ks_shooter
New member
After two weeks of hunting with about 10 different outings and not seeing anything but two does running flat out away from me at a distance of a about a quater of a mile, I found myself exactly where I wanted to be. I was standing at the top of a bluff in a sparse stand of trees watching the ridge above a big creek bottom. My Father-In-Law was walking the bottom as the pusher, and a neighbor was on the opposite side of the bottom from me. With exactly one hour left to go in the season, with plenty of light and almost no wind, Bambi stepped out of the brush and casually started walking across the open pasture. Nice buck, big rack, about 150 yards away and walking at a medium pace. That is the end of the good part of the story. My first mistake was not remembering to whistle to get him to stop. Instead, with my heart pounding, I tried to take a shot while he was moving. I was standing next to a big tree and had my forward hand against the tree for support. The picture in the scope looked reasonable for distance and stability but I had never practice shooting at a moving target. I let one go and he stopped cold. He didn't look hit, but he had stopped, so a racked the bolt and chambered another round. In my haste to get my crosshairs back on him, and with my heart pounding in my ears, I shoved my heavily gloved hand back into the trigger guard and caused a premature shot. No sight picture, missed him by a mile. Round three. By now my composure, what little I started with, was completerly gone, and the buck was starting to move again. I put the scope on him and tried to sweep the gun as he moved. When it looked as good as it was going to get, I squeezed one off. He sped up a little and kept on going. No sign of being hit. I was too embarrassed to take another shot at him, and he was starting to pick up steam. I watched him run out of sight. While I can make excuses about the difficulty of making a standing shot at that distance, even with a support, truth is I know I could make that shot on paper tomorrow. No matter how much you think you prepare for hunting season, sometimes being at the right spot with the right rifle at the right time just isn't enough. I laughed when I read about a guy that ran back and forth to his targets when he was target practicing to simulate the effects of buck fever. I'm not laughing now. Sounds like a damn good idea. BTW, I have taken two deer before this, so I'm not a total beginner. But this buck was the best I had ever seen.