I am not a very accomplished hunter, so I don't have a lot of experience to draw from. I loved hunting Kodiak when I was stationed there. It was completely different from the southern woods hunting that I was accustomed to. It was active rather than passive, and being a busy body I liked that. The last year I was stationed there, I made it my goal to get a nice blacktail in velvet.
As the season approached, I put in a leave request to have the opening day off. I was working for one of only two bosses that I didn't get along with. He denied the request just to piss me off. I'd have to be in the building by 10 that morning. With sunrise at 6am, I could make it work.
I lived at the base of Old Women's Mountain. There's a hiking trail on the northeast side. It's a pretty good trail, but is gains 800 feet in elevation pretty quickly before the grade eases up. Before daylight, I started jogging up the trail, rifle in hand and frame pack on my back. Just a few minutes after I started up the trail. I came upon a guy that I knew and his bud. They had stopped to catch their breath. I told them what area I was going to, just so they'd be aware. They wished me luck and I was off to the races.
The trail runs across the top of the mountain. About a mile and a quarter down the trail there's a route through the alders that leads to a small meadow. My plan was to watch that meadow for about an hour. I arrived at the meadow right as the sun was peaking over the horizon. I peeled my backpack off and set it on the ground. As I did I caught movement on the meadow. THREE gorgeous blacktail in velvet were grazing. I went prone and threw my Ruger Ultralight 243 over my backpack for a rest.
I took a moment to kinda compare them. I picked the one that looked best and mentally guessed the distance at just shy of 300. This was way before rangefinders were readily available. I was shooting hand loaded 100 grain Hornady BTSPs. There was no wind, so it was a matter of just holding a little high. My rest was solid and I was steady. The crosshairs settled, I gently squeezed the trigger. An old friend had done a trigger polishing job for me, making the trigger nicely crisp. The rifle barked.
I lost sight of the deer in the recoil, but was immediately greeted with the tell tale wooden thwack of the bullet finding its mark. I got he rifle back in position to look for the deer. It was nowhere to be seen. My previous experiences had taught me that I wasn't good at estimating distance over broken terrain, so I started second guess in myself. I wiggled back into my backpack and started heading to where the deer were standing, continuing to evaluate the distance as I did. With the trajectory of the 243, I should have been safe even with a good bit of error in judging distance.
I walked to where the deer was when I pulled the trigger. There was a slight drop about 5 yards behind him, and that's where he lay. I had work to do, and I had to do it in a hurry. I got the meat boned out, cut the head off for an antler mount, packed the meat in the pack and lashed the head to the frame. I then started making tracks for home. When I reached the main trail, the guys that I had passed on the way up were just getting there.
The guy that I knew stared at me dumbfounded for a minute, then gave me a Hail Mary. I wished them luck and began the trudge back down the mountain. I got the meat in an ice chest, and threw the head in the back of my truck. I got home, got cleaned up and made it to work with plenty of time to spare. I knew a guy who was an SCI scorer. He measured the deer for me, and it made the SCI minimum, whatever that is.
The best part of the whole experience was when my dickhole boss saw the rack. He was so pissed he couldn't think straight. I lost that rack when Hurricane Katrina demolished my house.
