2020 U. P. rifle hunt

2020 deer season


I saw two does, an old one and a yearling, come out of a front yard about 1-1/2 miles from camp as I drove in on Saturday the 14th. At a little after 5 that day I had a similar pair in the camp yard for a while.


It was raining the Sunday morning opener, so I stayed in until it quit somewhat and got to my spot about 9:45 A. M., hunted until noon, saw nothing whatsoever, and came in when visitors showed up. I went back out at 1:30 P. M., and it was dog snot weather the whole day. Saw nothing.


Monday was better weather, but other than a brief appearance of one wood pecker and one red squirrel I saw nothing. Last year was the first and only time I’d hunting this spot, and was seriously rethinking it, but decided on one more try.


Tuesday morning was much better. The weather was even nicer, and I had two woodpecker work a tree near me for about an hour. Also several red squirrels remained active, so I knew it would be a good deer hunting day. My biggest objection to this spot is that it is only a 5 minute slow walk from the camp door. Much closer than I would like. I was sitting on a 5 gallon buck with a seat against a white spruce on a low hill overlooking several similar hill and a high steep one in the background with no bait and no blind. All the time since I started I had pretty bad wind. South would have been perfect, and this had been almost Northwest since I started two days ago.


Just after 9:00 A. M. I heard a deer coming. I was worried about the wind, but had about a 20 to 30 degree margin. The deer was a buck, and walked out of the same place the buck I shot last year did. He came to the same opening, and I shot him at about 30 yards when he was within a few yards of where I shot last years buck. He took off at the shot, and ran about 40 yards in a 240 degree arc ending nearly where I had shot him.


I used a CZ550 in 7x57mm with a Nikon 4x40 scope shooting a150 gr. Nosler Partition estimated at about 2700 fps. I couldn’t find the entrance would from the outside, but the exit wound and blood trail were good. I had never used this rifle, bullet, or scope before, and liked using them.


The buck was an 8 point the DNR aged at 2-1/2 years, and measured the bases at 21 & 22mm. They weren’t weighing deer this year, so I have no weight. These base measurements are typical of averages for yealings in some L. P. DMUs.

IMG_1510 by Tilden Hunter posted Nov 18, 2020 at 12:04 PM

IMG_1499 by Tilden Hunter posted Nov 18, 2020 at 12:04 PM

 

This was the first time I've used a bullet diameter less than .308". Is the difficulty in finding the entrance wound typical of smaller calibers, or was this just a fluke?