Late buck started Thursday with me taking the day off to take my cousin (she’s 21 and just got her license this year) out hunting. We decided to go to Capital Forest after much discussion. Shortly after daylight we arrived to a clearcut and I spot a buck after a few minutes. It is a nice sized long-horn spike. The only problem, he is 388 yards away. We try to work closer, but he slipped into the timber before we got close enough for a shot. I normally don’t shoot spikes personally, but I was letting her shoot anything with horns since it is her first year. That night we walked into an area closer to home, but all we saw were Elk. We had a spike and 3 cows at about 70 yards before they busted out of there.
So, today was the day to take my dad to Vail and try and get him a buck. I had a clearcut in mind that I wanted to be sitting at right at daylight. Well as we are driving in, there are 2-3 trucks parked there and 5-6 guys just standing around. No problem, the clearcut is huge. So, I decided to take the road that goes into the very other end of it. Get out of the truck and start looking around. I immediately spot a deer about 80 yards away bedded down. Throw up the binos real quick and I can tell it’s bigger than a spike, but not sure how big exactly. Big enough for dad to shoot, that’s all I know. Two shots later from the .270 and he’s stumbling down the hill and out of sight. Go walking down there and I don’t see any blood, nor do I see the deer. A couple minutes go by of just standing there and my dad yells to me that he found him. He ended being a nice little 2-point, but one of his tines was busted. Still not sure if he busted it when he went tumbling, or from fighting.
Then the work began, it was probably only a couple hundred yards back to the truck, but it was steep. My buddy took my cousin out today, and they were hunting an area close by, so my dad and I decided we ( I ) would gut him and then I would go find my buddy to help us.
I get to where they were hunting, and my buddy had just shot a 2x3. He tried to let my cousin shoot, but she couldn’t get setup in time. The deer started to take off, so he took the shot. I had to go down, gut his deer too, and then help him drag it back to the road (maybe 200 yards). We finally make it back to the road, and his truck has a flat tire.
We decide we will load his deer in my truck, go drag my dad’s deer out since I told my dad I would only be gone 20 minutes, and it was an hour and a half later, and then we would come back and change the flat.
We get back to my dad, who at this point thinks we forgot him, and we managed to drag his out pretty easily. Cruise back over, change the flat and we are on our way out. Get to the house, skin both bucks, and then it is time to head back to the woods since my cousin still has a tag. The same area only produced 5 does for us tonight, but we will be heading back in the morning. Not the biggest bucks in the world, but they are gonna taste good. I figured since I’m the one that got all bloody, I should get to pose with the buck too.
My buddy and my cousin with his buck…
Both bucks back at home…
