First Buck

[NCelkhtr]

My Fiance' has been on to me about taking her hunting to see what all the fuss was about and to see why I liked spending all my free time tromping around the woods. With the opening of muzzeloader here in NC I took her to a piece of property I have permission to hunt, I chose this place to take her because of the number of does in the area, the place is crawling with numbers of deer, but most of the time seeing few bucks. Let me start this off by saying I shot a doe a few days before for the freezer, it being last light I didn't reload the gun, and the packaging my sabot bullets came in had busted open in my pack (this will be important later lol). That morning we sat in a old blow down, and down wind of a thicket hoping to lay one down with the smoke pole going to bed. After an hour a yearling buck came by in a trot at 12" from us. He was coming right at us so she couldn't move, but by the time he was by us she didnt have a shot. A little later I heard something behind me, easing my head around I could tell it was a nice buck and he was headed down the same trail the button head was on but in the opposite direction. When he crossed the end of the log we were sitting at (12' again, i stepped if off when we got up) he glanced at us and got a little antsy but not bad. She let him get about 15 yards and pass behind a tree when she threw the gun to her shoulder, when he cleared the other side he looked at us, and she lowered the boom (now it gets interesting). Loud sound, smoke, and a small plastic piece hit the deer, THATS IT. He looks around and trots off stopping a few times just to rub it in. THERE WAS NO BULLET IN THE GUN, IT HAD FELL OUT AND WAS LAYING AT OUR FEET. What had happened is when the bullets had fell out in my pack I put a 230 grain bullet in a 250 grain jacket, when putting the bullet into the gun I thought it was going in easy but it was also 5:30am so I may have still been 1/2 asleep. I was some kind of ill for a few minutes, but she was laughing, told dont worry there was a reason it happened. After lunch we sat on a fence row near a cut cornfield (those are far and few between here in western NC), we watched 4 yearling deer for an hour and a half before deciding to crawl up the fence line to check out the other 1/2 of the field nesseled back in the bottom with woods on 3 sides. After about a 70 yard crawl we spotted a few big does we wanted to pick off, getting into position we waited for a few minutes. All of a sudden Deer started just filing out of the wood line, there were close to 20 deer in a 7 acre field at one time. Then here come one on a trot. Looking through my binos I could tell he was a nice buck, we let him clost the distance to 80 yards, she got him in the cross hairs.....then... click......there was no primer put in the gun after we got back from lunch. One doe bounds off taking a few more with her. He swings his head around trying to find the source of the sound, luckly the primers were in my pocket, I loaded another while she held the gun, shut it back. Then... BOOM....smoke clears and I see him run into the woods with his tail down, not sure but I think I see him get a case of the wabble but before getting into the woods. We pack up all our stuff and she is nervous about the shot since she saw him run, we give him 30 mins and start tracking in the dark, 15 yards inside the woodline is an 8ptr with both lungs blowed out and a 16" spread (that is a trophy for the area of NC I'm from). She is jumping up and down fist pumping and smiling ear to ear. I think she understands now why I like it so much, I also think she may have the hunting bug. But it did make for an easy CHRISTmas gift, deer mount lol.[img][img][/img][/img]

[NCelkhtr]

i cant figure out how to make the picture show up

[WapitiTalk1]

Great first buck for sure! Congrats.

[Swede]

Congratulations to you and your girlfriend NCElkhtr. Now work to get her out West elk hunting. BTW is is good to have another tar heel here. I am a transplant from Statesville.

[NCelkhtr]

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thanks Swede for the help, it just took me a while to figure out how to resize the picture. And yeah good to know theres another I'm from Lenoir, not to far from Statesville. Elk hunting is the next step

[cnelk]

Great stuff Zack!

Love to see the blood on those cheeks for the 1st deer!

[Swede]

Zack, From what I see posted, I doubt the elk will be looking forward to you and your girlfriend hunting them. Just let us know how we can help you get started. The elk can get accustomed to it.

[twinkieman]

Congrats, and welcome to the "club"

[ElkNut1]

Yes sir, a huge congrats!

ElkNut1

[NCelkhtr]

Thanks fellas I'll have to pass the congrats on to her. And Swede I appreciate your help, Brad really helped me out planning an elk hunt this year, but just before we were leaving had a little bad luck and wasn't able to make the trip. For sure going to make it happen this coming September.