Before the re-cap and chain of events that led up to my successful Saturday afternoon........
I want to start off with a couple of acknowledgements to our fellow HuntWa members.
First off, CamoDup. Billy you are one of the most standup and best individuals I have personally had the pleasure of meeting in quite some time. The exact same thing can be said for the rest of your crew, Mark and Brandon. I can honestly say that the foundation for a solid true friendship has been laid. Even if I am from the coast.
You are a very fortunate man to have solid friends and family who support and participate in your outdoor passions. Thank you for letting me share a chair in your camp, share my stories and listen to you and your crews stories, be a small part in your successful day (I dropped the tail gate and had a few beers for you guys) and make this hunt just a little bit more special for me then it already was. Thank You Billy, Mark and Brandon!!
Next, I want to say a big thanks to both Iceman and remington300mag. Coincidentally, the 3 of us happen to share a passion for one little particular place in the unit. Our time frames for experiencing this little place began near the same time going back 30 years. Actually, 35 years for me setting foot on that soil. Iceman, you shared via PM and via post in this thread that you were living this hunt vicariously through me. Bud, that works both ways!!! Because of your health issues in the recent past and your inability to hunt this year, you were truly in my thoughts every time I set foot on that part of real estate. You know how much I wanted you Ice to muster up the strength to make an appearance over there just so I could shake your hand and share our stories of that place, face to face. The same goes for you remington300mag, unfortunately our paths just did not cross this time. They will, someday!! I tried with everything I had to make that place produce for me (us), but it just was not to be. So to a small degree, I’m sad to say this buck did not come from there.
jrebel and WAcoueshunter – Thanks for every tip, suggestion and the offers to support my effort to tag out. Even the shower offer jrebel, that was probably the best offer right there. If I had not tagged out this weekend, I’m almost certain I would have cashed in on that offer next weekend sometime. Again, thank you.
From DBLDWN (sorry we never met up at Coopers) to Camo (you better be back from MT by now) to jackelope (thank you for your inspiration to succeed) and to the better than 25 other members who PM’d and posted your words of encouragement, the offers to “don’t rule out this” and “here’s my honey hole” Thank You!!! Every piece of the relatively generic to the honey hole shall not be shared by me now nor in the future. These places are yours and to only be shared by you in the future for those who are fortunate enough to draw this tag. Again, thank you to each and every one of you.
When I drew this tag, I knew full well that I would be most likely flying solo on this hunt. All of my hunting partners are die hard spike elk hunters and burn their hunting vacation time chasing the ever elusive unicorn elk. It’s either that, or we head out of state elk hunting somewhere. So, when I say that I had drawn this tag with 15 points, the honest truth in that is yes, 15, but 11 of those points where points buys. The first 2 years and these past 2 years were the only times I seriously applied. I had been hooked on the elk hunting routine since the early/mid ‘80’s. The good Lord knows that I have been more than fortunate to consider myself a damn good elk hunter and tagged out on more than 1 trophy class bull. But there was one void that I had yet to secure and that would be a respectable mule deer. This fall was the time!! I caught a lot of flack from elk hunting crew. A LOT! “Them deer don’t fill the freezer” to “them deer don’t eat as well” to “have fun, we’ll be thinking of you”. All that was fine, I took it all in stride simply because it’s what I wanted to do. In all honesty, it only provided me a deeper motivation to succeed and do this hunt the way I wanted to do.
So yeah, a dedicated elk hunter reverting back to his roots as a mule deer hunter….I think I did pretty well for myself. LOL!
You got my best frontal shot already, so here’s the best side shot. More story and more pics to come a little later on. It’s dinner time. Got to throw some fresh tenderloin on the barbie for me and the Mrs.
