My Son called me this AM, about his yesterday afternoon/evening's muzzleloading deer hunting adventures (locally).
Using his vacation days up, but with his friends having to work, he went deer hunting by himself in a nearby assigned (lottery) "special permit" area (his permit allows one unpermitted partner to hunt with him).
Late in the afternoon, a buck & two does meandered near his treestand - so he shot the buck, which scampered away slowly.
The two does, however, (not knowing where the shot came from) loitered long enough for him to reload his .50cal T/C Encore - so he then shot the largest of the two does (He buys my state's Sportsman deer tag package of 8 tags), which also meandered away (the last doe just took off @ the shot).
He reloaded yet again, and since his hunting partner was due @ the hunt area right after his work day, he just sat there while mentally marking where the two deer were standing when he shot them (for tracking later).
After about 5 mins of sitting quietly in his stand, a buck that looked like the one he had just shot came towards him, but at a slightly different angle - so he shot it (again ?). The deer also ran off after the shot.
When his partner arrived shortly afterwards (they text each other ILO making noise talking), they both proceeded to mark the various spots & track the 1st buck.
They shortly spotted one of the deer with their optics, laying down about 100yds away, with a blood smear on the visible side - Sooooo,as per their bowhunting practices (and since it was getting on to dark), they decided to back out of the area quietly and return today to track the deer down.
The upshot, today, is that he got either one deer, two deer, three deer - or none........... but he won't know until later today which. (to be continued
)EDIT (5pm): My son & his partner recovered all the deer he shot, 2 of which turned out to be look-alike bucks (brothers ?)
This past afternoon was spent skinning, etc - B 4 putting the meat into refrigeration for a few days, prior to processing.
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"...to be continued...". Doncha jes hate that? 