I envy you your confidence in running shots. I am not that confident. I do not mind a miss but I do mind a bad hit. I do mind a hit on an animal that I am not supposed to shoot. I do mind focusing on the target and not on the background where the bullet goes when I am not the only hunter in the woods.
Where I was hunting in western PA I was posted while deer were driven by me. Deer will move if you walk through the woods. They know the drivers are there. You just push them along.
The drivers where I hunted yelled and shouted and used various aids to make loud clanging noises. They wanted to move the deer and they sure did. The deer moved at warp speed.
So I am watching a logging road with thick cover on either side. There are other hunters posted up and down the road from me, out of my sight. I hear the banging and clanging. I hear the noise in the brush. Suddenly three shapes emerge from the brush, cross the road and disappear into the brush in less time than it takes to read this sentence. I have no idea what the deer are, let alone whether any of them is a buck with enough points to be legal in the game area I am in. Somewhere down the road past them is another hunter hidden from me but not necessarily safe from me. Your advice about shooting when the buck nears the top of his bound doesn't help much, does it? If you would take a shot under these circumstances, I would not care to hunt with you.
One opening day where we took post in the dark. When the dawn emerged there were other hunters not only near me but close-about 50-75 yards away. A nice legal buck emerged and ran between two of us. Shooting under those circumstances is now called collateral damage. I have no idea what it was called in 1953.
I saw one of these poor animals close up once. I was seated just off a trail. I heard the drivers then an animal crashing through the brush. I did not know there were elephants in Pennsylvania. At the top of the hill the animal emerged. It was a button buck, running for its life, eyes wide and bulging, tongue hanging out. It ran down the trail and stopped, stock-still, right behind me. I turned around and said, "Hi, there." Off it went on another headlong charge. ======================================== Don't give up yet. This is the time to shoot and not talk to the deer. You will learn. ======================================= I went to a 6X after spotting a legal buck in a field with some does in Michigan about 40 years later than 1953. It was 10 minutes before the end of shooting time. The buck was obvious through the 7X42 Swarovski binoculars, but the 4X Zeiss T coated lenses only showed that there were deer out there. If you need to see which deer is a buck and count the points to make sure it is legal, at dawn, at dusk, in the shade of the trees near or across a clearing, you need the definition that 6X or above provides. I am hoping the 4X Zeiss Conquest will do, but I don't know yet. It is impressive at the range.
Enjoy your running shots at a nice buck with a 4x scope.
