Saturday was opening day of the second combined deer and elk season in Colorado. Myself and several others had tags to hunt at Recoil Junky's place just north of Craig. I was taking the Steyr M95 to kill a doe. RJ had assured me tha tgetting with in 100 yards was not a problem and after my last trip to the range I was confident out to that far. I left alone on Friday and ran smack into a pretty good storm in the mountains. With my 4Runner and new tires I didn't have any trouble which is more than I can say for many others. There were stuck cars, a jackknifed pick-up towing a trailer and one talented individual managed to roll his pick-up while going up the hill!:confused: With all the "obsticals it took me a little longer than usual to get to Craig so I didn't pull in untill about 9:00pm. Steve and Don were supposed to come up and meet me but with the weather they held off untill the next porning. So I found a place to park south of town and crawled in back for the night.
 
The next morning people started driving by at about 5:30 and woke me up. I was too excited to go back to sleep so I got up and went into town for breakfast. RJ said to come by around 9:30 so I had lots of time. So at 9:30 I showed up and there were several deer feeding out in his pasture. While we were chatting and I changed they moved off on to the neighbors property. So we headed out and waited for them to come back our way. We were watching about 30 of them or so on the opposite hill when along came a calf. It started running around and it looked like it was trying to nurse. Thoes deer wanted nothing to do with this cow and scattered. Several ended up on RJs property and it was show time. He drove me to the opposite end of his property to sneak back through the sage. So I started sneaking along and I soon saw several does. I kept a big sage bush between me and them and snuck as close as I could. Finally I was in position and there was a doe watching me maby 50 yards away. So I took aim and fired. She jumped straight up in the air and hit the ground running. All the deer took off and I started looking for blood but found none.:frown RJ said that it sounded like a hit and I was confident about my shot but we were wrong. A short time later Steve and his son Don showed up. We hunted but didn't get any more good opportunities that day. While walking around RJs property with him we found a yearling that had gotten stuck in a fence. It was still alive and RJ cut it free. With a little coaxing it got up and meandered off. I hope that it will be ok. Saturday evening RJ got permission for us to hunt some of his neighbors property as well as his own.
 
Saturday night Steve, Don, and I slept just down the road in out trucks. Steve has a Surburban and I slept in my 4Runner. It was a little colder than the night before but I was still warm in my sleeping bag. We got some snow during the night too. Sunday we planned to show up at 8:00. We ran into town to get breakfast for everyone that morning. When we pulled up to RJs house there were several deer right across the road bedded down on some property that we had permission to hunt. It seemed pretty straight forward. Walk acorss the road, cross the fence and shoot the deer. But the best laid plans of mice and men............. We got over there and there was a doe laying down looking at me about 50 yards away so I pulled up and shot and I saw stuff fly. She got up as did all the others and headed in various directions. Don picked one out and made a nice double lung shot. Steve had one run right in front of him but I don't know if he saw it or ever fired. I went down to the bed of the one that I had shot at and saw where the bullet his about 2 feet low of the deer. Now I knew that something was not right with the rifle. :frown I had contemplated bringing a back up but decided against it. I could use Don's 7mm Mag but then RJ offered me the use of his 35 Whelen and I accepted. We went and cleaned Don's deer and took pictures. This was his first big game kill. So we went inside and ate some breakfast now and sat on the deck drinking coffee and watching deer. There were some on the neighbors property where we had permission to hunt. We talked about it and decided that the best thing to do was to drive up into the neighbors yard, who wasn't home, and shoot the deer. So we did. RJ gave me his 35 Whelen and about a box and a half of shells. I think that after watching me shoot he was thinking that I was going to need them.:D We drove up into the yard and the deer were about 200 yards off in the pasture. Steve told me to shoot when I was ready so I used the corral as a rest, picked out the closest mature doe and squeezed off. I lost the sight picture and there were deer running everywhere so I looked at RJ to see if I hit. Again I was confident in my hold but in the sage I couldn't see anything and my confidence was a tad shakey at this point. He gave me the signal that she was down and I began to relax. Now it was Steve's turn. Finally he got one at a decient angle that didn't have another deer lined up and he fired and down the went. Two deer with two shots. So we went up to clean the deer and get them back. I had hit mine a little high but got a lung and clipped the spine. Needless to say the 250gr bullet was not recovered. My shot was 183 yards and Steves was about 20 yards farther. We drug Steves deer over to mine for the photo ops and then cleaned them out and loaded them in the truck and took them back to the house. Just then my father-in-law and his brother showed up. While we were showing them the property a herd of about 100 elk ran righ tup to the property line! There were 2 legal bulls and both RJ and my father-in-law had bull tags. Had they stepped over the fence it would have gotten real interesting real quick but they turned around and headed back. I stayed the rest of the day with them but they didn't get anything. Then that night we all headed back home. I got home about 1:00am dog tired but happy. Everyone had a great time and RJ is a wonderfull host. Here is a picture of Steve and I with our deer. Mine was 75 pounds after field dressing, skinning and removing the head and legs. I don't have the other pics yet but I will post them when I get them.
 

Glad to you got a Beast :D .

    Hmm wonder what's up with the Steyr? Look forward to the report of what happened with it.

  Conratulations on a successful hunt :) .

My thought is the scope gremlins got to it on the way here. I've seen it happen before.:o I was hoping that HB could harvest a doe with his Steyr. The 35 Whelen doesn't feel so bad now. It hasn't got to kill anything for 4-5 years except paper and prarrie dogs. I was realy disapointed that no one killed a doe on my property after all the bragging I did. But that silly calf really managed to throw a wrench in the works. I had never seen anything like that in my life. It was so hilarious that had there been any deer close to where HB and I were sitting that I spooked them away with my laughter. I don't think the deer in my neck of the woods are used to cattle and this poor little fella was looking for momma.
 
It seems that the hunting pressure is a little more severe this year. The elk usually don't move down this low this early. Even the little patch of BLM land east of me had more hunters than deer this year. Last year I didn't see anyone on it.
 
I was glad that we did manage to harvest a few does. I know this will not make a dent in the population, but I did get some satisfaction after having fed the silly beasts on my drought shortened alfalfa patch all summer. :D
 
I'm glad everyone had a good time. HB, I'm already making plans for next year!!
 
RJ

Congratulations HB and all! Those are nice-looking does.
 
As far as the Steyr goes, I am pretty sure it was movement in the 'scope mount. HB tells me that it might be swelling wood movent due to all the wet. I'm still leaning towards the mount itself as the culprit. It's simply not very strong.
 
Jay and I are discussing a two-piece base for the Steyr that I hope will improve substantially on the modified B-square. In the alternative, I am looking into how much hassle it will be to make a new front sight. Shooting with open sights is perfectly fine with me out to 200 yds, but the existing sight shoots WAY too high. The milsurp front sight has a typical and simple dove-tailed base, and shouldn't be difficult to replicate with a higher post.
 
Maybe I'll be eating Colorado venison before too long.
 
Paul

Thanx guys.
 
RJ, if all goes well next year it'll just be my grandfather and my oldest daughter hunting. We'll see. We all had a wonderfull time, thank you so much. And I did find my keys so no worries there.
 
Paul, honestly, I thinkt hat I would have been better off with the open sights. I wasn't doing too bad the last time I used them. We'll put our heads together when you're out here and see what we can come up with. If time allows we'll run down to see Andy and see if he has any suggestions. Also I'll be sure to make something with meat from this deer when you are here. Maby some pemmican to take with us.

Great job! I'm glad it all worked out on your hunts.

:D "HB" and "RJ" congrats to you guys, :D that a good pic, I don't know if my ol back could take to sleeping in the back like that these day's :D good post i enjoyed reading it, hope ya get your steyr worked out, Ron