking over the hill towards the creek bottom so I looked where she was looking and caught movement from a rack buck moving a good clip through the woods. I grabbed my Weatherby Mark V 280 Ackley Improved, and realized I left my shooting sticks propped up against the tree OUTSIDE the blind. So... I had to shoot off hand. I found the buck in my scope and I tried to get settled as much as possible and squeezed the trigger BOOM... he was still walking. I worked the bolt, found him again in the scope BOOM... and he dropped. I wound up breaking his back / spine. Unfortunately I ruined about 8'' worth of tenderloin. Oh well, sometimes you gotta "get 'em on the ground and eat what's left over". Not every shot is going to be perfect. He wound up being a 6pt with no brow tines. I was using a Sierra 150gr GameChanger.
Later that morning, my dad shot at a similar sized buck that was moving across a long hay field, we exhausted a search and ruled it a miss by finding no blood, hair, or evidence of a hit. He later checked his rifle, and determined he was holding too high and shot over the buck.
That evening, I hunted with my daughter, and my dad, and no one saw anything.
Wed morning, I cut up the 6pt from the day before. That evening my wife and I hunted the pop up blind overlooking the oak flat where I killed the buck the day before. We didn't see anything besides squirrels. Right near the end of the evening, my wife and I heard 2 shots near my dad's stand. He texted me and said he'd just shot a buck. I told him I'd go get the truck. When my wife and I got to my dad, he gave us the play by play saying he'd seen some deer on the neighbors property and grunted at them, then looked out in front of his stand and the buck he killed just appeared. It was about 100 yds and it was a bang flop situation, the 2nd shot was just insurance. He was using a Winchester Mod 70 Featherweight in 270win with a Sierra 140gr HP GameKing. This buck was a nice 10pt that we did not have pictures of prior to this evening.
Thanksgiving morning I went out again with my son. He went to the stand my dad had killed the buck the evening before. I spent the morning in the woods in a hollow sheltered from the wind hoping to slip up on one but I did not.
Friday morning everyone slept in, and hunted the afternoon. My wife and I hunted a field edge and saw 5 does, but it was so windy, they didn't stick around long and she was readying for a shot, but they left the field quickly and no shots were fired.
Saturday, my wife and I hunted a different farm that belongs to a friend of my wife's dad. We spent the afternoon hours in the woods overlooking a steep draw in a stand of white oaks hoping to catch movement / feeding. Around 4:15pm, we kept hearing leaves crunching and finally around 4:35pm, I spotted deer moving. Both my wife and began readying for a shot and checking the deer out for horns. There were a total of 8 deer moving our direction. Unfortunately for my wife, she was sitting in a spot where we thought the deer would come from, but like always, they came from a different direction and when we saw them they were already within 75yds so re positioning wasn't really an option. My wife tried to get as steady as possible and when the deer were about 45 - 50yds she shot and deer scattered EVERYWHERE. Neither of us could tell whether she hit the deer, and none of them were looking or acting like a wounded hit deer, and she told me to shoot. By this point, they were stopped about 65 yds and I picked out a fat doe and held dead on the shoulder and squeezed.... BOOM... the doe buckled, hit the ground and went stem over stern flipping backwards about 25yds down into the steep ravine. We spent a good 30 minutes in the fading daylight looking to see if my wife hit the deer she shot, and with no blood or hair present, she and I both determined it was a miss. After gutting my doe, we made a decision to drag downhill vs. uphill. This turned into a goat roapin' of a drag down through a dry creek bed filled with waist deep piles of leaves and after about an hour of dragging, we made it to the county road where my father in law came and picked us up. In all the haste, I didn't take a picture of where I harvested the doe so my wife took the obligatory tailgate picture. This was the first deer I had taken with my Ruger M77 RSI Mannlicher 6.5x55 Swede and I was using a Sierra 120gr ProHunter.
The 120gr Sierra Pro Hunter did a good job. This was the entrance wound.
This was the exit wound. When the bullet went through, it got the tops of both lungs, and clipped the spine.
