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OK, After some much needed sleep and coffee, I think we're gonna survive. It was a great day in the field. Tyler and I saw 31 deer, 8 bears, a rattle snake, and 4 water moccasins. As most of you know, here in the southeast, running hounds as a method of hunting has been a family tradition for generations. Tyler and I were in a swamp that is usually full of water but only had a little branch running through it because of the drought. We saw and eliminated 4 moccasins. Here's the big one:
Anyhow, Tyler and I were hunkered down in a old dead fall chit chatting when off in the distance, we could here the hounds getting closer by the minutes. By the way that they were running, I knew that the deer was skirting down the branch, coming our way. The problem was the wind was blowing our scent right down the branch towards where the hounds were coming from. Tyler told me that he had a bottle of scent shield in his back pack so we quickly sprayed down as the hounds were getting closer and closer. I finally spotted the buck. He was a long way ahead of the dogs sneaking up the branch, coming right to us. I got Tyler in a position where he could get a good shot at the deer as he approached. I honestly had no intention on shooting the buck unless Tyler missed. We were both shooting our shotguns loaded loaded with buckshot. The buck was about 65 -70 yards away when he slammed on the brakes, stuck his nose out ( he had obviously smelled us ) and suddenly bolted to our right and when he came by us @ 60 yards he was flying. I told Tyler to shoot, the first 2 shots from his remington 1100 20 gauge, hit behind the deer. I told Tyler that he was shooting behind him. Things weren't looking good at all so I started spanking him with my 1100 loaded with 3" mag, 00 buckshot. The first shot was a good hit but he got right back on his feet but wasn't running as fast. Tyler's next shot was also a good hit and you could see that he was getting closer to the ground all the time. I think that we both shot one more time as he entered a thicker area. A couple of minutes later, the hounds came by, barking for every breath. When they got into the thick area, they hushed and I knew what this meant
. The dogs began to filter back out, trying to figure out where the deer went. Tyler and I walked over and I told him to look for blood. He said, "why, he's laying right there" we approached the deer cautiously but he was through. Tyler was extremely excited and so was I. We called my uncle for help and within 45, we had plenty of help to drag him to the truck. His rack is very narrow so we're going to enter him as a doe. Here's a pic of him.
God Bless,
