Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors This is why I sometimes tinker

Well, I wasn't going to continue off subject with my experience but since Roy gave us permission.
For some reason I took my AYA double 3" 12 gauge deer hunting instead of my EG 300 when I was a teenager hunting the Ocala National Forest. I was in a tree stand when a deer came running up and stopped behind a pine tree about 30' away. I thought to myself, all right! meat in the freezer. His shoulder was just to the left of the pine so I sighted down the left barrel at his shoulder and pulled a trigger. The deer took off like a shot. I was so astounded that he didn't drop dead I didn't even fire the second barrel. I got down out of the stand to look for blood. Nothing. So I looked at the tree. I counted 14 holes in the tree. A 3" magnum holds 15 00 buck. I tracked him for a ways hoping the the other buckshot got him. No blood and he was running so fast his hooves were really tearing up the ground. The 15th buckshot probably followed another one into the same hole. When I opened the shotgun I saw that I had pulled the wrong trigger and fired the right barrel. The lesson here is if I had used my 99 I wouldn't have shot the damn tree. I don't think I hunted deer again with the shotgun.