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January 2002 deer season extension was pretty exciting. 

This time, we did see deer by the truckload. Between the 4 of us in the group, we saw 22 deer on Saturday. We burned up a lot of gun powder and only bagged 2 nice fat deer.

It was one of those days when it seems like everything goes wrong but you still end up getting a chuckle about how it went down.

My brother kind of got it all started when he missed with 2 shots. Seems 5 deer watched him relieve himself and were waiting for him when he turned around. They were 200 yards away across CRP grass. 

Then it was my turn. One of the guys stopped by my tower to see what was going on in my neighborhood. While we chatted, 6 deer jumped the fence and stopped to look at us. I dropped one of the deer and settled the crosshairs on a second deer. The muzzle blast from my first shot had the buddy scrambling, so I did not fire a second shot. By the time he got his gun on them, all that filled his scope were flags. Later we were talking about how far they were from the stand and I guessed at least 75 yards. The other guy that was with me guessed less than 50. My trusty Bushnell Rangefinder proved us both wrong, it was 95 yards. It was a picture perfect distance. You can see her laying in this picture. She dropped in her tracks.

Fortunately, the 5 that got away headed straight for the 4th guy in the party. He got one of them but only after squeezing the trigger on 3 misfires. The 4th shell fired. The 5th shell fired but did not connect with anything.

We field dressed the 2 deer and hauled them to the barn lot. Re-grouped and planned our next mission. 2 guys would sit in my brothers tower and 2 guys would walk to the tower from the north. I was one that went north. 

I did not take a rifle, I had my new Ruger 45 and really wanted to take a deer with it. When we started in at the north we put about 100 yards between us and planned to just start south and pause for a few minutes. The other guy stepped across the fence and all but kicked 5 deer. They split up and took off. 2 of them came right past me at 100 mph. They passed within 20 feet of me. I never even saw the scope on the first shot, the second shot, I actually looked through the scope, pulled a bead and squeezed the trigger. At their rate of speed, I figure the bullet passed about 6 feet behind them. I probably would have done better just to throw the pistol at them as they came by.

Meanwhile, the other 3 deer headed right for the tower. My brother was one in the tower, his gun would not fire. The other guy fired twice and touched nothing. Turns out the bolt on my brother's 700 had accidentally lifted just enough that the gun would not fire.

Sunday morning we woke to a dusting of snow and fine snow coming down sideways. After sitting in my tower and getting completely covered with a thin layer of snow, I was over it. The wind was whipping around in the stand and there was no place in the tower to get away from the snow.

The others in the group were having about as much fun.

I tried the short drive from the north again like I had on Saturday, this time I did it alone. Got to my brothers tower and he was frozen. He decided to walk a fence line southwest of his tower. About 5 minutes from the tower he jumped 4 does that left in high gear never to be seen again.

We worked that area over trying to figure out where they went but no luck. I called it a day, hitched the trailer and headed for home. My brother and the other 2 guys stayed another hour or two and hung it up. The wind was blowing about 20 mph.

All in all, one of the best deer hunting weekends I have had in a long time.

Bill

Last Modified: Thursday, May 7, 2009 11:29 PM