Tasunkawitko’s 2007 Deer Hunting Diary

pictured above is where i do most of my deer hunting, southwest of chinook, montana. it is quite a big area, perhaps 3-3-1/2 miles square and is mostly private with a section of public land. the coulee along the north is great for both species of deer. both species can also be found in the fields. the tear-drop-shaped area of green brush at the eastern end of the coulee (top right) is reddish brown in the fall and we have seen and shot several good bucks there. my son shot his first buck there last year in that patch of brush:



Edited by TasunkaWitko

 Them big long straight patchs shooting lanes ?

here's another view of part of the same coulee above (the part where we do most hunting, although all of it is PDG). that big horzontal "road"  (actually running north/south) in the middle does not really exist, i suspect it is left over from when they put in the gas well years ago (middle right, near the edge of the field) in any case it is not visible from ground level and is not used as a road. the smaller vertical one (running east/west) is a trail. if our objective is deeper into the coulee, we will usually drive this trail to the end (about the middle of the coulee); other times we park at the turnoff (right at the bottom middle) and walk across to chokecherry coulee (end) or work in from the opposite end. as you can see, with many draws along the side of the coulee and brush in the creek bottom, just this small section alone has much potential for great opportunities. i've seen some big deer here throughout the year.


working up a good load for my 7x57; here is where we're out so far:

winchester brass
cci primers (standard)
hornady 139-grn PSPs (flat base)

we loaded 5 rounds of each:

IMR 4064

• 38 grns
• 39 grns
• 40 grns

IMR 4831

• 44 grns
• 45 grns
• 46 grns

sometime soon (hopefully sunday), i'll take some targets out at 100 yards and i will see where the fun begins.........

Edited by TasunkaWitko

much appreciated!

I finally have some new information and a range report. The weather today in north-central Montana was about as beautiful as can be this time of year. No wind, nice temperature and clear skies. As a reminder, here is what we had:

 

• Rifle – CZ M550 American (7x57)
• Scope - Sightron S1 (3-9x40mm)

The ammunition being tested was loaded as follows:

• Winchester brass
• CCI primers (standard)
• Hornady 139-grn PSPs (flat base)
• 5 rounds of each load (see below)

When we got out there, two high school kids were sighting in and doing a good job of it. The range has only two "lanes," so we waited a while and got ready while they finished up. After they left, we set up targets at 100 yards and proceeded.

We shot a total of six 5-shot groups with at least one minute between shots and at least 5 minutes between groups. The barrel did get warm, but not hot. The bore was slightly fouled but not dirty.

For Christmas, I am definitely asking for a rifle rest or vise. As it was, I had a standard gun cradle for cleaning and mounting scopes. It worked well as a rest for holding the rifle reasonable steady, but it was impossible to set at a particular height and there was way to hold it tight in place. I ended up setting the front end on a folded jacket and managed to get it close to the height I wanted, and then held on-target from there. As a consequence, conditions were a little better than off hand, not nearly as good as bench rest. Perhaps a decent approximation of field conditions using a backpack or some similar informal rest? In any case, all measurements below should be taken with a small grain of salt, since they were not under “perfect” conditions.

While we were there, a father and his high school-aged daughter also came out to sight in her .243 for opening day. They were having a good time and it was nice to see a young lady participating in our sport.

Results were as follows (groups are measured from edge-to-edge at widest point, not center-to-center – 7mm translates to .275 inches, which should be subtracted from each group):

IMR 4064

• 38 grns – One shot missed the target, leaving a wide four-shot group measuring 3.05 inches (net - 2.775 inches). The “center” of the group was approximately ¾ inch above and 1¼ inches to the right of the bull’s eye. One case ended up with a split neck for unknown reasons.
• 39 grns – All five shots hit the target in a group measuring 2.61 inches (net - 2.335 inches). The “center” of the group was approximately ¾ inch above and 1 & 1/8 inches to the right of the bull’s eye. Were it not for a flier, the group would have been 1.89 inches (net - 1.615 inches)with the “center” ¾ inch high and ½ inch to the right of the bull's eye.
• 40 grns – All five shots hit the target in a nice group measuring 1.75 inches (net - 1.475). The “center” of the group was approximately 1½ inches above and ½ of an inch to the right of the bull’s eye. This group was interesting in that it was actually 2 groups; a three-shot group 1½ inches above the bulls eye measuring .74 inches (net - .465 inches) and a second group of two shots nearly through the same hole and about an inch to the right. It seemed to me to ultimately be the best group of all.

IMR 4831

• 44 grns – All five shots hit the target in an erratic group measuring a full six inches across, with an apparent flier at each end, left and right. The “center” of the overall group was a nice little group of three shots (almost a cloverleaf) measuring .71 inches (net - .435 inches) and placed approximately 1¼ inches below and 1/3 of an inch to the left of the bulls eye. This load certainly bears more attention in order to find out whether the fliers were shooter error or a problem with the load.
• 45 grns - This group was tainted by all kinds of misery. During the third shot, the rifle discharged as yours truly was switching off the safety with his finger on the trigger (which is quite sensitive!). This provided the kids with a visual lesson on rifle safety as well as range safety. STAY BEHIND THE FIRING LINE! Anything can happen. As a further complication, one shot missed for whatever reason. This left us with a three-shot group measuring 1.37 inches (net 1.095 inches). The center of the group was approximately 1/8 of an inch below and ¾ of an inch to the right of the bull’s eye. Without the miss and the accidental discharge, this might have been a decent group, but there is no way to know for sure.
• 46 grns – one shot missed the target, leaving a box-shaped four-shot group measuring 2.34 inches (net - 2.065 inches). The “center” of the group was approximately 1 inch to the right and ½ of an inch below the bull’s eye.

Conclusions: Even though there was no completely secure rest, the fact remains that conditions were more-or-less the same for all six groups. With that in mind, the 40 grains of IMR 4064 seem to have performed the best and I will be using that for hunting this year. Having seen a “pretty darn good” group with it, and considering that it lands with very good consistency an inch-and-a-half above the bull’s eye at 100 yards, I have high confidence that it will perform well. Obviously, some tweaking will be necessary in the future, but all things considered, this looks good.

Edited by TasunkaWitko

here's an update.

when i got home from work last night, my two oldest boys were home from checking up on that shot made in the last minutes of opening day. we were all pretty sure that he had missed, but it never hurts to double-check in better light.

they went to the spot where the doe was standing and looked around, after finding no evidence of blood or hair, and searching around and finding nothing else, joe (my oldest boy) decided that he was pretty confident that he did miss with both shots. he didn't like the idea of missing, but he said he'd rather miss than have a wounded deer suffering. he's usually a pretty good shot, but decided that a little more time at the range this coming year would be a good idea.

Edited by TasunkaWitko

it's been a messed-up hunting season for me so far - for starters, a friend of mine who had intended to load a bunch of ammo for my 7x57 (we found what looks to be a pretty sweet load for it) wasn't able to get any loading done due to several factors, so i decided that the four of us (myself and the three older boys) would use the two available rifles (.30/30 and .280).

on top of that, the land we had intended to hunt proved unavailable because the landowners had a lot of extra family hunting it on the weekends, and evidently this extra family has been having a hard time getting deer in an area that is chock-full of deer, so we've had to go to more unfamiliar areas that, while good for deer, took some getting used to.

i wanted the kids to get their deer first, then i would worry about mine. we'd split up into teams of two (also with the 5-yr old wherever i went) and work big coulees and creek bottoms from one end to the other.

my oldest son got a decent little buck (3x3 western count whitetail) early in the season, and i figured it wouldn't be too difficult for us to get one more, then i could start hunting in earnest. well, the best laid plans and all that....even though we'd see quite a few deer, they'd be too far away, or wth the wrong end pointed at us and headed for a property line, or things like that. hunting with a 5-yr old has its disadvantages too, but i've got to say that he's done pretty good, all things considered. a couple of times, extreme wind foiled our plans. also, this new area, while pretty dang nice, is quite a bit farther out of town. my pickup is nearly 35 yers old and has an LT1 (350) engine with a 4-bbl holley double-pump in bad need of a rebuild. the cost of gas IS a factor this year. add to that the fact that i've only got weekends, and a few of those weekends i've had other things that needed done around the house and so far the first deer is the only deer we've got.

lotta little factors that amount to papercuts, but enough of them, and this is what you get, i guess.

hopefully, all that will change this last week of the season. i decided to bring my old baby out of obscurity and back into play. i am of course referring to my herters mJ9 in .308!

this rifle has been in storage at my parents' place since october 2003, wen we moved from lewistown to sand coulee. for several reasons, it's languished there in obscurity, scope off and in storage, until i finally decided to liberate it. i remounted the scope, but needed to sight it in - i had last monday off for Veterans' day, and was going to do it then, but unfortunately, that was the day when we started with some insane wind storms that brought gusts well up around 100mph (not a typo). i wouldn't have a day off till saturday (yesterday), so i reluctantly shoved the idea out of my head for a few days.

yesterday was picture-perfect, so i took the herter's out to the range. we also took the .30/30 and the .280 to check the zeros and get in a little practice. we don't have a rifle range rest/vise, but i've improvised my rifle-cleaning cradle into something that is fairly sturdy and works well enough to get the job done while still giving a bit of a feel for field conditions. not the best, but it works.

when we got to the point where the .30/30 and .280 could bang kill-zone sized rocks every time out to the far end of the range (not sure, perhaps 200 yards), i turned to my old friend. she hadn't been fired in four years, her scope had been removed and remounted, and she was firing new, unfamiliar ammunition that she had never had before (factory federal, blue box, plain jane - don't even know what powder/bullet (150-grain) it uses). it was cheap - 12.99$ - that's all i know about it.

first shot - just a hair under the bullseye and just slightly to the right. i adjust the scope a very few clicks and try again. bullseye! shot another - bullseye!  and another - bullseye!

i couldn't believe my luck. the bullseye is probably an inch in size, and that made me pretty happy. i proceeded to shoot out the bullseye and then tried some shots with a little more distance. the rock at the end of the field - bullseye! again - bullseye! tried a gong at the end of the range - bullseye! there's a final series of three long, skinny gongs (they look like artillery shells or wind chimes hanging next to each other, maybe 8 inches to a foot wide),  perhaps 250-300 yards out. tried to hit the midle one and sailed right between the middle and one of the outer ones. tried again and the same thing happened. definitely shooter error, i think. i decided to conserve the ammo i had left and keep my shots to a 250 yard max.

it was a peasant surprise not only to be reunited with my baby, but also to see that she shoots so well with this cheap factory ammo. i can't decide whether i should try to get more, or try to dupliate the load and perhaps improve it!

anyway, we're going out now to try again before the last week of the season. all three of us will have rifles, and there will be good confidence in them. all we need to do is see deer, which will be tough, sice the wind is raging, making closer shots necessary IF we see deer. but for the first time this season, i feel like i'll actually be hunting!

Edited by TasunkaWitko

i've been turning this over in my mind, the fact that we pretty much found NO deer yesterday. after bouncing a couple of ideas off a guy at another forum, i tried to work the situation thoroughly. the challenge of matching the hunt to the terrain/weather/other conditions is one of the true aspects that transforms a guy walking around in the field with a rifle into a hunter. in yesterday's case, i think i got too bogged down in the fact that there seemed to be NO deer ANYWHERE.

in general (not always) the sweet spots are the brush in the cuts and draws that run up the side to the bench lands; also some nice bedding areas in the creek bottoms. on calm days, deer can usually be found in the southern exposures (catching some rays) - on windy days they will be found on the leeward sides.

the creek bottoms themselves are pretty steeply-angled and range in height from a few feet to a few meters, with some cliffs that rise from 10-30 meters, probably. they are lined with trees, brush and tall grass and seem like they should be adequate for shelter from wind, but when we got down low in them yesterday, we could still feel some of it, although it was cut down drastically. we found several excellent bedding areas but even they seemed to not be enough out of the wind.

i don't think temperature was as much a factor as was the wind. we did search some leeward sides but for the most part could not escape the wind totally. the one buck we did come across was on the leeward side of one of the aforementioned draws.

in the middle of writing all that, i actually thought of a possibility we hadn't considered yesterday.

on another part of the same property, probably half a mile or so from where we usually hunt, there is one spot where the creek bottoms are as described, but the west side of the creek bed rises probably a hundred feet or so as a steep, sharply-angled cliff that probably would have blocked the wind entirely. now that i think about it, a person might have been able to find them in the brushy areas of that creek bottom (the wind was coming from the west. it seems obvious now, but we had been over that part in the past weeks and had found nothing. it didn't even occur to me yesterday because i was so sure i'd find them in the other areas (which were good, even for a breezy day, but not BEST for a really WINDY day like yesterday). it's possible that there still might not have been deer there, but for the property i was on it was, in retrospect, the best place to look. come to think of it, it would have been closer to their source of food, too!


Edited by TasunkaWitko

rob - there's a perfect spot for that; three perfect spots, actually, depending on wind, time of day etc.

i'll try to take digital camera when we go this week and get some pix of the terrain.

well, work hasen't been letting up, so i might end up giving y'all the short version!

thanksgiving day - my wife, who usually likes it when i am out of the house, told me that under no circumstances will i be hunting today, especially if i expect her to cook for, feed and entertain my parents and sister, who came to visit. so i spent the day talking with my dad about the big bucks he had seen that morning, and also watching a truck pass by now and then with large antlers sticking up out of the back. the weather was cool, but not cold, slightly breezy but not windy, cloudy but not humid. i was depressed, but the dinner was excellent.

friday - went out and hunted long and hard the second half of the day to the same area i had been going to. we know that there are good populations of both species there and that pressure is very light, so why go anywhere else? today, there were some other hunters at the north end, so we hunted the south end, which i am less familiar with, but it contains good habitat. the older boys extended out into the area where the other hunters were and came across a fresh gutpile right where i would have expected to find deer. after seeing and passing on a few smaller deer, we decided to go back to the more familiar north end toward the end of the day. we split up and saw nothing, and met up just after 4pm. i noticed an interesting, small-but deep cut with good brush in it that i hadn't really noticed before, and asked mike if he wanted to work it with me. billy continued on back to the pickup to wait for us. mike, roger and i started to work the cut. when we were just getting to the brush we saw movement out beyond where the cut opens up into a large field of sagebrush, prickly pear, brush and grass. i got low and worked my way over to his side, which was less visible to the deer out there, and took a look. it looked like a good-sized mulie buck. since we were partially out of sight and could get closer, i advised him to carefully work his way to the mouth of the cut and set up a prone shot straight out to the guy. the distance seemed like perhaps 250 yards. mike carefully crawled up there and i could see him taking aim, but he never took the shot, even though the buck was turned broadside and standing still for quite some length of time. i crawled up to him to see if anything was wrong while roger stayed back well out of the buck's sight with his hands over his ears. during this time, the buck was slowly advancing across the field, stopping  to look around and enjoy his afternoon. not a care or worry in the world. mike was concerned about the distance and asked if i wanted to take the shot. since moving closer would put us in full view, i said i would give it a try. i looked in the scope and ol buck was even bigger than i thought he was. because of the fading light, i was not able to see the tips of his antlers well, but the base was very large, extending past his ears, and reminded me of a crescent moon lying on its back. the first thing i thought of was the picture of KLALLEN's buck in his avatar, and how much this one resembled that one. the only problem now was that the buck was facing us straight on. i looked at him through the scope and decided that it was further out than i thought previously, and also at a sharper downward angle than i thought at first. i tried to adjust for that, then pulled the trigger. unfortunately, i should have heeded my own advice and waited for a broadside. the shot was quite low and the buck dashed off maybe 40 yards back the way it came. he didn't seem wounded, but i wanted to make sure, and in the fading light things were getting desperate. i knew it was stupid, but decided to head straight for him rather than try to sneak in from the side, since that would have taken a long time. my thinking was that either we would get him or lose him. we advanced about 200 yards, and the whole time he stood there looking back at us over his shoulder. i stopped several times in order to take aim, but did not want to take a chancy shot. incredibly, when we were still a 150 or so yards away, he whipped around, facing us once again, and seemed to sniff the air, almost as if challenging us and still refused to move. i figured that now would be a good time to take a shot, but as i raised the rifle he finally decided that we weren't another buck after all and took off into the brush and across the creek bottom. by now it was literally the last couple of minutes of legal shooting hours so we watched his sillouhette (sp) as it reached the top of the cliff and headed for a field and a fence. it looked like he might ahve been limping, but i am not sure. i know i did not hit him in the head or chest, and he seemed to be standing on all four legs when we were perusing him, so i am pretty sure that i missed. considering that i misjudged the distance so badly, i figured that i had given up my right to such a nice animal, and figured that my own hunting season was pretty much over. i did, however, have the satisfaction of seeing a true pig of a mule deer. he was definitely a big one.

saturday - mike was ready early on in the day, billy didn't want to go, and roger begged to go. i told billy to get in the truck and we headed out again. i was hoping to see the buck i shot at the day before, but as far as i know, he wasn't around that day. in the afternoon, roger started getting owly and so i took him back to the pickup. billy asked if he could use my .308, and i said sure, why not. while roger and i played hangman, billy and mike worked the cuts and draws. billy took a shot at a young buck (maybe born the spring of 2006?) but said later that he jerked the shot a bit and wounded him. mike, who is better at such things, went to track him while billy went the mile or so back to the pickup to tell me. when we got to mike, he had just started gutting the deer. billy tagged him, helped finish and we dragged him back to the pickup. it was dark but not particularly cold, and we had a good time.

sunday - mike and i noted the irony that the kid who didn't really want to go got the deer the day before, and we decided that we'd fix that today. billy happily stayed home while we brought joe, who had already gotten his deer early in the season but wanted to help with gutting, dragging etc. we got out there and split up, the boys working the south half while roger and i worked the north. as we were coming down into some bedding areas, i spied quite a large doe sitting there just as lovely as could be. i hit the deck worked as close as i could (about 200 yards) and took aim. this time, i was maybe 70 feet above and probably 150 yards away. i tried to judge the horizontal distance, then aimed and fired. the shot went just above her back and into the dirt behind her, and she jumped up as if someone had shoved a hot poker into her belly. she took off and managed to scare up four of her sisters and the last i saw of them they joined a buck on another property and kept running/pogo-sticking their way across a fence. i chaled that one up to murphy and we worked our way down to work the far side of the bedding areas, just in case there might be a deaf and blind doe still lurking around. while down there, i saw a lot of deer moving off onto other property at the south end of the property, and discovered that there were two other hunters working the area ahead of where joe and mike were. unfortunately, they were succeeding in simply driving the deer off the property. i personally observed 16 of them moving across the top and over the fence. i also watched the other hunters maybe 500 yards behind these deer, completely unaware of the fact that they were scaring them all away, from my vantage, i could also see joe and mike maybe 300 yards behind them, working another area but having no luck. i decided that this hunting season was really a re-enactment of the keystone kops, with me as chief. when we finally met up with joe and mike (the other hunters had given up and gone back the way that they came) we decided to try one last attempt. from the bedding areas that i had been working, there is a ditch that runs perpendicular, then turns parallel to a wide field where we had seen the buck on friday. i got to thinking that we could sit in that ditch and wait until the day started to fade, about an hour and a half or so. we went to what looked like a good spot and got down out of sight. we couldn't see much because of the depth of the ditch, but were able to look up through sagebrush now and then to observe what was going on. after half an hour or so, joe started improvising buck calls, and was doing pretty good at it. i told him if he wanted to do that, just do one every 5 minutes or so. about 415 pm, we looked up, and right where we had seen the buck on friday, there were three much smaller bucks, only 75 yards or so away. i could have screamed thinking about how close we could have been to the big buck on friday had i thought of this tactic. daylight was going on the last day, so i told mike that this was it. i wanted him to get his deer and was not concerned about getting one myself, having blown two previous good opportunities. the shot rang out, a deer dropped, and we spent a while looking for it. we found him in some tall grass not 20 yards from where he had been shot. he had crawled there completely out of sight as his shattered lung played out his last breaths. after gutting and dragging him back to the car (don't ask), it was dark and some weather was moving in. a nice day was turning into some snow and cold temperatures. - so ended the 2007 hunting season.

as i said, that's the quick version. i'll try to add any details as well as a map/arial shot when i have time. if anyone has any specific questions, fire away. in answer to the obvious question, yes, i feel like a dumbass for screwing up two extremely good opportunities, but i am glad that i got to see all three of my boys tag out this year!