Since my brother guilted me into a story, here's the short version.
After arriving in San Antonio at 1:00P.M. and a short 90 minute drive we were in our deer stand for the first afternoon sit. With only 2 hours until dark we saw only 1 small buck, but still had 4 full days to hunt.
We were in our stand the next day a good 45 minutes before first light, and as soon as we could see anything at all we new that we were covered up in deer. The first deer that I saw was a 155" class 10 point that made me almost crap my pants as he was only 40 to 50 yards away. You might ask why you don't see a photo of my son with this buck, it's because a buck of that size is a $6000.00 deer. The hunt that we were on allowed us to take a buck up to 135", after that the price goes up fast.
Anyway as it got lighter this deer came into view and my son was asked if this was a deer that he would like to shoot. Well 1 shot later from his Winchester Model 70 in .270 Win. he had his 1st out of state deer and a beaitiful 120" South Texas Whitetail.
Now some of you might have noticed the old Winchester'94 in the background of this photo, this rifle was my Great Grandfathers and I have taken several deer ( Blacktail ) and feral pigs with this rifle and was determined to kill my Texas buck with it too.
On day 2 of our hunt I shot and lost a 130" class 10 point that I'm still sick to my stomach about.
An 80 yard shot that dropped him in his tracks was thought to be a fatal shot turned out not to be the case. The buck laid motionless for a good minute to a minute and a half, as we were watching other deer after the shot and looking back to the buck on the ground at some point after at least 1 minute the buck managed to get up and stumble into the brush about 20 yards away. I failed to take a follow up shot due to the fact that I only had an ass shot and he was looking like he was going to tip over at any second. In hind sight sure I should have taken the shot, I would gladly have lost a hind quarter or backstrap to have recovered this deer. It's a sad truth that if you hunt long enough this kind of thing can and will happen. As it turns out I'm very proud of my son and more than just a little disapointed in myself.
I hope that everyone reading this has a healthly and prosperous New Year and a great season of drawing and filling the tags you want.
