tion so the buck couldn’ t see us. It took me awhile to find him in the scope on a hillside full of buckbrush. He was a cool-looking devil buck, and for some reason he was still in velvet. He was a little over 200 yards.
When I was on him I asked Sam to take my rifle off safety and when he did that the rifle fired. Missing the buck by only inches that we could see from a video from Sam’ s phone. The buck got up and ran. We made the decision to head to Sentinel Butte to figure out what went wrong with my rifle and to figure out the next plan.
By this time, I was freezing. We were going to meet his friends Brady and Cole. We met at the local coffee spot. The owner opened the back door so I could get in and I tilted back in my wheelchair. I’ m supposed to do that every hour for 10 minutes to relieve pressure.
Shelie got some tea for me. I was so cold, my left arm wasn ' t working well. I don’ t even like tea, but that didn’ t matter at the time. It helped me warm up. The owner also brought out a platter of baked goods, including caramel rolls and pumpkin bars. We figured out that when we put the elongated trigger on the trigger guard of Sam’ s rifle it must’ ve been too close to the trigger. That’ s what made the gun go off prematurely, even though it worked fine when we tested it. Brady said we could use his. 300 Win Mag that shoots 215 grain Hybrid Berger bullets. His rifle is topped with a Vortex Viper Gen 2. My elongated trigger worked perfectly on it.
Brady said he had some family land I could hunt on. We pulled into
A great hunt, with Brady Olson, Clint Lindemann and Sam Clyde, in a part of America that remains mostly as it was through history.
an old abandoned farmstead and made a plan. Brad, Shelie and I would stay at the farmstead in the warm vehicle while they did some scouting. It wasn’ t long and I got the call from Sam that they’ d located found a good buck bedded down.
It took us a bit to get to the spot. But it wasn’ t nearly as rough as the stuff I’ d been through the last couple days. At the top of the hill there was a field of harvested peas. The 40 mph-plus wind was pretty much directly in my face, but perfect to get on the buck.
I got out of the vehicle into that wind and knew it was going to be a hard shot. Brad, Brady, Sam and I made sneak to the edge of the hillside and got prepared. The deer was bedded 290 yards away. The tray on my wheelchair was vibrating and my chair was blowing around like a kite. Brady grabbed one side of my chair trying to hold it still, Sam on the other. My eyes were watering and I was shivering. I was miserable.
It took me awhile to get on him with that
wind, then once I had him targeted the wind would bounce the scope around terribly. I finally felt like I was on him so
I took a shot and it went right over his back. The buck had no clue where the shot came from. He got up and ran maybe a
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