I worked very hard on finding the right "store bought" load for my 12ga Tracker II this past spring.....When I found the right slug for me I found 2 CASES of that sabot on gunbroker.com for what came out to $3/box!!! :eek:
Then after some extended lunch breaks at the range to confirm zero (open sights) at 50 & 100 yds....I was ready.
[BTW, I had also been shooting (real) trap with a 32" full accessory bbl on the Tracker II frame over the summer.....firming up my confidence in leading with the NEF. This becomes important later.....)
My shotgun tag was for the 2nd 10 day season on state land....that means, for the previous 10 days, as many as 97 other hunters were in the deer woods of this particular state forest.....800 acres in this section.
My last deer was in 2001 with an H&R 12ga UltraSlug.
This is the 4th season that I've hunted in this forest near home, and I've pretty much found the main deer highway to the heavily overgrown bedding areas, so that is where I headed before dawn this morning. I found that the trail was still very active, with a few easily found recent scrapes.......but after several hours I was beginning to wonder if all of last weeks activity had sent the deer routines out of kilter.....so I decided to get up from under my hemlock tree and move around a little, I did get cold and had to limber up a little, and maybe change to a different stand.....it was 25deg F til around 0930, and I'm NOT getting any younger! :shock:
So....as I'm ssllooooowly working my way between trees in a somewhat open area.....the woods EXPLODES with 3 large does bounding down the trail at a dead run! All that shooting of all my NEF guns paid off.....everything seemed automatic....cock the hammer....shoulder.....lead .....BLAM! the largest doe took 4 more bounds and crashed ..dead when she hit the ground...a through and through perpendicular double lung shot at approx 10 yds.
Then came the fun part.....dragging the field dressed deer out on approx 1 mile of rocky, windy, rolling trail......You DO have go deep to find them! Although there are 2 or 3 in everybody's yard at dusk....too bad you can't shoot THEM
At this rate, my grandchildren (don't have any....yet....kids still in school) will be shooting some of those 500 sabot rounds :roll:
On Thanksgiving when I asked my Dad if he had any freezer space to rent for 2 deer(1 shotgun, 1 ML) he just laughed and asked when I thought I was going to get ONE.....so I called him this afternoon and asked if he wanted the liver.....
