Just got back from my Montana hunt and.......came home with a whitetail. I know you mulie lovers will up chuck at that thought, but I just have a hard time pulling the trigger on a mule deer.
That being said, this was the first time my rifle went deer hunting with me in 10 years. I wasn't sure if I could get excited about slinging lead again, but figured I would give it a try. Heck it's Montana right? We hunted BMA ranches and saw tons of deer. The bios told us the population was down 40%. If that was the case, I can't wait to see it up again. We would see about15-20 bucks a day. They were all rutted up and chasing does.
So Monday morning we set up to glass this new ranch and start seeing deer right away. See a good 150" 4x4 mulie my bud likes. We sneak and the buck gets away. We did bump a nice 140" huge bodied whitey though, and that got my blood pumping. We continued grassing and spotted a hog of a mulie. 28" 5x4 that was massive. Thought we couldn't hunt the land he was on, but found out later it was state ground
Oh well. We explored the rest of the six square mile ranch and came back that late pm to a spot I thought I could shoot a deer crossing the river. We set up and within 5 min. Deer started crossing. Soon a nice 4x4 whitey comes out and my friend says do you want him? I reply no and he says great , I will take him. I told him he was 452 yards away. He thought he thought he could shoot it with his 243, but he has never practiced that far. I finally convinced him to use my gun, a 270 wsm browning. I told him witch hash mark to use and soon a 140 grain accubond found his vitals. His biggest whitetail now lay on the ground.
We still had an hour of light and continued waiting. Soon another nice whitetail came out and it happened to be the5x5 we jumped that am. I looked him over and decided that he was a beautiful buck with a huge neck. So after a quick range 426' another accubond went down range and yet another whitey was down.. I soon thought crap it's only the first day of our 7 day hunt. Oh well we still had a doe each to get. We soon got those and had deer stacked like cord wood in the back of the pickup. What a great trip and experience.
The gun won't replace the bow in my hand....at least not in Washington, but I think in Montana in November it just might.
Last pick is my buddies buck. My buck had a26" neck at the ears. Largest whitetail neck I have seen.
