The DNR gave me a nuisance permit so I can protect the crop from further damage. Basically I need to keep the deer off the field till the seedlings form more than one set of leaves because if they nip the top out of a sprout with only two leaves the plant dies.
I decided to set up my hide well away from the field and trees so I could move about freely and not have to worry with being seen, smelled or toted away with mosquitoes.
Here is the photo of my setup. I am set up on new ground and the actual cotton field is the nook betwen the trees and the rifle is pointing in the north west corner of the field which I ranged at 600 yards.
No sooner than I got set up good a neighbor who is rather of a health nut saw me and walked a mile across the property to come see what I was doing. He told me he had spent some time in the military and was telling me how my setup was all wrong and how I was too far and how he had only seen one deer on the property during his afternoon exercise routine.
Regretfully, I didn't have my notebook to take notes because he knew it all but I had to cut him off short because a deer stepped into the cotton field. Then another, then three more. With him still giving me advice I shouldered the rifle and went into my zone and squeezed off a round and I listened as the round travelled down range screaming through the humid air like an artillery round till I heard the satisfying thop as the bullet met flesh about 3 seconds later. I chambered another round and scoped the field as he told me I had missed the deer. I spotted another and shouldered the rifle a second time and let another fly. It screamed down range like the other only to end in a thak which let me know I had hit bone. Again he informed me I had missed and began giving me instructions on what I should do next time. I was just fixing to go into kill mode when I reached for my box of shells and found the box to be filled with empties I had planned on reloading. What an idiot I thought of myself. I drove home to pick up another box hoping the deer would still be in the field when I returned but they weren't. None living anyhow. Here are pics of what I did get though. Its definitely going to be some expensive meat but meat nonetheless.
This shot is a puzzler to me and is definitely sugar coated with luck because it was facing me and I was aiming at its chest. I assume I pulled a little to the right and the bullet just did catch it on the rib cage only to exit about a foot later. It fell dead where it stood and I can only assume it was the rib fragments that actually did the damage to the lung and spleen resulting in its quick and painless death.
In the past the DNR required you to leave the deer where they lay but I have a major problem with this for obvious reasons. Thankfully, this year's permit allows me to give the meat to the needy so I can legally process it and give it to my favorite charity which is the Sherriff's Boys Ranch which I might add does appreciate some of the fine recipes ya'll post on this site.
