Pulling the trigger was the easy bit .

[comanche 2,988]

After seeing nothing but out of season does or unshootable bucks   l   had started to think of the three cartridges l had been carrying on my last few outings  as old friends . 

      Then yesterday  evening just as the light was failing and mist was rising l managed to say goodbye to one of them .  Sneaking  along a hedge  brought me up to a fallow buck . He was standing apart from his does angled slightly  towards me . At 75 yards and with a fence post to rest on it wasn't  a testing shot and a neck shot sunk him without a twitch. 

     He was a lot bigger than l thought. "No matter" l mused confidently "l'll gut him and drag him   to an accessible spot , then  go back to the farm and borrow the Gator  buggy thingy." 

Well the drag ,uphill of course , had me wondering at my sanity and physical condition but l had ,so l thought , the compensation of knowing the hard bit was over .

   Unfortunately it turned out that after slogging back to the yard there was nobody about to give me the buggy keys .

      There was no choice but to heave the thing a yard at a time up the hill . I'll cut out the painful bit and just say that  the deer's arrival  in the yard came nearly two hours after l had pulled the trigger . 

    This morning  thanks to the help of some friends  who have a smallholding opposite  the farm  ,and their handy tractor the previous evening's labour suddenly seemed worthwhile . 

Edited October 27 by comanche

[ZacB 114]

Know exactly how you felt re the drag & love the last of your pic’s