The Sage grouse were safe from me, it took most of a day for me to find any and then they were too wild to let me walk up to them. The dogs did get a couple of points from nearly 50 yards out so that wasn'[t a bust. Back in MN for the firearms opener, I passed on a short tined 8 point buck in hopes of running across a couple of bigger ones that are in the area. One of those was shot by a neighbor, a wide but thin beamed 14 pointer. I shot a doe to fill an antlerless tag before heading home to watch the fort for a couple of days while the wife went out of town for business and fun. I shot another doe out back of the house to fill out another antlerless tag. I took this one with my 7mm/08 Striker. The hit was a little far back but it did damage the spine and hit a lung. The shot was about 45 yards and I used a factory Winchester 140 gr Power Point load. The deer never moved after the hit except to tip over and fall down. When the wife came home, I went back to the huntin' shack and got serious about buck hunting. The weather cooled down a little causing the bucks to renew some of their scrapes and some signs of sparring were found. I set up to rattle and had immediate results. A 6 pt crashed in during the first set but took off just as fast. Nothing turned up in the nest half hour so moved to a different spot. A doe and two fawns walked by but nothing else. The wind started to howl so I called it a day. The next morning I set up to watch a feeding area of browse, (mainly dogwoods, hazel, and maple saplings) and there was my chance. A decent 8 pt (not the earlier one) walked out and I took him. 193# field dressed is a respectable deer in these parts and he should get us through a good part of the year. I also took this deer with a new (to me) gun, an O/U Valmet rifle in 7x57 rimmed. Ammo was a pain to get, I had an acquaintaince in Sweden send me some as I couldn't find any here in the States. I think they are 152 gr soft points made by Norma. I had to use open sights as I did not have the claw mounts needed to mount a scope to this gun. That will change by next year as well as having more ammo available than the 2 boxes I recieved. The Wisconsin season starts this weekend and I can't believe I am not looking forward to it. Maybe I'm getting old and hunted out, I know I'm not as aggressive as I have been in the past. I'll still go as it is a tradition but I still have two antlerless tags to use during the MN blackpowder season if I wish as well as the stack of WI tags they give out. I'm glad there are others in our group who will take whatever venison I get, I think we are nearly full up with what we will use over the next year though another yearling would make up plenty of breakfast and Italian sausage...
:wink: 
