Well i talked a guy at work into buying a deer tag last week. This would be his first year hunting in Washington, he had only purchased elk tag and special permits during the spring. We had to work opening weekend and both had stuff to do on Monday so we agreed that we would meet and head out on Tuesday morning. I also had plans to meet a fellow member (Huntbear) and take him to the top of the mountain so he could hunt down to his vehicle.
We arrived at the location and it was WINDY... did i mention it was windy? Huntbear went his way, and we went ours and it didnt take long to see deer. Just as i predicted they would be in the bottom west sides of the draws out of the wind, and they were! Every little gully and draw had deer in them, just no legal bucks! We worked our way down the hill a couple miles seeing tons of deer, doe, doe, doe, 4 spikes and 1 forkey. Once we got to the bottom, we headed back up jumping a couple more does and a coyote. Got back to the rig wore out and wind burnt. Headed out and ran into Huntbear on the road and chatted for a bit, same story for him also.
We had to work Wednesday and Thursday but had planned to go out on Friday again. Only one problem, i couldnt find anyone to babysit my 19 month old daughter! I told my buddy to go back up to the same place but drop off the other side instead.
Friday morning i get a call that he had shot a 2x3 and couldnt find it but said he found blood and saw the deer bleeding out of his mouth, i told him if he saw that the buck should be dead. I then called my father in law(who also works with us) and told him what had happend and asked if my mother in law would watch my daughter so we could go help, it was a go! I dropped her off and picked him up and we headed out.
We arrived at the location deep in the Manashtash and began down the hill toward our buddy. Not 400 yards from the truck we spot a very wide tall buck bedded down, he was about 100 yards away and we set down and glassed him could tell he was a big 2x2. I kept looking and noticed he had one legal eye guard on one side. My father in law said he may want to shoot him if he was still there when we got done helping out the other guy. We continued on and met up. Mark(buddy) showed us where the deer was standing and showed us the blood. The shot was about 150 yard shot and the deer ran down the ridge and along the steep edge. After looking, he had only looked for the deer for about 50 yards. We started tracking the blood and there was definatly not much! i ended up just following the tracks when i looked up and saw 2 does about 75 yards away, i said theres some deer right there and thats when my father in law spotted another one about 400 yards up, i looked in my binos and it was a buck with blood in his mouth! We snuck up around and got to 220 yards and the buck started to get nervous, my father in law handed Mark his .300 loaded with 180 grain accubonds and said put it right on the shoulder and let her rip(we didnt know if Marks gun was sighted in). Mark set up and let the gun bark! The buck jumped up and dropped! Perfect heart shot. We walked up to the buck to see that his first shot had shot the buck just below the eye, not a kill shot but the deer would have ended up dead due to starvation. Glad we were able to find him and finsh him off!
Not the biggest buck out there but not bad at all for his first deer ever! Thanks for reading, it was fun being there with him for the kill shot, and pointing him in the right direction. We started dragging the deer out as my father in law got up to the big forky, we were expecting to hear a shot but we didnt, we got up there and saw him watching the buck but he decided not to shoot it, i dont blame him with multiseason tag in pocket and the best seasons yet to come!
