With all due thanks to God, for creation and good fortune, I killed a doe--the first deer I ever killed. Perfect kill in my estimation.
I hit a rib and a lung, the bullet was a pass through. A chunk of the rib hit the vein or artery beneath the spine, severing the vein (or artery). The bullet deflected only slightly and exited the other side, well below the spine--hence my speculation that rib fragments severed the vein. Lots of blood, quick kill. Doe ran 50 yards and hit the ground dead.
Some observations:
1. I killed it without the clothes recently sprayed with scent killer. I killed it with my normal jacket that I wear everyday and did not wash or set outside.
2. I am starting to suspect that PETA members have infiltrated the company that manufactures Scent Killer™, and are surreptitiously adding a potent deer repellant to their mix.
3. Before, during and after the kill--no adrenaline rush whatsoever. I think I should have been a sniper in the military. (Though to be honest I had quite an adrenaline rush the first time I killed a pheasant.)
The story: I decided to move my deer stand after getting it almost assembled because I put the ladder on what I thought was a great tree, but it was so thick (and I am so thick) that I could not use both loops in my safety harness to put the stand up. Simultaneously, I realized that the shooting lane I was planning to use only existed at ground level.
So I decided to move the tree stand. I scouted what appeared to be a deer mega-highway on what used to be an ATV trail, judging by the tracks in the snow.
I went back to my vehicle to get out of the blaze orange/camo snow pants and parka. It was too warm with all the climbing and clinging, so I wanted lighter clothes to move the stand. I left the muzzleloader at the truck, put on my everyday jacket, and a blaze orange field vest for pheasant hunting, and a blaze orange baseball cap. With the lighter clothes, I expected that I would not sweat so much. I left my snow pants and parka and facemask hanging on a branch, to dry out.
Went back to the ladder, climbed up, took down a section, making a racket. Climbed up, took the second section down, and then noticed two does were looking at me. But crap, I had no gun!
So I just watched the does. They watched me. Then they went about their business. I walked slowly toward my vehicle, put a cap in the muzzleloader, and took a long path around the does, attempting to flank the does from downwind. They spooked.
So back to the ladders. I moved and installed all four four-foot sections on a new tree closer to the deer mega-highway. As I went back to get the stand, the strap to my muzzle loader came undone and the gun came down on a log. It didn't make too much noise, as I slowed its fall, but I did, cursing. I fixed it, and picked up the stand, making more racket. Then I saw three or four does staring at me, the best shot about 35 yards away. I set the stand down slowly, and unslung my gun. The doe began to walk, and as her head went behind a tree, I raised the gun to aim. But there was too much brush in the way. So I waited. The doe started to walk again, but stopped perfectly at the only spot the provided a clear shooting lane (and the shooting lane was probably about 2 feet wide), and I shot.
(BTW, as I am typing this, I am eating fried tenderloins and onions that my loving wife just cooked. Pretty good. Not gamy at all.)
Where was I? Oh yea, I shot. Smoke. I saw a doe run to the right, full blast. I sat down to wait, and clean my gun. I use the sabotted all copper boat tailed bullets that require exquisite barrel cleaning to load. They are very tough to load in a clean gun, impossible to load with an almost clean gun. But I left my cleaning patches back at the vehicle. So I layed the gun on the ground, aiming it toward where I had shot the doe, and went back to the truck, to fetch the gun cleaning supplies, and a field tri-pod stool I picked up at Menards for $6. Back to the shooting location, I sat, and cleaned the gun, then reloaded and capped. Looked at the time, about 20 minutes had elapsed since I had shot, so I went back to the vehicle to get some gloves and baggies for field dressing. Back to the shooting location, I walked down the shooting lane, to study the kill site. Massive amounts of blood spread out in a triangle extending 6 feet back and 10 feet wide. Wow.
I then looked in the direction I had seen the doe run, and could see occasional fresh hoof prints where there was snow, but no blood trail. What happened?
Turns out it was a different doe. The doe I had shot ran in a different direction, but I missed it with all the smoke and the other doe acting as a red herring after the smoke cleared.
I found the blood trail, and it was pretty strong, consistent with the massive amount of blood I saw at the kill site. 50 yards away, I saw the doe, dead, head wedged under a blow down tree that was almost but not quite horizontal.
To make a short story longer, cleaning was relatively straightforward. A bit difficult because I was by myself, but I eventually figured out how to use the slope of the terrain to my advantage. Many thanks to "mncowboy" who recommended a youtube video that was produced by Kentucky Afield, also available on DVD. It made the task easier. I used a cheap folding buck knife, the 110, which might have been a little too long for the task.
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