My son and I were driving from our deer camp toward the place we intended to hunt for the day and came upon a fawn on the dirt road.  We stopped and the fawn looked toward the woods.  My son spotted a doe about 25 yards off the road.  When he pointed her out to me my eyes spotted a buck.  He was about 40 yards away behind some low ground growth.  His rack didn't look very big and, upon inspection through my binos, I confirmed that he was only a forkie.  He had a nice size body but I really wanted something with a bigger rack since I still had 3 days of hunting ahead of me.  However, this was the 4th day of our hunt.  About the same time I decided not to take him with my rifle I thought about my new (to me) 744VH6.  I was able to sneak up on him from behind a couple of trees and got to a range of 16 yards.  It wasn't a terribly difficult shot but it took two rounds to take him down.  One in the lower chest just behind the shoulder and the other in the upper chest about 2 inches below the spine.  The second shot he was on the move so I consider it lucky to have hit in the kill zone.  The second shot dropped him to the ground.  I went back to my rig to gather my kit when my son saw him get up and start to do the drunken deer walk.  I couldn't believe that after two rounds of 44 mag a blacktail deer could get up.  He went about 40 yards and hit the ground but still breathing.  My son joined me with his 715VH6 and I dispatched the buck with the 357 as he was still breathing and I didn't want him to suffer.  Mmmm backstrap, jerky, pepperoni sticks.  A great memory has been made and it included my two newly acquired Dan Wesson revolvers and my son.  If you ask me that's a nice day.

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