MINNESOTA NEWS: Three Deer With One Bullet

By Sam Cook, Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH, Minn. - Minnesota's firearms deer season was almost over, and Chris Olsen of Two Harbors needed to get his venison. One shot changed his season in a big way.

Olsen killed three deer with the same bullet from his 8-millimeter Mauser.

Olsen, 50, was hunting on his property about 15 miles north of Two Harbors late in the afternoon Nov. 17. Two deer that Olsen described as yearlings (1 1/2-year-olds) walked in to check out a scent cloth he had put out. He was going to shoot one of the yearlings, when a doe appeared. It approached the yearlings at the scent cloth, which was about 60 yards from Olsen's stand.

"I thought, `I'm going to have to shoot her. It's desperate times,' " Olsen said.

He was shooting the 8-millimeter Mauser he had bought from a friend about a year ago, he said. It's a German military rifle, he said.

Olsen shot the doe with a single shot, and all three deer bounded away. Olsen thought he might have missed.

Later, his brother Lee Olsen of Two Harbors joined him. They found the doe a short distance away and field-dressed her.

"By George, we got done with her, and there was another one," Olsen said. "I thought, `Wow, two deer with one shot.' "

The two men field-dressed the yearling and retired to their deer shack for the night. The next morning, Chris Olsen got to thinking, and he went back to where he had found the doe and the yearling.

"We retraced our steps, and my gosh, there's a drop of blood," he said.

Olsen found the third deer - the second yearling - not far away. All three deer had fallen within 50 yards of each other, Olsen said. The bullet had passed completely through the first two deer and a piece of it had lodged in the third deer.

"I couldn't believe it. It's absolutely unbelievable," Olsen said.

Olsen had tags to legally take all three deer. He was checked later in the hunt by Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Kipp Duncan of Two Harbors. Duncan wasn't surprised when Olsen told him he had taken three deer. But he was surprised when Olsen told him he had taken all three with a single shot.

Olsen is happy.

"We got venison," he said.