[fabsroman]

I killed the first deer I ever shot at. I was hunting in Leesburg at a friend of my father's place. I was using my dad's Savage .30-06 which is older than me. It was one of the colder days I've been hunting. Not more than 15 minutes on stand, a doe and a button buck came up to the stand. They actually started eating the bushes underneath the tree. I waited a couple of minutes to see if anything bigger came along and then I decided to shoot the button buck. Didn't know it was a button buck at the time. It took me forever to get the rifle around without spooking them. Then, it took forever to get the deer in the scope because it was a 4x scope and the deer was about 20 yards away. When I finally got it in the scope and pulled the trigger, I got somewhat lucky because I hit it in the spine and almost missed completely. The bullet split in half and there were two exit wounds. Needless to say, the deer didn't move a bit. That would have been a great shot for bowhunting.

Since then, I have had plenty of days without seeing a thing and plenty of misses too. On opening day for firearms this year I missed two at about 100 yards and then killed two at about 250 yards with my .300 Win Mag. I was sick at myself after the first two misses, not to mention that the scope had given me a good clobbering. The first two caught me by surprise while I was walking down to the house. The other two were on the run when I saw them out the house window. I took off running. Ended up running about 150 yards the same way they were going. I tried to get a shot on them when they were about to cross a fence, but I couldn't get set up in time. So, I watched them continue running across a pasture. They were headed toward a creek that I knew they had to jump. So, I set the gun on a fence post and waited for them to get there. The doe jumped the creek first, stopped for a second, and I dropped her. The button buck jumped the creek next and I dropped him. I thought the rifle was sighted in for 100, but from the looks of it, it must have been sighted in for 200. I felt like a jackass. I will definitely sight it in next year.

VAShadow,

Maybe next season we can get together and do some hunting. I know I promised to take you bow hunting this season, but I didn't get out a single day to bow hunt. In fact, I can count the number of hunting days on both hands. Next season, the townhouse will be finished and the wedding and honeymoon will be over and done with, so I should have plenty of time to hunt and shoot since I don't get too busy with work until about the end of January.