Sat morn we loaded up the dogs and headed to our hunting club. The club just had two English-style driven pheasant shoots, so there plenty of birds in the fields. I worked the dogs and supervised Brandon with his 1939 Iver Johnson single shot 410 (custom fitted, IC choked). He knocked down darn near every bird he shot at. When the dog points and the bird gets up close, the 410 is absolutely deadly. Since watching my boys shoot dove, quail and pheasant with the 410 (3" 7.5 shot) I have a new-found respect for it. Here's the pheasant tally -
Sunday we had a big lunch and headed out to the hunting property. After about an hour and a half I looked over to our left and saw a parade of hogs coming across an opening. There were 26 of them altogether strung out, the closest at about 50 yards. Brandon picked a big one in the middle and shot. The hog squeaked and took off on a run. Hogs went in every direction. A hog that lagged behind popped out of the woods and Brandon said "I'm going to shoot him too". I didn't even know he worked the lever. Bang - flop. It was only 5:28PM, so I told Brandon to be quiet and the deer still might show up. At this point he said he did not feel good.
Over the next 40 minutes Brandon complained of a migrane and sick stomach, but he refused to leave. He said he'd tough it out until dark, so I just told him we could leave whenever he's ready.
I looked up and said, Brandon - here's your deer. He quietly aimed in at the 94 yard shot. I looked though binoculars. At the shot I saw the deer tuck its tail and run, but I did not see or here a shot. I asked Brandon if he hit it and he said he aimed good but lost the sight picture in recoil. We did see two little deer run out of the woods at the shot so we were not sure. After a half hour, we got down. It was nearly dark but suddenly we found a blood trail that started about 30 feet from the place of the shot. I gave him the flashlight and he followed it. I was surprised how far it went, probably about 80 to 100 yards. It was a high lung shot and the bullet did not exit. He said "OK, I'm going to throw up now", and he did. He sat on the ground and fell asleep. I carried him back to the truck and had a long night ahead of me...
