First for this year

After the recent cold spell I wanted to get out and check what was wandering around in one of my deer woods and I wanted to get in some practice for my upcoming ICR.

I was in the high seat an hour before first light and a good half an hour before the woodies started waking up. Unusually there were no Munties barking as I made my way in, so I thought I was going to draw a blank and have to settle for some squizzer control.

I was slowly glassing the wood every two or three minutes but nothing was showing.

As the light came up two young bucks came hopping into view, intermittently browsing and skipping around.

I was enjoying watching them play and debating whether to wait for a doe when I remembered that I hadn’t opened my account on this area this year.

I lifted the .223 from its rest, set the mag on minimum and very slowly chambered a round.

The deer were still not aware I was there, and by this time they were less than ten metres from my seat.

The larger one was obscured by a large oak tree but the smaller one was just starting to appear from behind another.
I lined him up and the moment he stopped I loosed the shot.

He leapt in the air, spun around and ran thirty metres before staggering to a halt, a little wobble, then over on his side.

He was just visible through the brush and after a few leg twitches he was clearly not moving.

The larger buck had only run ten metres away from me before stopping, still just in view.

After a minute or two he began to make his way over to his companion, so I lined him up and tracked him through the scope.

It was a few minutes (or maybe ten) before he became more than just a shadow in the brush, and even then his lower half was still obscured by scrub and fallen trees.

After five more minutes of stop, start edge forward and look he turned as though he was leaving, so it was now or never. I aimed just behind his eye, as his head was the only thing I had a fully clear shot at even at forty yards, blew him a kiss and as soon as he stopped I squeezed the trigger and he crumpled on the spot.

The small ones larder weight was 5.8kg and the larger one 7.9kg.
 

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