Kate and I went out yesterday after a little rack buck that had been visiting one of my food plots lately. She's determined to get something with horns, so I'm doing my best to make it happen. This guy comes cruising through a narrow lane of the plot about a half-hour before dark, looking for does. He obviously wasn't going to give us enough time to set up for Kate (she's 8), so she said "shoot him!". A 145gr Speer BT on the shoulder and he was on the ground. We were both pumped!






He's not a monster, but he's honestly a once-every-5yrs kind of buck for my place in the north central Louisiana pine hills. We got a nice 14pt here about 6 years ago and this 10pt is #2 for our 12yrs of hunting this 1,000acre property. We've got a lot of deer to the acre, but there are so many box stands on pipelines and logging roads around that it is hard for a buck to make it to 4 or 5 years old. We were just happy to see that there are still some good ones around and that this guy didn't get taken until the tail end of the rut. He was already worn down and getting thin through the body.

On a side note, the 145BT did not make it through the opposite shoulder on this 100yd shot. I didn't get to recover it, as I donated the deer to a local guy I give a processed deer to each year. This is three shoulder shots in a row with this 20" 7mm-08 and all of them dropped. First time I didn't get an exit.

Congratulations. That is a nice buck.

Nicely done!!!
Beautiful buck indeed

Awesome! Congrats to both of you.

Dang man that's a great buck! Beautiful!

Nice N. La. piney woods deer for sure!

JPro, did you kill the deer on your place on Pace Brown Rd?

Also, have you seen many hogs on that place this year. Dad said the water was low, so I figured that the hogs would be in the bottom and not pushed up on your place, so much.

Congrats on the dandy buck Jpro.

Even better that your daughter was along for the fun!

For the area that is a really nice one congrats.

Man all this talk about this just being an "ok" deer? In my book that buck is a trophy just about anywhere. Congrats

Congrats on a great hunt with your daughter!

That deer is a dandy, congrats on a great buck. Love your cartridge of choice.

Yep. Backside of my pasture on Pace Brown. Did not have him on camera, thinking he came up out the bayou bottom.

Hogs are not in force right now, just scattered. Still fresh sign on most stands. They'll be thick after Christmas when the acorns are gone in the bottoms.

That's a good Buck for most places. Congrats.

Like that buck, now find one for Kate...

Just to add to the runty 7mm-08 thread, here's another buck that got hit with that underpowered round.

Most excellent JPro that's a nice one. How fast are you running that 145?

Good buck lastofthebreed and I see it was taken with a BLR.

The 7mm/08 is without a doubt my favorite whitetail round. I am presently without one, but I am likely to remedy that before too long.

Nice job, JPro. Love the chocolate antlers on that buck.

J -

First, Congrats.

Second, That's been my experience with Speer too.

Third, I've only shot 2 deer with my 6.5X55 140 gr Hornady, both were DRT.

Fourth that's roughly the same size buck/antlers as a friend shot at Meadeville, Ms in the 80s. IMO that AIN'T average.




Yeah IF you're not on TV!!

I totally agree.

I need to chrono the load, but I figure 2,650fps+. Book max load of H4350 with a bit of land engagement. Shoots under MOA regularly.

Haven't run across many rifles like yours. Looks like you are putting it to good use!

Whitetails don't give you much time to situate a kid for the proper shot do they...

That's ok, still a team effort & a nice rack buck taken.

The older ones rarely give us more than a few seconds. A 2.5yr old and sometimes a 3.5yr old will come to food sources and give us the 15-20 seconds we need. Her turn will come.....

Super buck JPro! Sorry your daughter didn't get the chance but you made the right move. Mature bucks under anything like normal conditions don't tend to stick around long.

JPro, that is a great buck no matter where you hunt! Way to go!!!

great buck congrats

I just picked up a new 7=08 this year after season.Havent had a chance to shoot it yet,but hope to get it out for coyotes this winter.
I am planning to use 120 or 140 gr bullets for deer.Was wondering what everyone else uses.

Heck of a nice buck man. great pics with the little girl too!

The 7-08 is the greatest deer cartridge of all IMO...........

+1

and

+1.



What to use? My rifles lived on 140 grain partitions. I was hunting fairly heavy cover often with a black bear tag in my pocket as well as a deer tag. In the off season, I'd switch to 120 grain ballistic tips for coyotes 'n' such. If I were still shooting a 7mm-08, I'd stick with the 140 partitions but probably switch to a VMAX or TNT for varmints.

Oh, FWIW, in the 7mm-08s I've owned, RL19 worked very well with 140s and Win 760 worked very well with 120s. Really good velocity and top accuracy. However, both powders were past 100% load density and I had some issues with bullets wanting to back out of the case.

Tom

Heck of a Union P buck! Congrats!

"Tail end of the rut" Heck, we just started seeing chasing the last few days and not too far from you. It's been really late for our place. We had a few single bucks get killed by themselves cruising last week, but the first seen chasing was whacked Saturday. Just started getting pics of new bucks, so they are definitely covering ground now. Talked to a club a few miles N and they said they hadn't even seen any rut activity yet. Sort of on par with last year as we didn't start seeing rut activity 'til just after Thnxgvn. It's a bummer that dog season opens this week, just when prime time kicks in.

Been slow for me, I have put in some hrs and just seeing dinks and a few doe thus far. Worst 1st half of the season we've had on our place as far as kill #s. It'll come around hopefully.

I hear you on the rut timing issue and you may be right. My uncle killed a 10pt in central Union the weekend before Thanksgiving and it was chasing a hot doe. There's four of us that hunt this property and we didn't start seeing/hearing much activity with bucks until 10 days ago or so. This buck I killed had wounds on his hip from fighting and they were crusted over a bit. He wasn't carrying a lot of fat on his frame, so I assumed he'd been out traveling and chasing a good bit lately. Long-bodied and long-limbed but only went 165lbs.

The rut could still be rolling in places, it can be hard to tell. I've had some seasons where I saw 3-4 different bucks walking in an afternoon and the rut was obviously on. Then again, I've had other seasons where it just seemed to fizzle out and never really come in full-force. The old rule of thumb used to be the third and fourth weeks of November were going to be the hot times in this area.

I hear ya. That was definitely true for us as well for many years, but last year sort of threw things out of whack. It got hot a couple weeks late. Same happened for us over in the Delta. Instead of the usual mid Dec action, it was after Xmas when things started to pop.

My FIL has been getting pics of 3-4 bucks at a time the last few days, sort of a early season type pattern. They haven't seen much of any chasing or their club.

I've seen some ridiculously small fawns lately, must have been some really late breeding last year.

It seems to me that the prime time is right after we start catching new bucks on cam or catching the same bucks on cams miles apart, which just kicked off last week. My cousin killed a 4.5yo buck Saturday that had made a pretty ridiculous trip for 3 days prior(per various cams).

The cold front Friday might make things interesting.

Congrats again and good luck getting the little lady on a buck.

loder

Nice one JPro. I like your choice of the 7mm-08 also; my favorite cartridge, period!

He'd be on my wall!!!
Congrats! I'm just across the the river from Angola...
Saw the first scrapes of the year yesterday....
Broke in my Montana 7-08 with 120ttsx on Saturday...7pt...
right at last legal shooting time....Thin as could be...2.5 yo...mighta weighed 120#...but we've been hit with blue tongue hard this year....
Sorry that the guide ended up bein the shooter...laffin...

Nice deer there!

Me too. I'd ten times rather Kate have been the one to get him, but I think we'd have lost out altogether if we'd tried to get her on him before he crossed the lane. Too bad he wasn't interested in getting a bite to eat in the food plot. The wife said that it was likely a good thing it played out this way, as the girl would have been ruined with a nice 10pt as her first buck. She might be right!

Man that's great. My daughter (just turned 11) she goes with me behind the house. It's her grandpa's land 200+ acres. Plenty of easy deer for us to get on. She's wishy washy on committment, some afternoons she'd rather play guitar or jump on her trampoline haha!

She's got the patience and sittin still part down when we go, we just need luck.


I've been getting her attuned to shooting an M&P15 with a flush magazine. That adjustable stock is the ticket! Mine has a fastination with the field dressing aspect. That really surprised me.

Anyway, that's a great buck. Congrats to you and her. Hopefully you'll have a hungry slow roller come in for her.

Good job!! The DRT is always about shot placement and not caliber. But you've done good with the round.

I"m partial to the 308, but have a buddy that ran and loved the 7/08 until he fell in love with the 257 roberts.

That's a nice, tidy kill right there.
Congrats to Team JPro!