jholand%peruvian@hellgate.utah.edu (John Holand) (05/23/91)
A funny story about my kin:
One deer hunting season my father, brother myself and a few friends
were hunting what is known as the "early split" in ND (the deer season
is split in two seson, one early , one late; the early last one week,
the late lasting two weeks, an starts immediatley following the early)
The "competition" in our hunting parties is not whom can
get the first or the biggest deer (although biggest is a good bonus,
it does mean you have to buy supper!!), the real competition is
in getting your deer with one shot. Now this does not prevent us
>from using multpile shots from "finishing" a deer once hit, it
does cause us to take great care in selecting shots.
Another motivator in this hunt is that we all start out with
a full box of shells and we must bring back all empties to reload
and to verify shots. The person with the most unused shells at the
end of the season whom has bagged a deer wins and that means he does
not have to load the truck, open the gate, or drive until a new winner
next season is proclaimed. So you see the benifits and many.
(oh I might add, you only get one deer in ND gun season)
Now that you have the techincal details the story begins:
My brother and I are walking along the edge of a forest and he
spots a nice 4x4 buck with an excellent spread. I being the gracious
hunter that I am yield and let him "have" the deer. Well my brother being
the awesome shot that he thought he was took aim (iron sights) and fired
an easy 150yd shot with his .270 . Nothing...not even a blink! The
buck just stood there like nothing happened, a total miss! So my
brother fired again.... still nothing! The buck is trying to figure
out what is making this noise! Well my brother empties his rifle and
on the last shot the buck took one step forward.
So now comes my turn! I lift my gun aim and fire. *PAYDAY* the buck
dropped with one shot through the heart and my brother just ate up six
with no results. We ran to the buck and as we get about 25yds away my
brother starts cussing and swearing 'cause he finally realized that
the deer was behind the tree and the tree was blocking the buck's
shoulder making a heart shot impossible! (our favored shot). When
we got to the deer we found two nice splinters in his hide from the tree
near my bullet wound, and a nice 1" grouping of six shots in the trunk
of the tree with one bullet just sticking out the back of the trunk
( we pulled it out with our fingers) obviuosly causing the splintering.
Needless to say my bro was rather pissed off at his error but I was
gratefully because now I had a year of no gate opening, no driving,
and generally glaoting.
John R. Holand
alias>skiBum