Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What's the closest deer you've shot?

I was taking to an acquaintance today and he told me about a Red stag he shot this year during the roar (rut)
He was in a hollow just below a ridge where a tree had fallen, he'd been there for about 20 minutes calling and had one stag further along the ridge coming into his calls. He told me he was focused on the one that was roaring back and coming in quite quickly along the side of the ridge when he heard a twig break just below him. The next thing he knew a big bodied ten point stag was coming over the lip of the hollow, it saw him, snorted and lowered its head about 5 yards away. He literally turned his rifle in one hand, pointed it and fired with the muzzle about four inches from the stags head. It half reared up, turned part way round and fell at his feet.
At that stage the one that had been roaring back at him let out one final roar from about five yards over the lip of the hollow behind him and crashed away downhill.

He swears he's never going back there, reckons the deer were hunting him.

The closest one I've shot was five yards away, my mate and I had hunted all morning and arranged to meet on top of the ridge at 11.30am for lunch.
I got there just ahead of him, rolled a cigarette and sat on a log whistling so he'd know where I was. He turned up and we discussed the mornings hunt, finished our smokes. I turned to walk down the ridge and saw ears poking out of a clump of fern. I managed to get my rifle up and the deer spooked, jumped up and was almost running before her legs hit the ground.
My shot went through the skin high on the front of her shoulder, angled into the lower neck and broke her spine.

She was bedded down no more than two steps from where we had been standing smoking. It was funny because we had both mentioned that we could smell deer and had both looked around more than once from where we were standing.

So, what's your closest, not counting shots from tree stands?

19 yards with a 94 in .30-30 for deer. 9 yards for a black bear with a Marlin 1895.

I have killed a number of deer at ranges less than 20 feet. The thickets here in East Texas are VERY thick so shots at under 25 yards are the norm rather than an exception. Closer shots are not that uncommon for someone who knows how to slip quietly and stay still.

My closest shot was actually at "0" feet....a "contact" shot. I was slipping along through a creek bottom and had come to a section where the bank on my side was 12-15 feet above the creek. It was near verticle and there was no way to get down to the creek where i wanted to hunt. Then I came to a spot where there was a narrow (16-18") trail leading down to the creek bottom across the sheer drop off. It was steep, but passable so I started down.

Just then 3 deer came running down the creek at the bottom of the wall. Something must have spooked them as they were REALLY moving on. I threw up the rifle as the deer were about to pass some 20 feet below me.....but couldn't find a target. All I could see through the scope was a blur.....so I dropped the rifle down to try and locate the deer again.

This all happened in seconds. The deer had apparently split up with two going on down the creek....but one apparently decided to go up the trail to the top of the bluff. The trail I WAS STANDING ON!!

I can't really say I planned things as they turned out as the deer was coming up at a high rate of speed. I fell back against the bluff wall and pulled the trigger as the deer went past....actually hitting the end of my rifle barrel. As luck would have it, that shot broke the deer's spine just over the shoulder and she tumbled to the creek bottom as I tried to get my heart back down out of my throat.

While that was the closest actual shot I ever took at a deer, the most interesting was on one I passed up. I was slip hunting one morning in a slow drizzling rain. Then about an hour after daylight, the skies opened up and it bagan to rain "like a cow pissing on a flat rock" (as my grandfather used to say).

I looked for someplace to shelter from the rain and saw a very thick cedar tree a few yards away. It's lower limbs reached to within a foot of the ground and the needles were so thick very little rain would reach the base of the tree. I quickly stepped to the cedar and snuggled under the low hanging limbs. Just as I settled down against the base of the tree....something moved just s few feet away.

I looked and saw it was a small 4 point buck (smaller than what I was hunting that day) laying against the same tree I was sitting against. It was so close I could have easily have reached out and touched him with my hand. I know deer can't really "think", but that buck seemed to have an expression that said "If you'll leave me alone, I'll leave you alone and we can both stay dry".

We sat there for probably 15 minutes when the rain began to slack a bit. The little buck got up and started out from under the cedar....stopping one last time to look back at me before disappearing. I waited a few minutes and crawled out to continue my hunt. It wasn't a "kill", but that was the most interesting "close encounter" I ever had with a deer.

5 yards.
Pouring rain, windy as heck. I was slowly slipping through a corn field, checking each row. Fortunately he was facing away from me and never heard me.

Texas Rick - that's one heck of a great story about the cedar tree buck in the rain.

I've taken several deer at around 20 yards, but nothing like the distances you guys are talking. Wow!

MAYBE 20 feet away, more like 10-15

Is that a .45-70? Are you sure you used enough gun?


Texas Rick, loved the story about the buck under the tree. That's a real once in a lifetime thing.

When I used to bow hunt I was on the ground sneaking on a doe and 2 fawns once when I spooked the doe. They all took off, I had brushy cover. the fawns didn't know which way to go, one of them ran in a big circle and almost ran right into me. I was at full draw standing when it came straight at me and locked the brakes. The little deer stopped so short of hitting me that if I tripped my release the broadhead would have been in the deer before the nock left the string lol!

(I didn't shoot the fawn, that's just my best close deer story)

Rick that is a great story about your bedded buck. I have one almost the same about a coyote I didn't shoot.

Closest deer kill for me was a shot at about two feet.
I was sitting on the ground behind a forked sappling sweet gum tree watching a natural opening.
Wind in my face. Several doe came into the opening and began to play. One kept getting closer and closer in the course of them chasing each other. She came to a stop about five feet from me. A decent eight came out of the woods on my left at a dead run toward her. When he went past the sappling I was sitting behind I just poked the rifle through the fork and shot him without even thinking about it.

I shot one in the face at less than ten feet. I watched my cousin jam a 94 into a deer's ribs and pull the trigger when I was maybe 30 feet away. The deer kept moving but as I swung on it I saw it was spraying blood like a hose so I pulled off. I've had a number of them almost get it with a shotgun while bird hunting. Several of those would have been contact shots. It's kinda scary when a deer gets so close you have to shove it off.

I shot a 9pt buck in 2008 at 50 feet with a rifle.

Shot a few does at less than 10 yards with my bow.

Whitetail doe at 12 feet!

I shot a mulie forkhorn at about 5 feet. Jumped him out a little fence row he was bedded down in. Must have thought I would walk by him when he figured out I was going to step on him. He jumped up and hopped once and stopped. Otherwise I would not have had room to swing my rifle around without hitting him. I think I was more surprised than he was. Nothing but hair in my sights. Not the best shot I ever made but was the fastest.

I have shot several black bears at closer than that with a pistol when hound hunting years ago.

A young whitetail buck at about 6 feet. I was on the ground without any kind of blind or cover. It definitely had a death wish.

RH

I guess the closest deer I shot was a decent 8 pinter from area 203 in northern MN.



To say we were "close" might be a stretch.

We knew of each other, but we weren't friends really. Mere aquaintances I guess you could say.

Found some acorns falling early in a creek bed on a squirrel hunt one morn, so I headed back in that eve with my bow. A mass of roots was hanging over the small creek bank, so I crawled into the roots and settled in. A small buck came walking down the creek bank later that eve and I arrowed him at a mere 15-20 feet.

The first whitetail I killed was standing 10 feet away when I shot it in the neck with a 20 gauge 870. I have gotten closer to deer since then but haven't shot those.

I killed a mule deer doe at 10-12 feet a few years ago, using my old iron-sighted Sauer/Daly hammer drilling with the .30-30 barrel. My second-closest shot was my first deer, also a muley doe and also with a .30-30, taken at 25-30 feet, so close the 4x scope on my dad's Marlin was filled with deer. Luckily it was pointed at the front of the deer!

My wife Eileen killed a spike whitetail at around 20 feet in West (By God) Virginia a couple-three years ago, using her .257 Roberts NULA with the 3-9x Leupold turned all the way down. She could just see that the crosshairs were on the ribs.

.357 IIRC

Yep, 357 Magnum.