# Egypt Valley Muzzloader .....2018



## 9Left (Jun 23, 2012)

Made it out to the cabin at Piedmont Lake area again this year to hunt Egypt Valley with some good friends.
With the frigid cold temperatures we had on Saturday and Sunday, our group,consisting of five guys,decided to put on some short but strategic drives through some briar thickets. We did see several deer as a result of these drives but there were no good shots available.. Egypt Valley is just such a vast, open area that it seems like no matter how strategically we placed the sitters, The Deer always seem to find an escape route just out of range. On Monday afternoon, we came up with a plan to push a very long and large hillside that was dotted with thickets and Pines. I was one of the sitters on this drive and I posted in my position on the hillside about 40 yards from a big Thicket at the end of the planned drive ... I quietly waited, and waited… and waited ...until finally, an hour went by and I saw the orange from one the drivers coming through the last thicket.. "dangit" I thought.. no deer. As I met up with my buddy that was driving, we talked for a minute and came down to the bottom of the hill side , we met up with the other two that were posted at the bottom ,we passed around a few cups of hot coffee from a thermos and waited for the last driver to come through ... just as we were talking and sipping coffee, we heard a twig snap… "finally" i said, " that's our other driver coming through " .... I could see the movement coming through the Thicket towards me, closer and closer it came ... I stared at that movement for what seemed like five minutes , but no matter how hard I looked, I could not see orange ... thoughts of a deer passed through my mind briefly, but there was just no way anyone was going to shoot at something that we could not identify ...closer and closer, louder and louder... twigs snapping, branches breaking.... until finally i saw it, and there was no mistaking that it was a deer as it came out of the Thicket and into an opening just 60 yards away from me at the bottom of the hill . Just then we heard some other twigs snapping, I looked up the hill to see the other driver finally coming through, I turned back to look at the deer, still staring at me .. I think the deer was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him still standing there. I was in a kneeling position in the snow...my right hand slowly moved up and I cocked the hammer back on my T/C Encore... slowly, I raised the gun and got ready, all the while, this deer is still just staring at me , quartering to me, I settled crosshairs on the shoulder of the deer and squeezed the trigger. BOOOM!! The smoke was just clearing as I could see the white flag bouncing, almost like the deer was waving goodbye ...I stood up, collected myself, and reloaded. The rest of the group came over as I was making my way to where the deer was standing, several inches of snow clearly showed blood everywhere on the ground. It was a very long and arduous drive, so the two drivers decided to go back to the cabin to get some hot lunch and prepare for dinner... and the other two joined me for the tracking . I knew there was a slim chance that I got both lungs as the deer was quartering to me... my heart sank just a little as I started seeing stomach contents on the ground scattered throughout the blood ...but we slowly and quietly pressed on, following the blood trail all the way back along the hillside, through thickets, crossing creeks, circling back around, and going every direction in the world. not one time during this track job, did I find a spot where the deer bedded down, Had I come across a bloody bed, I would have backed out and waited an hour ... but this deer just never seemed to lay down anywhere ...I tracked this hike on my GPS, we had gone exactly 1.2 miles by 5 p.m... it was getting close to being dark, but the blood trail continued on. We were just downright exhausted,cold, and hungry as daylight was fading, seeing as no one had a headlamp, I was persuaded to continue the search in the morning. We made our way back to the trucks, and drove back to the cabin to get a Hot dinner and probably the best beer I've had in my life. (more like 3,   )

The next morning, after a quick breakfast, I was ready to get at it... seeing as the others in the group still had not shot a deer, they were wanting to sit somewhere in the morning as the temperatures were much better. determined to find my deer...I set out on a solo mission, there was just no denying that this deer was laying dead somewhere , and I was going to find it .
The last blood that we had marked the previous night was where the deer crossed a main road ...I drove my truck to exactly that spot and continued my search… And as luck would have it, I found the deer after just 30 more minutes of tracking. and to my surprise, the deer was completely intact, untouched by the coyotes.









The deer finally layed down next to the frozen pond in the pic below.. I shot it on far side of distant hillside in the background.








Obviously, as the pic shows, I was probably still shaking when I pulled the trigger .. My shot placement was slightly to the right , the deer was facing me, quarterd to my left...The field dress job did show that I took out the back end of one lung and landed the bullet in the stomach. No pass through. It's amazing how far a deer will go with just one lung working. I was more amazed that I never once kicked up this deer during the tracking.

Never give up!

Thanks for reading my story guys and have a great 2018!


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

That was a good tracking job, glad all worked out, that’s a heck of a distance it went.


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## fastwater (Apr 1, 2014)

Great read 9.
You did good by waiting till morning.
Old guy once told me, "when in doubt...back out".
That's proven to be very true over the years.


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## cb55 (Jan 4, 2014)

Good job


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## bobk (Apr 30, 2004)

Congrats and thanks for the good read.


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

love reading a good hunting story that turns out good. congrats on getting your deer. and kudos for following it to the end.
sherman


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## chris1162 (Mar 12, 2008)

Sounds like your freezer is full for the year now!!! Congrats carl!


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

Nice read and a great story. Congrats on the successful hunt.


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