Saturday after coaching my oldest sons football game, he, I and my hunting buddy headed out to the snake river breaks for a quick muzzle loader hunt. My fried Doug was there to help me spot, my son's season starts next week (first rifle hunt), and I was lucky enough to draw the multi season deer tag, so I was the only one hunting. We dropped the trailer off next to the river and by 6:00pm were in the field for a quick evening hunt. That night we saw 7 bucks and 4 does....and just like last year, I missed a shot on a nice Mule deer buck at 25 yards. My son summed up the evening hunt...."dad, that's 2 misses in two years under 30 yards, how disappointing". ( he witness last years fiasco as well)....needless to say, I just ate crow, tried to say something positive and yet still let him sleep in the trailer
The next morning we hiked into the area we have scouted and attempted to hunt during archery, with no success. Saw lots of does, and I did put a nice stalk on a decent buck, but he was with does and even though I stalked with in range, a doe blocked his vitals so no shot.
Around noon we headed back to the trailer, ate lunch, hooked up and decided to try another area, where Doug got his buck during muzzle loader last year and was on the way home. My son was pretty tired during the short ride and fell asleep in the truck. When we got to the new spot, he was still shot from hiking all morning and asked if he could just take a nap in the trailer, so I gave him a radio told him to lock up and we would see him in a bit.
Doug and I set out working a huge canyon and about 1.5 miles up, I spotted 2 deer on the opposite ridge. One was gray and one was reddish colored. They were feeding on the opposite ridge top about 600 yards away and I could tell the gray deer had one antler, could not tell on the reddish colored deer, but that deer had a much bigger body. Both deer finally bedded down on the hillside and we decided the only way to get to them do to the wind was to continue to walk up about another mile, cross the canyon, hike up above them and try sneak down from the top. So the plan was set and in about an hour, we were finally in place. I dropped my back and began my sneak. I went from a walk to knee's to a belly crawl to get in place ( belly crawls in star thistle is not fun by the way). I got to where I though i was close, glassed and finally saw the reddish colored buck. I had miss judged my decent a bit, though i ranged him and he was 102 yards. I knew the gun was dead on at 100 so i still felt ok. After glassing i could see he was a 3x3 and even though his rack was not that big, I weighed out my options. I had one more day to hunt if I wanted (this wed.) and then of course could rifle hunt. My thoughts were since it is my sons first rifle hunt coming up, I really did not want to be hunting as well, rather coaching him the whole time. So i made the decision that presented the shot I would take this deer. So I waited for the deer to get out of his bed.....and waited.....and waited...and waited. Finally after 40 minutes the deer got up and presented a good shot. The shot was right on the money and the deer didn't move a inch, died in his tracks.
The rack is not big, though his body may have been on of the biggest deer I have shot. I am tagged out on elk and deer now, and my son is going to get 100% of my attention next week...all in all couldn't have worked out any better.
pics are of some of the country we hunted for west side folks who may not know the area and the deer.
