After moving to WA from OR a few years ago, I have been obsessed with archery late season muley's. An OTC tag in WA, a great opportunity, few get the chance to experience in OR. Quite complaining washingtonians, you don't have it that bad!
I had always archery hunted exlusively, so this was my first year applying and drawing the Multi-season deer tag, and ponied over the $180, for more weekend opportunity given a rough work schedule and a brand new baby hunter in mom's arms at home. I hunted the two weekends of modern on the E Side and holy cow what a pumpkin patch! My "secret" late season bow spot was getting raped by pumpkins and I witnessed first hand three buck's get shot. Not something I'll likely do next year. With plans in the making for MF Late whitetails, and my moneymaker hunt, late season archery muley's in the forecast, I wasn't overly enthusiastic about hitting the woods anytime soon.
Perusing huntwa before the end of the October blacktail season, I kept reading posts about bucks coming into the rut and seeing picture after picture of big buck down,..... I got the itch. So with two days left in the season, I scheduled myself a morning meeting and hunted a chunk of state land I had scouted/hunted during bear season. It was a gated road area, one that I had hunted previously in August, riding my bike many miles beyond the gate to a bunch of 5-10 year old cuts. I get to the gate 30 minutes before daylight and see that it is wide open and I hear a yarder and chainsaws in the distance working on a future deer and elk food plot. Dang, the only spot I know has seen a bunch of traffic and logging noise. Not knowing any other areas, I park outside the open gate and walk in. Not too optimistic, I head up the first cut I come too, down the old skid road, that has since been tank trapped. I walk fast, in the wee hours of daylight, trying to put as much ground between me and the mainline behind me. I come to the first draw and up on the ridgeline ahead of me, I see a deer stand up. About 150 yards away, it is perfectly skylined standing looking at me. I hit the dirt and belly crawl to a big rock at the road edge and put my binos on it. It's a buck! I jack in a shell and put it in the scope. Darn, only a crab clawwed forky, but the mental game starts.....meat vs antler.
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With the deer still standing there, and me leaning towards letting it walk, I texted my wife and asked if I should shoot it. She says she couldn't see antlers from the cell phone pic, so "go big or go home!" Gosh, I love her!
The deer literally stood there for 10 minutes and then got spooked by something beyond the ridge that I could not see. It bounded down the hill towards me and into the thick wooded ravine towards where I had come. Deciding to see what spooked the deer I worked my way towards the ridgeline.
Bushwacking to the ridgeline, I come to a small draw, ....nothing. I work my way through the draw and up towards a knoll that bordered some second growth timber. As I crest the knoll a fog bank rolls in and I hear the distinct sounds of bouncing hooves ahead of me. I must have pushed another deer from it's bed. With the fog dissipating, I creep along the timber edge and make out the shape of a deer not 40 yards ahead of me. It's standing face on looking at me. His head is sort of obscured, but I can make out a rack and it looks thick. With my heart pounding I pull up the scope, put the crosshairs on his chest and boom, he's down.
A little anti-climactic, no looking for the arrow, no blood trail, but I was extremely happy to put my hands on my first ever Washington blacktail and my first blacktail with a rifle. He had a huge body and was fortunate to get a ton of meat out of him. Upon inspection of his vitals, the shot took off the top half of his heart.
I didn't make it to any meetings that day! The buck got it's revenge, while skinning him, the rope hanging him in my garage broke and I stabbed myself in the hand pretty good. Still sore to this day!
