Deer Gun Hunting - Opening

We had one of our best
opening weekends ever this year... Kirk shot a 10 point buck and I shot an 8 pointer opening morning. Opening day in the evening Larry shot a 6 pointer and Mark shot a spike. Somehow I don't have pictures of the 6 or the spike, but here are the 10 (hanging) and my 8 laying on my new hitch rack. :-)

My story: aound 10-something opening morning I saw a doe walking through the woods about 60 yards from my stand and angling away from me to the North East. I scoped it and confirmed it had no horns. I saw what I thought was a fawn out of the corner of my eye following the doe about 15 yards behind her. I scoped the fawn to double-check, and realized that it was actually a buck with decent horns. It started to trot after the doe, also angling away from me. I shot at the buck and it immediately dropped low and wheeled around running about 10 yards back the way it had come and stopped. The doe ran back to the buck and they both started walking away from me to the North West this time. The buck didn't seem to be hurt so I sighted in on it through the brush and tried to shoot again but my next shell had not gone into the chamber. I manually worked the next shell from the clip into the chamber and sighted in again on the buck... now about 65 yards out in some heavy brush. I shot again and heard a lot of commotion but could only see the legs of one deer through the brush. I wasn't sure if it was the buck or doe I was seeing so I waited, hoping it would come back into my line of site. It never did so after about 10 minutes I got out of my stand and went over to the area where I saw the buck lying there on its side. Apparently the first shot had only grazed off some hair on its back, and the second shot was directly through both lungs dropping it on the spot. The first shot should have been the easier shot, but luckily I got a chance to take a second shot or I would not have got him.

As for Kirk's story: I'm not sure, but I think the deer saw him and took off running, and before Kirk could shoot it ran into a tree and broke its neck, dropping dead on the spot... or something like that. He can post a comment and correct me if thats not what happened.

Larry had his come in following a doe and some fawns, and Mark shot his through the shoulders as it was running across a field.

We are waiting for Pete to shoot a fork buck and complete the string (10, 8, 6, 4, 2).