Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 30-30 Win. 150 TSX

Gents,

It was pre-rut in Alabama this past weekend (still a couple weeks away) so we were getting a few does culled... win-win for herd management and the freezer. Was in an elevated stand over a food plot. A button buck came and piddled around in the plot for about an hour before a lone fawn burst out and nearly ran him off. (A hawk almost ran him off before that.) Don't know if the fawn is an orphan or already left mom... but based on all the other doe/fawn pairs we're seeing, I'm guessing mom didn't make it. Not long after the first dawn showed up, I had a deer blowing about 100 yards east of the plot. Both deer turned to check it out and the button buck actually squared up in that direction and started stamping. A few minutes later, another doe with twin fawns came out. She looked ragged... definitely still feeding them... barely bigger than the fawns. Then five minutes later, another, much larger/healthier looking doe, came out. She arrived from the opposite direction of the original fawn and kept her distance from the others. (I don't think this was mom.) Shot from about 80 yards. Slightly quartering away. She froze at the shot and bolted to the closest wood line. I had sight of her tail about 10 yards back in the trees and it almost looks like she was circling (think of a dog trying to nip its down tail) then all sound stopped. The button buck and second adult doe bailed but the three fawns stood around for a minute then went back to feeding for another 10-15 minutes. I waited for them to leave naturally before climbing down. The target doe was situated diagonally between the only two trees in the plot, so it was very simple to find exactly where she was standing. There was blood, but I was a little surprised not to find more. A consistent trail led led about 12 yards into the woods (it was a steady drip with occasional blotches of heavier bleeding) then the path veered sharp left and then wound to the right about another 25 yards into the thicker briars. Blood trail remained consistent, but now we found a few bigger smears and more of the blood was thick and clearly from a lung hit. Found her piled up in the thorns. As it turned out, the bullet had passed through. The entry was right where I thought, a few inches behind the shoulder -- and exit right behind the shoulder on the opposite side (quartering away -- photo below shows entry wound). The exit wound was about the size of a nickel and a shard of rib was sort of floating in it (broken but still attached inside). This seemed to explain the blood situation. The steady trickle of blood we followed was likely coming from the exit wound and the larger sign was what got coughed up as the lungs flooded. Hard to tell if that piece of rib "plugged" the exit wound some... it bled pretty freely though when poked it. I really can't complain about a pass through and a dead deer, but I'll confess that the size of the exit surprised me a bit. I'd just assumed that hollow point would take more with it on the way out. Regardless, the Marlin 336 got it done and looked good doing it!

IIRC I sent the rest to Dinny when he was doing
bullet tests