Getting started on White Tail

[rookieforever33]

Get very proficient at shooting your gun, or bow, and make sure to practice real world not just bench. 100 yards with a slug gun is plenty but you better be able to take the shot quick. Also practice holding a shooting pose for 30 seconds and then cracking off a shot quickly. You do not want to be trying to figure out deer while you are still figuring out how to shoot straight. Other than that remember that hunting isnt killing. You need to enjoy the woods and learning about them. Shooting animals is just the reason to go, and the proof you are good at it.

 

[Boarmaster]

This is good advice. In more than 40 years in the woods, I've killed 90+ whitetails, and still screw up sometimes.

I would love to have a composite video of all my screw ups my first few years out there on my own. That was so long ago it would probably be in black and white…. I feel sure I could win me $10,000 on that funnest home video…. I killed a lot of game even back then but my gosh it wasn't pretty…

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I’ve been hunting deer for over 35 years and I still mess things up. But my number one sin is not always maintaining sight picture and being ready for an immediate follow up shot from every possible angle and field position. Practice that.

One other thing I have learned - the hard way - is to make a record of and/or memorize exactly where the deer was when you shot. Even with “enough gun” and “proper shot placement” and “a good bullet” deer don’t always go “down right there.” When that happens, you need a plan to recover the deer. I have started taking a picture with my phone and marking the spot where the deer was when I fired. I also check my surroundings so that if I need to get back to where I fired from, to check that I am looking in the right spot, I can. When the excitement hits, it is really easy to forget these details. If you have to look for blood, you want to be sure you are starting in the right spot. I’ll also use On-X recording to mark these spots and record my track.

Additionally, remember that even with a good killing shot, a deer can run for about 10 seconds and might not bleed externally. I’ve killed three deer with high lung shots that left no blood trail until the last ten yards of a 400-yard trail.


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“Keep on keepin’ on…”

 

[Q_Sertorius]

This is an example of how I marked the spot where the deer was standing when I fired. It was about 130 yards away. I was using a 300-grain .45-caliber sabot in a .50-caliber muzzleloader. When the deer jumped up, I was about to cross a rocky draw over to his side. As soon as he jumped, I dropped to my ass, rested my elbows on my knees in the best hasty sitting position I could get, and aimed at the most likely gap in the trees. Instead of running, he stopped to look back just before he would have vanished over the ridge. I estimate he was mostly stopped for about half a second when I fired. He was quartering away slightly, I held high on his right shoulder, but hit further back and lower than I wanted. I still clipped the top of his lung, but I didn’t destroy either shoulder.

Not a drop of blood from this deer until he tumbled. Despite entrance and exit wounds. I followed his trail of disturbed leaves 400 yards. Connie, the farm dog, “helped” by pulling me along the only available trail, but I had to get her going in the right direction. Left to her own devices, she would have followed the trail back to where he was born.

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“Keep on keepin’ on…”