phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
I have a funny story about that same rifle.
A friend and colleague of mine, a few years back, decided he was gonna cut out of work a little early to go take a walk on some of his family's land nearby. this was during our rifle season here in PA. he had taken his son out few times and had given his son his grandmother's model 94 in 32 spc to use. He had the 32 in his vehicle and that is what he decided to carry on this evening 'hunt'. he got his orange on and grabbed the rifle and walked into the woods. He was walking down the little access path when a few deer noticed him and hopped up out of the beech brush about 60 yds away. he saw a nice young 6 point in the group. he shouldered the rifle and took aim at the buck, fired once and the deer dropped in its tracks! He called me up and asked if i could bring my truck down to help him get it out of the woods, his family man mini van wouldn't make it back in this road. I said sure and was on my way.
He walked back out to his vehicle where I picked him up and he recounted the events of this hunt as we bumped along the little woods road. he said stop right here the deer is about 60 yds down that way. So i stopped and we got out and I could see the buck laying there. I congratulated him as we walked up to the buck. The buck's back was facing us and I couldn't see any gunshot wound or blood, i asked where he hit it and he said he aimed just behind the front shoulder on the side facing the ground...didn't think much that there would be an exit wound or not. I circled around to the head to look at the antlers....my buddy grabbed a hind leg to roll it over. as he picked up on the leg the deer's ear twitched and i saw its chest heave with a breath! I said, "dude! he's still breathing!" just as the buck picked its head up and started moving its front legs trying to get to its feet! Instinctively, i reached down and grabbed an antler with each hand, having a beech sapling between my arms and between me and the buck, i tried to wrestle the bucks head and front end back to the ground as he attempted to stand......I yelled "go get your rifle from the truck we have live one!", as my buddy attempted to hold the hind end down. He replied that he left the rifle back in his vehicle....about 400 yds away!
At this point, the deer was starting to get the best of us, i knew i could not let go or this deer would have control of his front end and he would take off, I yelled for my buddy to get his knife out as he was literally bear hugging the deer's hind end while laying on it's back.....he replied he had no knife on him....i directed him to the knife clipped in my carhartt's leg pocket...my CRKT M-16 "high risk environment". he was able to reach the knife and after several jabs with the blade the buck stopped struggling and expired. Not the most proud moment I've had while hunting...but one of the more memorable ones.
after a brief rest and reflection on the craziness that just transpired i had time to think about what just happened. Many questions were racing through my head. the whole time i was operating under the assumption this deer had been at the least mortally wounded and would sure escape us and recovery would be difficult with the certain surge of adrenaline this deer was experiencing through the beginning stages of this ordeal. Finally i flipped the deer over to look for the entry wound.....nothing. We both were amazed. After further inspection, i noticed a small bit of blood on the deer's head just above the eye socket and just below the burr of the antler. As i ran my fingers across the forehead i could feel the bullet under the hide! Some how he managed to shoot this deer in the head, and have the bullet skin along the contour of the skull under the hide where it came to rest about 5" from the entry point. Essentially he knocked this deer out! I'm amazed that the deer didn't come to in the 15-20 mins time frame from the shot to when we walked up to!
