Oct 27, 2018 5 min read

I guess one could say that old George worries about everything .

This is especially true when deer season approaches and this year it came early for me. First, I am planning a trip to Missouri to hunt white-tail deer. Why this state? The No. 1 reason is it is one of the top trophy producing white-tail buck states in the United States, running very close to Ohio. In fact, my last figures show Missouri ahead of Ohio in the trophy category.

Another reason is that the Macon County Outfitters is located there. I have hunted there with Matt Shoemaker, the owner, before and found it to be one of the best outfitters I have been associated with. They always do more than promised. The accommodations and the food are excellent as is the staff. It only takes a short period of time to feel like a friend of Matt’s and you probably are. It’s easy to find Macon County Outfitters as they set up a booth at the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg shows.

This hunt in mid-November meant an early start of preparations.

First is a flat shooting accurate rifle and some good glass. When I was a young man, I had but one deer rifle. Now that I have more than one, it is tough to make up my mind which one I want to take. Even as I type this, I am not sure. Last year, it was a bullet from a .270 that dropped an 8 pointer. But this year, I got a bug to try a relatively new bullet from Hornady the SST.

This bullet has the base bonded but the front section has the familiar plastic tip that initiates expansion. I think this is the bullet I will use. I have always felt that the importance of the bullet is the most ignored of all the performance issues. Most shooters look at energy and never terminal velocity.

Ballistics shooters will argue about velocity; seldom does one hear talk about the importance of the terminal velocity of a bullet. How does that bullet perform when it strikes the target? Many times, I will sacrifice a bit of speed and-or accuracy to get good bullet expansion and-or penetration. The early October hunt for seniors and juniors would offer me a perfect chance to check out the behaviors of the Hornady SST.

Then along came another perfect first opportunity for me. I had asked a friend of mine, Jeff Gardner, who is active in multiple organizations, if I could sit in his great elevated stand this year. He came back with an offer for me. I could use his stand this year if next year he could sell a ticket that would allow one junior hunter to hunt from his tree stand with me. This would raise some money for one of his conservationist projects. Now after this year’s bullet test, I can further proof that bullet with some youngster in that elevated stand.

As for this years elevated hunt, I invited Mike along because I like to hunt with company these days. We took Coy, Mike’s dog, as this year was another first. It was the first time hunters were permitted to use tracking dogs to retrieve deer. So a test for the bullet and a test for Coy. The dog settled down under the stand as she has done many times on various hunts. Normally she never blinks an eye as we shoot groundhogs and such.

As deer hunters know, deer hunting involves patience and a good eye. On this particular trip, we did not need either as a doe appeared pretty quickly. Quietly as I could, I eased the Model 70 out the window and placed the dot on her neck. At the shot, she hit the ground.

Mike congratulated me on our way out of the stand on what in reality was a fairly easy shot. I didn’t care if it was easy, as my freezer was devoid of venison and needed a refill.

We climbed down and Mike released Coy from her down, stay. He told her to go find that animal that hadn’t moved from the spot I downed her. Well that dog went like a bullet straight to that downed deer and smelled her but then she ran past it to another location. She wagged her tail and got all excited. It appeared she was going to fail her track test as she left the deer that she was supposed to find and stay with.

Poor Coy, I thought. And poor Mike, who had fed the dog and trained the dog all year to be our tracking dog. Well as we walked over to that dog, who refused to move, we discovered that is where the bullet had landed. I think Coy had not only graduated but I’d say she graduated with honors as she found the deer and my bullet I was testing. Good girl Coy.