Hunting 2018

Opening Day was Saturday, November 17 and sunrise was 7:07 am. I headed out to my hunting stand at 5:30 so that I could get settled well before first light.

There was over a foot of snow on the ground, so it was a bit of a chore slogging through the snow to get to my stand. Fortunately, there was little wind and the temperatures hovered right around the freezing point. Not so bitterly cold as it can sometimes be.

In the early twilight, I saw 4 deer: two small does, one larger doe, and a buck. However, it was too early to legally shoot. Over the next 5 hours I saw no deer. I was getting cold and hungry, so I went back to the house for lunch and to warm up.

A little before 1 pm I returned to my hunting stand. After about an hour, I noticed a buck moving in and out of the hedgerow at the bottom of the field 155 yards away by LASER rangefinder. I waited until he gave me a clear shot and I took aim at a point just behind his left shoulder with my bolt action .308 rifle .

At the sound of the shot, the buck jumped into the hedgrow and out of sight. Fortunately the Barnes TTSX solid copper bullet gave complete penetration and the blood trail was easy to follow. Even though mortally wounded he managed to get past the tree line and tumble about halfway down the ravine at the bottom or our property.

Since the snow was so deep, I could not bring the tractor to retrive the deer and Dale and I had to drag the deer back up the ravine and all the way back to the house for field dressing.

While we were gutting the deer, we were visited by a couple of officers from the Conservation Department Police. They inspected the deer and checked to see that I had properly tagged my harvest. Everything was in order, so they departed fairly quickly.

For the twelfth year in a row, we shall continue the tradition of having fresh venison as a side dish for Thanksgiving dinner.

We got 63 pounds of venison back from the butcher shop and they estimate the deer must have been about 150 pounds before field dressing.

Pathology report is a separate page due to graphic images unsuitable for some viewers