I'm still not sure what happened this afternoon. I sat in a ground blind I have in the Alapaha River swamp east of town. I had a shooting pod set up in my blind to be sure the .270 Remington model 700 would be steady for a possible shot. I hadn't got around to sighting in this season, but wasn't worried because this gun seems to keep itself sighted in from season to season.
At 5:30pm a doe came out about 70 yards out, followed immediately by what looked like a fork horn buck. I didn't want to shoot the little buck so I waited.
A few minutes later, the doe took off running followed by a nice buck. I watched him carefully with 10x binoculars and decided he was a mature 8 point. He was big enough for a first buck of the season.
The big buck and the little guy milled around until I decided to take the shot. I lined the scope up on the base of the big buck's neck and squeezed the trigger. I saw a deer fall and kick on the ground. Then, the doe and a buck ran back across the clearing.
I figured I'd walk down and see the deer. When I got to the scene of the crime I was surprised and disappointed not to find the buck on the ground, but evidence of a severely gut shot deer. Stomach contents but not much blood.
I didn't see a blood trail at all so I circled out in arcs where the tracks indicated the deer had run. About 50 yards out from the place I hit the deer I picked up a blood trail and followed it like the yellow brick road. The deer fell or lay down three places along the blood trail. At 300 yards along, I spotted the buck on the ground again out in front of the blood trail. His head was up and the antlers didn't look quite right to me, but I finished him off with a shot to neck where it connects to the head.
I had hit him in the back haunch and the bullet must have glanced off the bone and exited through the stomach. The exit hole was big enough to have dropped the entire stomach and intestines at the shot, so the meat was not tainted by stomach fluids from my exceedingly poor shot. First time ever I've had one field dress himself!
Somehow I had managed to miss the buck I was shooting at and kill the smaller one. He was a small five point; not what I wanted, but will eat just fine.
I called one of my sons who came out with my grandson to help pull the deer out of the woods and get him in my son's truck and on to the processor.
I will go and sight in my rifle tomorrow morning and try to figure out what happened. The smaller buck was out in front of the one I shot at, so I had to have missed my target by several feet. This was either the worst shot I ever made or the luckiest!
My wife's first question was when had I last had my eyes checked. If the scope's not badly off, she might have a point...Geo
