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Author Topic: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks  (Read 3929 times)

Offline RileyH

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2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« on: November 16, 2016, 05:41:17 PM »
Disclaimer, many may not consider any of these bucks "trophies".

Buck 1 - General Season

I have some history with this buck.

I first spotted him as a big framed 3x in December 2013 while clearing brush at our cabin, and resolved to find him in 2014. July 2014 and our cabin burned in the Carlton Complex fire while I was still away at college, I was pretty devastated (been coming to camp here since I was 5 months old) and convinced he'd gone up in flames, so I skipped hunting at our spot for the year. Here's what was left.



In the 2015 general season we found him again, bedded about 1,100 Yards from us, with a huge drainage between us. He'd developed into a 4x, with little claws up top and down low. I hauled butt to get into position on him and shoot him in his bed, but overheated and took a 30 second breather to calm down and cool off before making the final 20 yard crawl over the lip above me. Got there just in time to see his back side walking through the trees away from me. Spent the rest of the season sitting on what we suspected was the line he ran, but never again got eyes on him. Here he is through the bino's before I made my move on him.



This year I was hunting for meat. Opening day I had a nice 3x bedded about 600 yards in front of me, oblivious to my presence. As I was preparing to make a move, and debating if I wanted to take him, I got the call from my Dad on the radio that we all hope for, "I found him". I hauled ass this time to cover about a mile of fingers and drainage's, and my Dad walked me into position through the scope and texting (LTE is everywhere these days!) to where he'd gone to bed. I prepared to wait all day for him to come out at dusk.

10 minutes later I saw this goober frantically jumping, waving, and hollering up by where my Dad had been before heading back to camp. Sure enough that goober was him, with a 170's class buck spotted up and over the top behind him. By this point it was a torrential downpour, and I covered about 3/4 of a mile and 1,500' elevation to get to him. We caught up to the 170's class buck, but my only shot was 350 yards, quartering away, on the move, through the wind and torrential downpour. I was not comfortable with the shot and let him walk, but he then broadsided us at 460 yards. I took a rest on a branch and ended up using the wrong cross hair, shot right over him and we never saw him again.

I spent the rest of the day tracking him to make sure there was no blood and no dead deer in the torrential rain, ripped both my rain coat and insulation coat in the process, lost my radio, lost my scope cover, and had a rotten tree fall about 20 yards off from me at dusk. It was quite the day, and I almost called the hunt and went home.

The next day I went up to where we'd seen the 170's class buck and made a stand, the skies were clear but I was exposed to the wind and starting to shiver pretty violently as the temperatures dropped. One four point came flying past me at a full gallop and off over the next ridge, never seen a deer move so fast. My Dad came up to see if I'd seen anything, relayed the Olympic Sprinter Buck story, and I moved up about 80 yards to a new position. He split off to go look for the radio I lost the day before, and maybe 10 minutes after that I saw a buck coming through the timber ~300 yards below me.

He stopped once, and I put a third point and a kicker on his back left that made him legal, and decided I would shoot this deer to accomplish my goal of filling the freezer this year. As it happened, it was my buck, although I didn't know it at the time. I was on the scope and when he walked into the cross-hairs (~165 yards) quartering to me, I pulled the trigger. The damn thing didn't move a muscle, so I was convinced I missed him. With adrenaline pumping, I jacked another shell and fired again, this time he took off like a bat out of hell.

Dad was maybe 100 yards over the hill at this point and came right back, and in my excitement I didn't mentally mark where the buck had been exactly when I had shot. About 10 minutes of searching for blood and tracks later, my Dad was convinced I was BSing him and there was no deer. Walking back defeated to get my pack, I cut tracks and blood. Turned out he had been one swell closer to me than I thought, so we'd been looking too far back. 50 yards later he was piled up directly below the rock I had been making a stand on, and I couldn't see him from where I had been sitting. It turned out I had shot him almost perfect through the boilermaker with my first round, and he had a 2" hole where the slug exited ahead of his rear quarter, and barely grazed him with my second shot. No idea why he didn't show the typical signs of being hit.

We've hunted this area since my Grandpa first camped here 60 years ago, and this buck is the pinnacle of what our local herd can produce, genetically. The 170's buck was a fluke traveler, we think. Boy did he grow when I walked up to him, my best buck to date by far, and my most earned trophy.

« Last Edit: November 16, 2016, 06:56:10 PM by RileyH »

Offline RileyH

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2016, 05:41:31 PM »
Buck 2 - General Season

My best friend moved over to Washington this year, and we resolved to get him his first deer ever.

He had no gear or experience, and borrowed my old .243 to get the job done. Unfortunately, we got rained on Friday and Saturday on the second weekend of the season, and without rain gear for him we were stuck waiting out the weather. We saw a number of nice 2x's but none that I could put a third point on for him.

Sunday morning we made a stand and had a group of 6 does, a spike, and a 2x come within 10 yards of us. We even got to watch as a yearling fawn couldn't get the confidence to jump barbwire, and had to go back and forth along the barbwire to find a spot to sneak through, with Mom following along on the other side. As soon as she got through, we had a group of swallow (?, not sure the bird species) buzz us in our stand. Boy did he have buck fever from that experience, he got a great appreciation from the things you experience in the woods that morning.

We didn't see any more deer for a couple hours and decided to make a loop back to the truck. He was getting antsy at this point (day 3 of 4 for his hunt) as hunters do. At this point another of our friends caught up with us and decided to tag along for an hour or so then go his own way back to camp. We'd gone maybe half a mile before I spotted a nice 3x about a mile away from us. After some tough hiking in the heat  through rock bluffs, we were within about 400 yards and making the final approach.

We crawled within 250 yards of where the buck was bedded, and just as we were getting set up for a shot, a guy and his son walked literally 10 yards below the buck and he busted out and over onto private property. My bud was pretty down at this point, and our friend was telling him that's hunting, sometimes something like that happens and you turn around and there's another buck. They'd resolved to head back to camp, have some beers to recoup, and then go pick up my truck, as we were much closer to camp after the stalk than my truck. I convinced them to sit and have a snack first, and literally 5 seconds after that I turned around and spotted this buck and his does bedded at 480 yards from us.

We were skylined and the does had us pinned, and I watched to make sure they didn't bust as the guys moved off the bluff and out of sight. So far, so good. We put the sneak on and got within 225 yards from the group, my buddy was so jacked up on adrenaline that he was shaking behind the gun and we took him off to calm down instead of make a bad shot. The deer cooperated and stayed oblivious, and after a minute he was ready, one through the boilermaker and he was down.

I'd forgotten what it was like to be with someone who had taken the first deer, the smiles and excitement were unreal.

« Last Edit: November 16, 2016, 06:44:04 PM by RileyH »

Offline RileyH

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2016, 05:41:50 PM »
Buck 3 - Manson Late Draw

Back in the Spring my Dad got the letter that he'd drawn for the Manson late hunt.

He decided to forgo the archery and modern seasons in favor of this hunt. We trained hard expecting to be able to camp in the wilderness area and find some monster mountain bucks, after looking at what counties the state records were taken in.

We took a couple scouting trips, and found a buck that we thought was worthy of the tag. We misjudged that he'd grow into a 180's buck in the last month of velvet, but we were determined to find and kill him during the hunt if he was alive. Sorry for the poor pic here, we were on mile 8 of our hike out (for anyone that hikes back here, we went up and over South Navarre to Coyote Campground, terrible idea) and my phone was at 1%, I wasn't able to get a good shot from 200 yards away.



We decided in late August to take another scouting trip back where we'd seen this guy. We got 5 miles in, and a rainstorm took us by surprise. Being in cloth shorts and t-shirts, we got absolutely soaked. We made an emergency fire to try and get warm and dry off, and made the call to turn around and head straight back to the truck. This was a miserable day, and we learned a hard lesson that in the back-country, you can't trust nearby weather reports. On top of that, one of Dad's insoles caught fire and he had to hike back with one good one.



Season finally rolled around, and we had only the first week to hunt, as we had an annual family trip to Hawaii coming up for Thanksgiving. We went as far up as we felt we could safely camp, as many of the side-hills coming into the Manson unit looked like they were going to give with more moisture, and up top was 14" of snow and ice. We got absolutely soaked our first couple days. I also came across this poor dude that got toasted by what I think was a big bobcat, can anyone confirm based on the track by his head? Pretty cool, you could see the claw marks where it had tried to cover the buck.



Somehow, 5 miles and 2 basins from where we first spotted him, we found our buck about 2 miles off in the spotting scope. Fortunately, he was 2 miles closer to camp. We boogied down to get set up on where we thought he had bedded and would come out at dusk. 15 minutes into our stand, my uncle texted (that LTE again...) that he had found a buck down by the lake that he thought was a good 180's class buck. We got down on the buck and he was smaller than the buck we'd been sitting on.

Anyone that's been into the Manson unit knows how vertical and thick it is, and Dad was kicking himself pretty hard that we hadn't stayed on our buck. We hunted the next day and separated, I was going high to scout and get a better view of where we'd seen him, and Dad sat on the line we watched the buck run the day before. A snowstorm like I've never seen before hit us up on the top, and my radio decided not to work. I could hear Dad, but he couldn't hear me. A few hundred feet straight up the hill I was going to sit on, and I saw what I thought was the buck and his does out in front of me 100 yards. With no phone service in his spot, and no radio working for me, I dropped my gear under a tree and literally sprinted (wool pants and Schnee's packs on) to Dad and got him to my spot.

Only being able to see the back tines of the buck, I had the gut churning worry that it wasn't him and I'd made a huge mistake. A few hundred yards of going up the hill and we just could not cut fresh tracks, for the second time this season Dad was convinced I was BSing him. Just before dumping into the nasty timber to check for tracks, we finally cut them after the snow stopped. Unfortunately for us, they could hear us coming and ran circles around us, and wore us down. We backed off and made a stand to watch my hill for the day. Lake Chelan decided we weren't killing the buck that day, and heavy fog cut our visibility to 80 yards. We decided to pull out and leave the deer alone for the rest of the day. Back at camp, we were kicking ourselves again for ANOTHER blown opportunity on our buck, this time due to not properly checking gear between seasons.

The next day, we tried the same thing, but this time I sat below my Dad on his hill so I could watch my hill and the basin behind us. We swapped out radios, and checked before we left to make sure we were good to go, and went to do our radio check. God damn things didn't work again, same problem as the day before, with two completely different radios.

Anyways, I spotted a 3 doe and a monster 2x (~26-8" wide, as tall as the buck Dad shot, and as heavy). One doe was by herself side-hilling the basin, and literally did not move a muscle for 35 minutes. Suddenly, the group of does and small bucks that were with our deer appeared above her and they were moving fast. Waiting to confirm the buck had the 5th point and was in fact our deer from 1.5 miles away took me a long time, and once I finally confirmed it, I again ran up to my Dad to grab him. Turns out a deer had been moving into his position and I had busted it out, he was not pleased. That changed once we got back to the scope and he saw the buck we were after.

Dad moved about 2 miles around the finger I was on to get into position, and I tried to walk him in via text to where the deer were bedded, no luck but lots of father-son frustration and arguing. He moved into a position to watch the location of the deer better, and I watched them in the scope but lost our buck in the trees. About an hour into our stand, he suddenly appeared, but Dad couldn't figure out where I was describing. In the span of about 45 seconds, the buck covered 300 yards meandering down to his does, and came into position for dad, quartering to at about 460 yards. I heard one shot go off, then a second, then a third. The buck didn't move at all in my scope until the third, when he jumped about 10 yards down hill. I thought he was heart shot and dead for sure.

Well, like father like son, Dad also used the wrong cross-hair and shot high. Blew up the front right shoulder and one lung. He got down to the buck but only found blood, and with emotions high, we had quite the argument on short tempers trying to coordinate until our phones decided to die or lose service respectively. My uncle came up and met me, and we made our way through those gnarly thickets of deadfall and brush that are common out of Manson, and eventually got to Dad.

Not much blood and the buck moving with a fury through the snow had us second guessing the quality of the shot. We tracked the buck for about 2 miles total, going all over up and down. Twice I ALMOST caught up to him but was going too fast and busted him before I could get a shot. We got about 3 miles from where we started and had dropped about 2,000 feet elevation at that point and lost daylight, so we made our way straight back up to the top. Blood had started to get much deeper color, much more frequent and in greater quantity, so we were astounded we didn't find him dead. It was the third night in a row of a few beers and question marks in our heads at camp.

The next day we went back up, figuring if he was grazed he'd rejoin his group. I found them fast, but he wasn't with them. We took a midday hike around the basin and to last blood, and Dad decided to go further and see if he could find the buck in the bottom. With no service and only his satellite phone, which for some reason couldn't send to me, he had to send messages to my Mom and she then had to text me on top to relay instructions. I set up within range of where the buck was shot yesterday and his group was currently bedded, and waited to see if I could put the wounded deer down. Maybe 15 minutes into my sit I got a text from my Mom that the buck was down.



He had gone another 80 yards down into the thick bottom from our last blood and bowling balled down, broke his jaw and nose, and took a dirt nap, we just barely missed him the day before. One tough son of a gun. This was the biggest bodied deer we've ever seen, he had a 26.5" ear to ear tip spread, and with only his boned out quarters (we left the shot up on mostly), back straps, some neck meat, and tenderloins he weighed in at 115 pounds of meat hanging. Hell of a hike out with that load, we had ~2,100 feet of elevation to gain to the truck over 1.5 miles as the crow flies, according to the GPS.



Somehow, we scouted a buck, found him 5 miles away during season, and put him down in a unit we'd never hunted before. It was by far one of the most memorable hunts (and seasons) we've ever had, and by far our most involved father-son tag team effort. You can imagine how happy we were!

Special Shout Out to the dozen or so guys on here that helped me with weather conditions, general areas, and generic tips about the deer in the Manson unit. You were extremely helpful and we're in debt to you.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2016, 06:53:59 PM by RileyH »

Offline wt

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2016, 05:50:15 PM »
Fix the pix, this hurts. Sweet story, no pics. :'(

Offline RileyH

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2016, 05:58:09 PM »
Got the pictures figured out, sorry y'all!

For future reference, anyone linking from imgur, you need to add "i." after the "http://" and ".jpg" to the end, so it would look like this "http://i.imgur.com/ApEUlav.jpg", then put it in the image brackets!
« Last Edit: November 16, 2016, 06:49:17 PM by RileyH »

Offline GrampasGuns

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2016, 06:35:33 PM »
please someone please fix the pics!  :chuckle:
The deer are exactly where you find them, and no where you dont!

Offline MtnMuley

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2016, 07:41:49 PM »
Very successful season for you guys. :tup: could definitely be a Bob track as they'd have no problem taking down a young buck. I'd say the pic is a bob for sure, but could have been a lion that did the original deed. Should be an easy kill on at least a bob if you put some time in. :twocents:

Offline blackveltbowhunter

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2016, 07:47:39 PM »
Great write up, pics and BUCKS!! Congratz on a great season!

Offline cbond3318

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2016, 08:14:15 PM »
 :yeah: nice work dude!
Just tend your own and live.

Offline chukarchaser

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2016, 09:37:25 PM »
Very cool

Offline tgomez

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2016, 11:19:52 PM »
    Congradulations, great pictures, and thanks for sharing your story with all of us.
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Offline Vandal44

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2016, 04:31:38 AM »
nice bucks and an even better story.  congratulations 

Offline bowhunterforever

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2016, 05:08:30 AM »
Great write up, pics and BUCKS!! Congratz on a great season!
:yeah: :tup:
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Offline Skyvalhunter

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2016, 05:22:32 AM »
Good write up Riley and congrats to the group. Just be prepared as the Manson unit which doesn't really hold that many deer like it used to could be the favored hunt of next year like the Twisp area was this year.
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Offline muleyslayer

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Re: 2016 Stories - Three Trophy Bucks
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2016, 06:53:07 AM »
Congratulations on a great season! Your hard work and persistence payed off. Thanks for sharing your story and pictures.

 


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