Friday evening before opener our crew was Pam, myself, Missy, Taylor, Nathan, Corinn, Joey, two bloodhounds named copper and allis and the eener dog.
Saturday morning everyone was out to their stands well before sunrise. The forest was quiet overall, first distant shot was probably not until after 8 am. Very little shooting overall. I heard the .308 bark from Joey's direction at around 9. He had broke a 2 year dry spell and finally taken a deer with his tikka. At around 9am I was getting down from my stand to go and help Joey when I heard what sounded like a large hand gun fire a shot from the direction of where Pam and Missy were sitting (seperate stands, same area) Missy had been carrying her dad's scoped 454 in previous years so I thought there was a good chance it was her. I passed by Pam's stand first, she had not shot, she pointed in the direction of Missy's stand. I continued on and met Missy as she was climbing down from her stand. She confirmed that she had shot, we checked the shot sight and found hair but no blood. Tracked the direction where the buck had gone from the shot sight and still found no blood, no hair. damp fall forest grass, no snow, It was going to be a tough tracking job. We decided to go check on Joey and come back to this troubling effort afterwards. Joe was watching over his deer when I got to him. A quick congratulations and then it was on to the task at hand. Joe had his beautiful Case fixed blade hunting knife with stacked leather handle and highly polished steel blade ready to take on his very first solo effort at field dressing. Conditions were perfect, It was cool but not super cold so there was really no temperature inspired haste, dad was full up on patience that morning and the knife was sharp. Joey did a great job, really clean field dress. The entire crew was there by the time he was half way into it, brothers, sister's, mom, dad, cousin, all offering comical guidance through the procedure. Joey's big sister actually grabbed a leg and took off with the drag down the trail heading back to the cabin. Joey of course joined her. The rest of us followed for a bit but as we approached the fork in the trail where we could split off, we went the direction of Missy's effort on her buck. Walking the trail I was scanning one side in particular that was heavy with tag alder, everyone was talking and laughing, suddenly I froze. I had locked eyes with Missy's down buck 30 yds off the trail in fairly heavy cover. My rifle was at my shoulder before I realized it. He was down but not on his side, he had all 4 legs under him, head was up, he was basically prone and facing us straight on. Things that were crossing my mind were "maybe this is a different deer, this is likely missy's deer, this deer is going to bolt at any second and we'll lose him in those heavy tag alders.." I remember asking "Missy, are you ok with this?" She said yes and Boom! I put one low in the neck inline with the vitals. We waited a bit as he laid over and became motionless. I went in to investigate, he was done. It was then that I saw his blood trail in to where he lay and the entrance wound in the rib cage from Missy's 454. It was her deer and she put a good shot on him, I really don't think he was getting up even without my finishing shot. There was quite the celebration at that point, 2 deer on opening morning and this one was taken with Missy's dad's handgun. Very special moment. Again I offered direction as Missy too field dressed her own deer.
We hung them on the pole, had an excellent breakfast and continued with the remainder of our opener weekend with no more shots fired although there were a couple of sightings.
