[samsmix]

I said I'd let you know how it went. Here goes:

My wife filled here 5 tags in one day. She cares not a whit about antlers.
Her .257 Roberts killed a WT doe at +/- 300yards across an alfalfa field. That evening we were going from place to place on a field road and I spotted an old grey muley doe bedded 150 yards off the road. Just before Heidi shot her through the neck, I whispered that there were probably others beded out of sight. At the shot 2 more good sized does got up and ran. They paused for a second at about 100 yards, and she nailed one in the lungs. The last one ran but to no avail: At the crack of my wife's rifle it rolled, shot through the shoulders. Sweet! It took us an hour or so to dress and drag these 3, and this let the surrounding hills forget about us. Just around the bend we spotted another herd of muleys. It was a longish shot with no time left for a stalk, so Heidi set op her bipod. Seeing only small bucks she opted for a dry doe instead. I told her to hold for 300yds, but in the fading light my eyes decieved me; she missed. I told her she must have missed, but she insisted it looked more like 400. She held for that distance and WHOP! Hit from the guts, through the liver, to the far lung and shoulder, it ran about 60yds and died.

Approaching this final deer another doe broke cover at a mere 15yds, trotting kinda slow. I know it ain't the right gun, but my .38 was already in hand... A stoutly loaded 158gr LRN went full length and took a lung without exiting. It tried to get up, but by that time I was a mere 6ft away and fed it another couple of .38s, this time in the neck.

Over the next 4 weeks I took 3 more muleys: 2 does with a Mosin 91/30, and a forked horn buck with my own .257. Taking advantage of surplus tags I also popped 4 WT does. One fell at about 30' to a charge of '00' buck in the head & neck. 2 more went to the .257 at +/- 200yds & +/- 350yds, and just for kicks I popped (blasted?!?) a doe at about 85yds with my brothers .375H&H. This was an offhand shot on a windy day and I slopped it through both front leg bones and the brisket! The 270gr bullet did '06 like damage, but knocked it over a bank that I didn't realize concealed a RIVER! Imagine my surprise when all I found was a 2 chunks of lung on the thin ice out past a big shattered hole! Luck intervened and one of her hind legs got caught in some overhanging brush and we were able to recover the deer.

All tolled I shot 8 deer and guided family members to shoot 9 more this year. There were no monster bucks, but my father, a disabled 87 year old, shot a 4x4 muley that I drove to him (7 mag 150yds). That deer was the one of which I was most proud this year, since a cancerous bladder & a mini-stroke teamed up in August to keep him hospitalized for 22 days. I couldn't have been happier than to see him shoot a nice buck! I also put my 14 year old nephew onto his first buck, a 3x3 WT (200yds/.257) and a fat as mud WT doe (80yds/30-30).

That was mine. How was yours?