opening day

Saturday, 16 October 2010. Opening day of modern firearm deer season in Washington State. I was the tag along camera guy and an extra set of eyes for my cousin and her aunt today. We were hunting mostly in and around wheat fields for Mule deer though some whitetails were seen as well. We saw a lot of deer but the hunting was very different than what I'm used to. We covered a lot fo ground and used our glasses a ton. Though it was quite cold we never really felt it from the inside of the Jeep which explains the covering lots of ground and being very different than what I'm used to. I can not however argue with the simple fact that we saw a lot of deer including a couple of nice bucks. One of which jumped up about 30 yards from the truck as we were busy spotting deer a few hundred yards away. He was wide and tall with plenty of tines. The unit is 3 point minimum. When my cous got out of the rig she couldn't make out the number of tines because it was going straight away so she never shot. The back of the head is not the preferred spot to shoot if you want it on your wall anyhow. So, hopefully he'll be back in the area in the am. Though no shots were fired, at deer, it was a fun day and I look forward to doing it again.
I clarified no shots at deer because we did fling some lead at coyotes. One that was running full speed across the field in front of us. The second one which I unloaded on was calmly walking by at about 750 yards when my first round hit the dirt just behind him. Over the next 700 yards I let 5 more shots go. The last of which, at about a mile away, was no more than a foot or so from him. Guessing the holdover at approx 1500 yards with a 223 that's sighted in at 2oo is fun but not so easy! I'm thinking that might be a fun spot to check out again tomorrow :-)

oh, and for anyone keeping track, I did sleep about 5 hours last night! Praise the Lord