Best Shot I ever Saw
BEST SHOT I EVER SAW
I was lucky enough to be a whitetail deer and turkey guide for three years in the early nineteen nineties. Our lease was located in the Northeastern corner of Val Verde County just South of Sonora, Texas, and what a great property this was, some of the best whitetail deer I’ve ever seen and loaded with Rio Grand turkey. The ranch did have sheep on it, but the deer didn’t seem to mind them much. I have many good stories to write about my experiences there, and if I don’t run out of time, I intend to do just that.
The hunter I was with that day had already killed a large ten-point buck the day before, that we had stalked over three hundred yards to get a good shot on. It scored in the one hundred and forty five inch range of the Boone and Crocket scale, and he had no interest in killing a doe. We had been on a turkey mission that morning and taking in the sights and some of the exotics on the ranch. We were on our way back to camp for lunch when we drove up on a traffic jam in the middle of a ranch road, two vehicles and no people around. I lightly tooted my horn and one of the guides loudly answered, “Over here!”
This was a great group of three hunters from Northeastern Arkansas, and all from the same family, a man, his wife and her brother, which was the man with me, John. Now, John was a serious hunter and if possible would eat, drink and sleep hunting, just like me. He carried a Remington 700 BDL in 280 caliber and had proved at the range and on his deer and turkey that he was very proficient with it. His sister and her husband were with two other guides and they were tracking a wounded deer that they had driven up on and she had shot a few minutes before we arrived.
There wasn’t much blood, but it was good red arterial blood, so we knew if we could continue to track it, we would eventually find it. We tracked for about an hour and decided to go back to camp, rest a little, have lunch and regroup.
After lunch, we drove back to the same spot and began our search for John’s sister’s deer. After about an hour more of tracking, John and I were down on all fours searching for any clue we could find. The specks of blood were no larger than a ladybug, about three to four feet apart and already dried, which made them even harder to distinguish. Every once in a while, we would find blood on a tree limb or a cedar branch that crossed the trail, about three feet above the ground. We couldn’t imagine where this deer had been hit, so we walked back to John’s sister and asked her what she saw in the scope as she squeezed the trigger. She replied, “I was looking at his rack, and he moved just as I shot!”
John and I both knew then that she had shot him in the neck or the bottom jaw somewhere. That would explain the blood being so high on the limbs. She was shooting a 257 Roberts and was a very good shot at the range. But, she evidently hadn’t hit anything with bone in it, since we couldn’t find any bone fragments at the place where she had shot him. With that newfound knowledge, we resumed tracking until about four PM and the sign was all but gone. Everyone else decided to go back to their hunts, but John and I remained and tracked till near dark. We had followed that deer’s tracks and blood trail for over a mile of rocks and cacti, uphill, downhill and over drop-offs, through brush and open areas, but, we still had a trail to follow, small, but it was a trail.
Next morning we discussed it around the breakfast table, and since John had already finished his hunt, he and I decided to continue to track his sister’s buck for her. It was good practice for us, and for a good reason. The Outfitter I worked for didn’t think we could retrieve her deer and allowed her to start her hunt over again with the stipulation that if we found her buck that she would not have to pay again. This was unusual for an outfitter to do, but these same outfitters had hosted this same family on one of their Montana operations the year before and wanted to keep them as clients.
John and I were skeptical at best about finding this deer, but as long as we had sign, and his plane wasn’t ready to take him back to Arkansas, we were going to keep trying. John carried his 280 just in case we jumped the wounded deer, but all I carried was my Smith and Wesson 44 magnum with snake shot for the rattlers.
After breakfast, we drove to the end of the road closest to where we had lost the trail in the dark the night before and climbed to the top of the hill. We had been marking our findings with toilet paper squares and had brought a larger supply with us this morning. We would take turns with one walking ahead and looking while the second one crawled on our hands and knees for a closer look. If one spotted something, the other would move on, and continue looking from there. It worked great for a couple of hours, until we lost sign all together.
We began to circle from the last speck of blood, and circle and circle, trying to find sign again, but nothing. Just before noon, John had a calling and a different need for some of the toilet paper, so he wondered off into an oak thicket to take care of business. As soon as he was out of sight he yelled, “My God, Rick, come look at this!”
I was skeptical, but still I walked over to the brush where he was. I was expecting a practical joke from him, but he seriously (with pants still on) coaxed me into the brush thicket, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I did. It was a canopy of small live oak trees with trails and clear spots throughout, probably a hundred feet in diameter or better. There was dry or drying blood sprayed on the bottom of the leaves and branches up to about ten feet above the ground. There must have been a couple of gallons of blood spray painted around, but no deer. There was thick blood on the trunks of the small trees that was wiped there as the deer staggered around. It looked like some kind of a bloodbath massacre from a horror movie, but without the bodies.
After searching for a while in disbelief, we began to figure out his direction and resume to trail the deer again. John had forgotten all about what he had gone into the thicket for and we were hot on the trail again. Just a few dozen yards more, we jumped the deer, still in the thicket. It was weak and slow moving but moving fast just the same. We ran into the clear, hoping for John to get a shot, but the land was gone. There was a twenty-foot drop off and then a brush thicket below that. We could see by the blood where the deer had jumped off the cliff and fumbled around smearing blood over the rocks below as he attempted to get to his feet again, and head back in the direction of the place where he had been shot originally.
We both were surprised that a deer had even attempted this jump, and again that he was able to walk away from it, especially in his weakened state. After a few minutes of surveying the header below us, the deer ran out of the brush about two hundred yards away and below us. As it cleared the trees in the bottom and was running up the other side of the header, John said, “@*!# it, I’m gonna shot him in the neck!” And with that, he raised his rifle, popped open the scope caps, clicked off the safety and fired, all in one smooth quick motion, and the deer rolled up in a ball on the other side of the canyon from us.
If I hadn’t been there in person, I would have never believed that shot. John had made a shot of about three hundred yards on a running deer, quartering away from us with a slight angle and called where he was going to put the bullet before pulling the trigger. I didn’t know then exactly where he had hit the deer, but he was down and it was time to collect him. We walked back to the truck then drove around close to the area where the deer was and walked into the header after him.
When we arrived at the dead deer, it was apparent that John had done just exactly what he said he was going to do with that shot. He hit the deer in the neck at the base of the head and blew out the underside of the deer’s throat. “No wonder he went down like a sack of taters!” I said. That was, without a doubt, and to this date, the very best shot I have ever seen, and to have been called before the trigger pull, was a spectacular sight to behold!
Upon further inspection, John’s sister had also shot the deer through the throat, just below where John’s exit wound was located, but hadn’t hit anything but the windpipe, some muscle and skin. It was then evident that this deer had been swallowing his own blood, which made him sick to his stomach. Where we found the thicket sprayed with blood, is where he had regurgitated that blood, spit and stomach fluid mixture and it sprayed out through the hole in his esophagus like a paint sprayer. It was probably a very painful experience for him, and the deer would have died eventually. But with some very stubborn tracking and John’s well placed “call shot”, we were able to end his suffering and collect her trophy and some very good table fair.
This deer was a chocolate-horned ten point that would score in the mid one hundred and twenty + inch range, but the story that accompanied the rack and the meat made it a true Texas Trophy for all of them, and a great true story for me to remember and to share.
If you enjoy my stories, please tell others. If not, tell me. Rick Cumins 817-556-8580 Text or call, or e-mail to rick@rickcumins.com