Second roe kid of the season 2011-2012, some tracking and .30-06 performance on roe deer.

After shooting a roe I concentrated on finding some wild boar. I went out one night with my dad. We parked the car and I went one way to check the nearest field, he went in opposite directions to check another area. We were suppose to meet an hour later. I did not see anything, full moon was not covered by clouds and it was a bit too much light for wild boar to come out of the woods. I came back to the car andthen got a text message from my dad that he heard wild boar coming my way. And they did, but winded me and soon were gone…

I had only one evening outing left and decided to go out and stay on the high seat. It was a nice quiet area, close to a small wood surrounded by farmland. I often saw there wild boar and roe, but also red deer and fallow like the place.

It was still very early and I was slowly walking towards the high seat. I was far away from the edge of the wood as wild boar often do not go out from the forestry if they can detect fresh human scent, so it is always good practice to go 30-40m away from the edge of the trees. I was 200m away from the high seat when I bumped on two roe. They run away and never stopped and they often do. I could clearly see it was a doe and a buck. They run to the wood and the doe started barking making a lot of noise… But it was still early, so I sat on the high seat and waited.

It was well after sunset, when I heard something from behind the high seat. It was a surprise as I expected something to come out of the wood to the field, not the other way round. I thought it was a fox, but I soon spotted a young roebuck. It looked rather like a kid going from the field to the woods, and soon I heard another roe calling and a doe kid followed the buck kid and went to the woods. Well, it was too fast for me to catch any of them in the rifle scope.

After 10 minutes both kids appeared again, this time with a doe. I watched them for a while just to figure out which one is a doe and which one is a female kid. I was quickly loosing light, so I had to be quick. That day I had my .30-06 Springfield combination gun with a Schmidt and Bender 2.5-10×56 illuminated reticule scope. I turned illumination on and it was much better to place the dot behind the kid’s shoulder. I waited for it to turn broadside and squeezed the trigger.

I saw it dropped on the spot, but when I reloaded and looked through binoculars she was not there! I went down and got to the spot where she was standing when I pulled the trigger. It was getting dark but I could see with a naked eye a good blood trail. There was plenty of pins and paint. I followed the blood trail and soon spotted the roe dead.

The .30-06 is not my favourite roe calibre and even with my usual 180gr S&B ammo makes some mess… I like it on wild boar and red deer though, but I find it a bit too damaging on roe. The bullet hit the roe just behind the shoulder, but the bulletquickly  expanded and fragmented on the bone, broke sternum and opposite  shoulder. The heart was smashed as well, but she still managed to run 50-60m.

The kid was 13kg, so a good size for this area and time of year.

Have a look at the video, feel free to comment, rate on YouTube and subscribe to my channel.

Deer stalking TV Channel

Liked it? Take a second to support Roe Stalker on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!

Leave a Reply