Thanks guys, and we are still both riding the high today. I am just so impressed with her poise and ability to stay calm. We had 8-10 does come through prior to her buck, and she tried to line up a shot on a big, mature, alpha doe. However, we were shooting into a side hill and the doe was elevated from our position. She had trouble getting the gun adjusted on the tripod without seeing “black rings” in the scope. Just about time she was able to correct and bear down the doe bolted and took the whole herd with her. We were sitting on the ground and the deer were upwind, but that old nanny caught enough movement to spook.
I told her there was still time and that we just needed to have faith. Inside i wasn’t as optimistic as it was just turning 5:00p at this point and starting to get dark. About 5 minutes later a couple fawns came out, and one was a button buck and a little larger. She got lined up on the button, but I told her not to shoot at the last minute. He was just too small for me to be comfortable, and I didn’t want her to regret shooting Bambi.
At this point I could tell by her body language she was very discouraged and upset she couldn’t get the big doe lined up. I reached out to her and reassured her there was still time, and we would stay out till it got dark.
At 5:10 her perseverance was rewarded when the buck came out on the same trail the big doe had used. I told her to get on him early and make whatever corrections needed. When he got into the shooting lane I asked her if she was on him and she whispered “yes”. I told her I was going to stop him and mouth grunted softly. True to form the buck took one more step and stopped to look. I whispered to kill him right there and a moment later she pulled the trigger. The 240 grain JHP hammered through his chest 5″ straight up from his front left leg center mass and he crumpled dead on the spot and never moved again.
I’m not too macho admit there were some tears of joy from both us at that point, and after a few minutes we went to see her buck in the fading light.
