Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting My first deer - from field to table.

Greetings fellow campfire members. I want to say that this forum really helped me narrow down my hunting gear when selecting a rifle load, mounts, and scope from the overwhelming availability of gear and abyss of opinions good and bad. I settled in the Hornday GMX 150gr Superformance ammo, Warne QD maxima mounts, and T* Zeiss 8x56 Diatal scope on top of a Remington 700 .30-06.

Back in October I shot my first big game animal - a Mule deer on public land with the help of my friend Dale and Father in law. I took the deer from about a 100 yards with a double lung shot. She went about forty feet and fell. Within an hour we had her field dressed, caped, and in a large backpack. The walk out hurt pretty bad on account to the weight and distance.

While wild game table fare isn't new to our home I felt the need to take up the cause and start procuring meat for the family as my Father in law is approaching his mid seventies and it's only a matter of time before he has to hang up his hat.

I have to say my favorite part was processing the deer on my own with the help of a friend. I made the steaks and ground meat just to my liking. Even the wife and children approve of the venison. This season we also have elk and pronghorn in the freezer owing to my Father in law's success in northern Wyoming.

It's been a red letter year on account of the deer and I expect more to come as I have four elk and pronghorn preference points that I plan on burning in the coming years.

Best wishes to everyone over Christmas and the New Year.

Regards,
Nathan in Colorado







and my most recent hunting buddy named after my Father in law.

Very cool. Thanks for taking the time to post with pics.

Congratulations on your first deer Here's to many more to come.......

Didn't know Zeiss made a fixed 8 power scope, looks interesting. do't see too many 8 x scopes being used, I use an older Leupold 8x40 for deer hunting that works well.

Congratulations

Congratulations.
NEWBIE to seasoned hunter/processor in one year!

When you process game for yourself you are assured that it is yours, and how it was handled.
That filet knife I see in the background can be used to remove silverskin just like skinning a fish.
Makes that process easy-peasy

Lots of good advice from some of the folks here.

Congrats! It's special to have a meal with game you took yourself.

Awesome job man, congrats on your first deer! I love grocery shopping in the mountains!

Very cool. Congrats and welcome to the fire.

This is awesome! Well done man, and congrats!

Love stories like this. Congrats

Agreed, despite bickering and cane raising over politics, stories like these are what makes the 'Fire a well rounded great place.

Congrats Nathan, it'll be the same and then some when you see that boy of yours drop the hammer on his first deer too.

Very nice and as it should be. I enjoy it from the time I'm lacing up my boots for the first hunt, till the last piece of venison is wrapped for the freezer.

Great story, congrats

Great story and great pics! Thanks for sharing!

Congrats!

Congrats. Great story and looking forward to hearing many more!

Good job. Make sure the young man gets to do the same in a year or two. Ed k

Way to go! Looks like you’re u’re hooked and have a hunting buddy on the way. 😀

Good going Nathan!

That's a scope not seen very often. Do you have some really "dark holes" you like to hunt?

Regarding my scope choice, I'm an optics snob and I really like large apertures and long focal lengths in a rifle scope. I'm not too concerned about low light performance but I like how the large aperture controls stray light really well and gives a sublime view. Additionally, it carries a German #1 which is really easy to see in dark backgrounds and poor light.

If the conditions warrant I also have a Leupold VX-1 4-12x40 in Warne QD Maxima mounts to augment the Zeiss with.

Everyone, thanks for the kind words.