Game: Whitetail Deer
Weapon: 30/30
Date/Time: November 16th 2011

At about 6:15am I see this buck at the other end of the field. This is about a 175-200 yard shot. Shame on my for not knowing the trajectory of my 30-30 at that distance, but I don't. I've taken good shots at distances close to this and been right on, but I just lack confidence. Also, when he first comes out I have high hopes that I'm going to get him to come closer so I have a better shot.

So he comes out and I notice him relatively quick. I bring up my scope and dial it all the way in and can tell right away he's a good buck. I quickly reach for my grunt tube and give a real quick grunt. The buck doesn't respond at all. I give a long aggressive grunt- now I have his attention. He takes a couple steps in my direction then stops. He's looking off to the side and then back at me- back and forth. When he loses interest, I hit him with another aggressive grunt. He takes a few steps in my direction and several more to my right (all this is happening 175+ yards away). After going back and forth like this a few times and him coming no more than 10 yards toward me, he starts to walk off to the right. I look over in that direction with my scope and realize he's on a doe that I didn't see. This is bad. If I had known he was on a doe I wouldn't have tried to get him over to my side of the field by grunting at him- I would have just shot.

After seeing the doe I quickly move the scope back on him and now he's in a full sprint toward the doe. I have a policy that I don't shoot at running deer- but boy, oh boy was I tempted! The doe jumps into the tall Johnson grass on the other side of the field, further away from me and the buck follows. They both instantly disappear. At this point I'm sick to my stomach. I should have made the shot when he was presenting a good broadside angle. Now he's gone. Now the internal thought / begging process begins... "Please chase her back into the field. Please run back into the field, little Doe- PLEASE!"

6:25- nothing.
6:30- nothing.
6:35- nothing.
6:40- nothing.

6:45- buck comes tearing out of the Johnson grass on the other side of the field in front of me and has closed half the distance in about 5 seconds. If I were to analyze this as a human interaction, I'd say that doe turned him down and he blamed the buck on the other side of the field. So he comes half way across the field and I get my grunt tube and give him a good grunt to get his attention. He zeros in on my location and starts heading straight for me. After closing half the distance again, now only about 1/4 of the field distance away from me (roughly 50 yards) he starts going to my right. While walking he's giving me a great broadside shot. When I grunt at him he aims his whole body at me and I lose the broadside shot. After doing this little dance with him 3 or 4 times, he decides he's had enough. He takes off in a gallop off to the right. At this point I know he's not interested in the other buck (me)- he's OUT OF HERE. So I grab the grunt tube and let out one more ridiculously loud and long grunt and he stops dead in his tracks.... facing me AGAIN. Well at this point, knowing I can put a perfectly good hit on a deer facing me and that the real problem is just gutting him later and the prospect of having split his stomach, I say, "Forget the broadside shot..." BAM!! He takes off running in the same direction he had been going (to my right). Goes about 30 yards and dies on the hoof (the autopsy would later reveal that I hit him right in the heart). I give him about 45 mins and then I get down.

Now, I was not certain I was the only one hunting today so I decided I was not going to go tromping out into the field to go get the buck and potentially ruin someone else's hunt. So I get out of the stand, walk to the field edge and scan the field to find him. When I did, I looked at him through my scope and was 99.9% sure he was not breathing. So I walked back up toward the tree line where I wouldn't disturb anything still left in the corn field and I went back to where we park our cars and verified that I was the only one there. I got in my truck and drove it out to the field. The only reason why I'm even telling you about the retrieval is this: I greatly mis-judged where I thought the deer was when I was driving my truck out to get it. I spent 25-30 mins looking for it and could not find it. I became convinced that he was, in fact, not dead and had gotten up and taken off. I was literally sick to my stomach that whole time. Then, as a final option I decided to go back to where I spotted him originally- near my stand. I bumped into him on the way. I was off on his location by about 60 yards. *big sigh of relief*