We're home and getting things unpacked. Just taking a few minutes to update and post pics.
Tuesday morning was a windy one. Over the night a huge front had moved into the area. High winds, rain/snow was on the menu for today. We started our morning hunting a hill that we had saw a nice buck taken the day before. After a few hours of glassing the hill sides, I determined that any self respecting deer would not be hanging out in such a windy place. I told Dad we needed to move to the other side of the mountain out of the wind and take a look around. A quick hike back to the truck and we were on our way. I had noticed an old road the day before that led up the leeward side of the mountain and right into the area I wanted to hunt. I made it to the end of the old road where it petered out into a cow trail. I turned around and headed back down. About 200 yards back from the end I was looking to my right (slight downhill). Suddenly a Deer pops up out of his bed and runs about 50 feet and stops. As he was running, I could see it was a buck with a legal set of horns. Up came the rifle and I had him in my scope. A quick confirmation that he was legal and my focus shifted to the kill zone. A controlled breath, relax, aim, squeeze.... BAM! I see him take off like I had missed! WTF!!!
I radioed Dad that I was moving to where he was standing to check for blood. As I approached where he was bedded down, I could see he had been there awhile (most likely riding out the storm). A few more feet and I find lung tissue and blood on the brush.
I took my time following the blood trail. I knew that he was hit hard and could not survive.
As I worked my way about 100 yards from where he was hit, the blood trail became thicker and I could see where he had stumbled and fell at one point. He couldn't be much farther!
I finally spotted him piled up where he tried to go over a rise.
As he lay.
Not a bad looking 3x3 with eye guards.
A few pictures, high fives with my Dad (another success for his handloads), and the real work began. I had him gutted in a short time and started dragging him out.
We got lucky, there was a road about 200 yards across/down the hill that we were able to drag him to. Dad hiked back to the truck and drove to where we had dragged him.
Talk about coincidence... Just as we were getting ready to load him, a truck pulls up. In the truck was a couple guys we knew from Concrete. They stopped to help load him in Dad's truck. About that same time, another truck pulls up, and it's my Dad's neighbor! We had saw him a couple days later and he jokingly says "Hey, get off our side of the mountain!"
We get back to camp and my wife has a worried look on her face. "We thought something had happened to you guys with all the wind and such. A gust hit the trailer and we felt like we were going to tip over. What took you so long?" I tell her, "well, we were busy and it took longer to get back to camp".
I then motion to the back of the truck and her mood went from "I'm going to kick your ass to hey! Cool!"
I told my Dad we were not going to put the meat pole up until we needed it. Call it a superstition but I felt like if we did put it up, it would never get used.
We also got to try out my spreader bar I built. The guys at work gave me a hard time saying I could pick up 2 Elk with the thing at one time.
Everyone pitched in for skinning him. My wife had never skinned an animal before and she really got into it.
The Berger VLD 130gr really did a number on him. The exit wound was pretty good size.
My oldest had fun making tracks all around our camp and one down the road with the front feet.
Not a bad rack for a 3x3 and eye guards. He had a few gnarly nubs sticking out around the base of the horns.
I would like to thank my Wife for her help and understanding during our trip. There were a couple of days where she wanted to head home. I can't say I blame her with 3 kids in camp!
This year was fun to share the experience with our exchange student from Thailand. He had never been camping before and everything was a new experience. He really enjoyed himself.
