Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

Thanks for the welcome, fellows. Thought I'd share my story from this past fall with you.

As mentioned on my first post, I've been hunting whitetail on the Minnesota iron range since 1966. I now hunt out of nice permanent stand my son and I built four years ago, which replaced the old metal ladder stand I�d used for years. The stand overlooks a nice cleared field with jackpine, spruce, popple and alder around the perimeter. The longest shot possible is 110 yards. This year I decided to try handgun hunting. I picked up a Contender in 7-30 Waters with a 14� barrel and worked up loads over the summer. It is astoundingly accurate; my best loads gave me sub 1� at 100 yards off a supported bench. On opening day at about 4:45 a nice buck stepped into the far end of the field headed northwest at about 90 yards out. I steadied the contender with the muzzle outside the window and fired � missed ... definite shakes!! The buck was startled, ran a small 20 yard circle out of and right back into the field at the far end. He stopped, locked up solid, and froze there like a statue trying to figure out what was up. I opened the breach, put in another round, and quickly pulled up, took aim and fired. In my haste, I did not to get the muzzle outside of the window, which is supported in the up position by a wood stick on each side. The contender cracked, the buck lurched, and the wooden plywood window jumped up from the muzzle blast, the support sticks fell and the window slammed shut. I could not hear anything from the blast. I opened the window, looked down at the end of the field � the buck had dropped right in his tracks. Here�s a pic of em, an 8-pointer. What a rush!!!