Okay, I'll bite! My father, brother, and I were out hunting mule deer in West River SD about 30 miles west of Pierre, SD. We were hunting all private land and having a tough time locating deer. It was early November and we elected to spend the afternoon glassing from a high ridge overlooking about a 2-mile wide bottom which is full of drainage/runoff cuts. We spotted a nice 4x5 and a big doe playing reindeer games about a mile or so off. We watched them for about 30 minutes and they bedded down. I was anxious to go after them, my brother and dad were not, it was quite wet and the gumbo was a pain to walk in. (gumbo sticks to eveything it touches, if you try to kick it off your boots, your boots will go flying. If you drive long enough in wet gumbo it will stop your vehicle because the tires have packed up to the wheel wells with mud - fun stuff!) Anyway, dad said go ahead, we had permission on the land. It was my first hunt with my M70 SS Classic FWT .30-06 and 165 gr. Nosler BT load. I took off, working through the gullies and washouts towards the deer. I got to where I knew I was within 1/4 mile of where they had bedded down. I snuck up to the top of a washout. I could see the buck's head up about 450 yds away. I had a pretty straight line towards them in the washout. I took off towards them and ran out of cover in an oxbow area where I would be exposed. I snuck around the corner, wading knee deep in water and mud by now. I was 80 yds away from the buck and doe bedded just above the washout! The doe was sleeping, buck had his head up. I put the crosshairs on the buck's neck, squeezed off, he never moved. The doe woke up, looked around, and I had another shell in by then, I made an identical shot on her. I couldn't see dad and bros. from where the deer were. About the time I was ready to start dragging them out after gutting them out, my bros. and dad showed up. We dragged the two deer 1 1/2 miles through gumbo, up and down washouts back to the Suburban. Worst dragging job of my life, if I'd have see the back-pack job done by some folks here I sure would have tried it! The buck dressed out at over 250 lbs. and the doe was just under 200 lbs. Lots of tasty venison! We always hang our deer by the head, and when we skinned the doe, we had to turn her over because the 165 gr. Nosler BT had taken ALL support structure and muscle out of her neck.
There, I'm done.
Selmer
