A Hole in Horn Story

My thanks to Scott (Hawkeye) at my MySpace for sharing one of his memorable hunting stories with me in our great outdoors! This is a very sweetthing!

It was Thursday of the second week of West Virginia rifle season in 1999 when a friend and I went to a property we were both members of a hunting lease. Most bucks in this area usually have already been harvested or found a good place to hold up till season is over by this time. We decided to take turns making little drives to each other. We had made a few drives only seeing a few does. Then late morning came and I made a longer drive out around this long steep point. It was a beautiful sunny, cold, crisp morning in which I could have been satisfied just being in the woods! I suddenly heard some deer jump out ahead of me that I couldn't see. They were going right around to were my buddy was waiting! Even before I expected anything I heard him shoot! I quickly worked around to where he was and he was there waiting for me with a little bit of a strange look on his face. We had previously agreed not to shoot any small bucks, so I kind of thought that's what happened anyway. Did You Get Him? I said! Yeah I got one he said, frowning a little......but I shot the wrong one he said. What! We walked over to find a small five point buck with a perfect shot through the lungs. He said that there was one a lot nicer. He thought that because they were all so close that he put the cross hairs on the wrong one! Thankfully he did shoot a legal deer...and I'm pretty sure the five point was the one he put the scope on as he is a good shot. Well where did the other one go I said! Straight out around that point he said, and I began to grin as he said he didn't think they went too far and I agreed since the point they went out was surrounded all the way around by a small river. I quickly went down over the other side along a gas well road and sat against a tree where I could see down to the bottom by the river and also see the hillside good too. It was less than ten minutes when I saw deer coming right out the hillside right above the road! First a big doe and a fawn walking briskly. I let them pass without them noticing me at forty yards. Within fifteen seconds here he came right on the same trail as the doe and her fawn. Broadside too!! At forty yards I quickly got the scope on his chest and shot. He took off running at an angle up the hill as if I missed! I put another round in the chamber and shot while he was running.......he kept going.....then when he was out to about a hundred yards he showed the first sign of being hit! I quickly shot a third time when he slowed and he dropped in his tracks! I ran up and saw that he was hit twice through the lungs...amazingly both shots were within an inch of each other! I think I did hit him the first shot but his adrenaline was running so high from the previous excitement that he ran like he wasn't. Pretty sure I missed the second shot and got the last one right in place after he slowed down a little. My buddy soon came over the hill smiling and said he thought the nicer one he intended to shoot was bigger than mine! Oh well we had a very successful hunt to get two bucks at this point in the season, especially since that area had been hunted hard! The antler seemed to have been poked with something after growing but before hardening. It was a great time spent with a great friend in the awesome West Virginia woods! Your Friend Hawkeye..........Scott