Well today was full of excitement. Plenty to celebrate today. It was my beagle’s Birthday! Happy 8th Birthday Gambit! He’s my super loyal tracking dog. He’s actually a rescue from the animal shelter but does his job like a champ.
We were out of the neighborhood Friday and Saturday, visiting a friend and celebrating his birthday too. But made sure to leave early enough on Sunday to get home for hunting.
Despite having tons of time to get ready we were still a little later than we wanted getting to the woods. There had been thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon and as we got to the woods it was still drizzling. I went to 29 again. I have seen a buck here twice. The first time he was still in velvet and I didn’t try and the second time the buck came to my right where it was really difficult to get to.
Today I brought my swivel cushion and I was glad I did. I had been in the stand for about 40 minutes when I heard a noise to my right. Naturally he was right where I saw him last time and couldn’t get on him.. but If you don’t try you can’t win. So I picked up my rifle and tried to get in a good position. He walked leisurely further in the direction which was inconvenient to shoot. I followed him with my rifle, the swivel seat was a major help and ended up folded together with my knees in front of me nearly to my chin and resting on them to get a good stable shot. He stepped out into and opening and Foxy barked. (My gun is called foxy). I’ll be honest it was not the most perfect shot I have ever taken It was about 1.5 inches lower than it should have been. But the deer took one leap and dropped. It was still a clean shot thru the heart, but because it was a bit low it damaged more meat than absolutely necessary. As it fell I saw another small roe deer take off.
I watched it drop, of course it dropped down behind some brush, I watched for about a minute and I didn’t see it get back up but could not see it clearly from the stand thru the brush. I pulled out my thermal to make sure it stayed put, and got super nervous because I could not find it. I waited a bit longer then climbed down out of my stand to look from the ground, I still could not pick up anything warm with the thermal. So I climbed back up the ladder to double check the direction, only to realize that I hadn’t taken the lens cap off. Silly Mama!
The deer was down right where I thought and everything was ok.
I really didn’t need the help of the tracking dog to find it. It was about 7m from where I shot. But it was his birthday and there is nothing he loves more than tracking so I let him do the job. Naturally he tracked it and found it like the pro he is!
One response to “May 19 – Hunting Journal”
First off congrats on the successful hunt. And by the way live the gambit name of the hunting companion