JK Knives butcher MI Whitetail...

T

TFin04

Joined
Aug 21, 2005
Messages
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The big one is a Kephart in O1 steel with cocobolo handles. My work horse and the honest patina shows it. I used this for about 99% of the work today. Needed a couple touch ups during the process but I think that is mostly from my crappy cutting board.

The small one is a prototype "Budget Hunter" that John sent to me when he first started working on this line of knives. It was sent with a mission to use and abuse it, and so far I haven't been able to hurt it. 1095 steel with black micarta handles and red liners. I love the design and size of this knife, but I am not a fan of convex grinds. Nothing against John, his convex is done very well, I just don't care for them.

The deer is wrapped and in the freezer, backstraps for dinner tomorrow. mmmmmmmmmm :D

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Thanks. She wasn't anything special, but I've been passing on deer all season and was tired of waiting. Last night sucked, this morning wasn't much better. A heavy layer of fog rolled in and I was just about ready to go in for lunch when this one came through. She isn't huge, but I worked hard for her. She surprised me because I was watching the fawn that was with her. I didn't even see mom until I was in a crappy position and she was standing 5 yards in front of me, looking straight up. Gun wasn't in the right spot, and there is no way she would have let me move an inch. I stood motionless for a solid 15 minutes hoping she would calm down. She finally moved a bit....and bedded down about 35 yards from me and stayed there for a half hour!

I decided to try to spook her up, then shoot. I cracked a branch off the tree, which got her attention, and threw it in her direction. She jumped up and began to move. When she was in a clearing about 50 yards away I let out a little fawn bleat and stopped her in her tracks....BOOM.

I was confident on the shot, but went in for lunch. Came back 45 min later, NO blood, nothing. I was fuming. Looked and looked, found one tiny spec of blood covered fatty material (wasn't happy with that) and nothing else.

Searched for a half hour, finally started doing circles around the entire field. Found her 120 yards from the spot of the shot, with a PERFECTLY placed shot. Field dressing proved the 250 grain SST hit the heart and BOTH lungs, yet she still was able to run that far without bleeding much. The first sign of blood was only 5 yards from where she fell.

The SST did it's job, the exit wound was pretty intense and I even lost a good bit of meat due to damage. We have no clue how she went so far. Every time I'm out these animals impress me.

Anyway, she's not a trophy, but I worked hard for her and am pretty happy with it. This is my first deer.

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Not bad for your first deer! I would much rather put meat on the table than a head on the wall.
 
And the meat was good. Backstraps for dinner tonight and jerky is cooking as we speak. :)
 
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