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I came home from work last night, pretty exhausted. Decided
that the roe-deer can wait until Wednesday since tomorrow Tuesday I have to make
a short trip to the Aland islands. When the sun started to go down
this evening I could not resist to take a rifle and go out "just to
have a look". There were several females that run into cover when I came
out. I sat down in a tower and enjoyed the weather waiting for the sun to set. A
female came out on one side of me. Then another very far away - 300 meters or
more. At least I thought for a while it was a female. Then came a fox-puppy
close to the far away deer. The deer observed the fox for some time and as the
fox came closer the deer made a short rush towards the fox. The fox escaped in
my direction and after several short rushes the deer was about 220meters from me
and the fox-puppy 200 metres. Now I saw that it was not a female but a small
buck with a couple of thin " 6 inch nails" above it eyes.
I had not had time to test shoot the rifle but decided to take
a shot anyway. The deer turned around on the spot in the shot but after a short
rush in one direction it turned around again and ran in another. There was a
small cloud of steam on the place of the shot but the cloud was very low, just
above the grass instead of being a feet or two higher up, that is normal with a
lung shot. I saw the deer running at full speed in a healthy way for several
hundred of meters before disappearing into cover.
I thought that it will be difficult to find it without a dog
and a dog I do not have for the moment since Maud and Briz are far away in the
mountains!
However the fox-puppy had not taken any notice of the gunfire
but was chasing mice in tall grass. I saw its ears at around 190 meters ( I know
the distances on that field fairly well) and estimated its body's position and
fired another round. It fell on the spot.
Of course I did not find the deer without a dog, I did not
even find the spot it had been on when fired at. No blood or hair or pieces
of intestines or muscles.
However I am rather sure that I missed it just below and the
steam came from the ground where the bullet had hit it. The reason why I hit the
fox at about the same distance was possibly because I only saw its ears. I held
the sight probably above its back, it hunted with a long neck and high
head, therefore hitting it dead on in the shoulder. Now, back home again,
I remember I might have changed the sights for a much shorter distance when Maud
was out shooting fox last winter. She had them almost around her boots at
times and was hampered by a rifle sighted in at 200 meters.
The lesson is that it pays of to test shoot and sight in the
rifle every time when you are not entirely sure about how it shoots and with
what ammo! It also pays to have a tracking dog around when you go for
animals that can run fast and far, even with their heart shot to
pieces.
Torsti
Borta Med Vindens Kennel www.rospigan.net "If you pick up a
starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the
principal difference between a dog and a man." /Mark Twain
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