WV Early Season Doe Hunt (Pics)

[Rem308]

This year was the 2nd year that WV had offered an Early Season Antlerless Muzzleloader hunt for select counties. This was one week of hunting, which ended on Saturday, Sept 25th.

I had talked to my wife before about having her join me for a hunt but we had never made it happen until this season. My wife and I took Friday off and hunted a little that morning, but the temperatures just got too warm too quick, so we decided we'd come back for an evening hunt.

That evening we didn't see any deer either, with the warm temperatures and plenty of food in the woods for them, the deer just seemed to be avoiding the fields. We did get to see plenty of turkeys and had some pretty comical events, such as an old grey tom cat sneaking in on our evening setup. He spooked my wife pretty good and she said for a few minutes she was thinking Bobcat!

Well that hunt ended with no deer, but we really had a good time and I was definitely glad of that. Saturday called for rain and cooler temps, but my wife said she would sleep in, so I went solo. I opted to hunt a deep woods stand and maybe catch the deer passing through.

I was in the stand before daylight and was enjoying watching it get daylight when I could start hearing deer coming my way.

4 does ended up walking up the hill past my stand and at about 70 yards I knew I had to find a shooting lane through the trees and brush. I couldn't get a lane on the first, but the second stopped in a good window to shoot through. In order to get the crosshairs on her shoulder, I had to lean forward and down in my stand and it was not a comfortable position at all, but it was steady. I squeezed the trigger and BOOM, the cannon went off. As soon as it went off, I knew what I had done...I had busted my head with the scope and could feel the blood starting to drip down my nose.

As the smoke was clearing, I couldn't see anything of the deer so I sat for a few minutes and start getting my gear together.

I climbed down, walked over to where my doe was, and she had dropped. She is a real healthy doe, a good sized one, and the bullet had not exited, but instead was just under the hide on the opposite shoulder.

(If you look at the shoulder above, you can see the bullet laying under the skin on the opposite shoulder.)

So I took a few pictures before dragging her out, but the race against the temperatures began, because I knew I needed to get this doe checked in and on ice!

Fortunately, everything worked out very well, and I had my four wheeler waiting on me at the bottom of the hill, so I was able to take care of it all.

I skinned and began soaking the deer on salted ice-water.

This is my first deer with a muzzleloader and I definitely will not forget this anytime soon.

[Shaun_300]

That's a nice doe! Congrats man. Sucks about getting scoped though!

[huntnfish]

Congrats nice doe.

[c_lou]

Congrats. She looks fat and healthy.

Nice Dork Mark.

[Jeramie]

Gotta love those scope kisses....

Blood for Blood. Congratulations.

[aldridgem1]

congrats.. looks to be a pretty good size doe.

[abear491]

Nice big fat doe Congrats