Well it's been a tough year for me. Sounds like the same for many others as well. 20+ days elk hunting in Wash and no elk, had many chances at cows in the early hunt, but can't see shooting one then, and just couldn't close the deal on one in the late hunt. I've shot 11 bulls in the last 13 years now in State, so I guess I was due for a year like this. Deer hunting beens the same. Usually mule deer hunt late season, but due to no elk I opted to stay on the westside and elk hunt. I put in lot's of hours deer hunting for that big BT, but just couldn't get the right shot. I ended up taking this 2x2 the other day, to close out me season on a good note.
Here's the hunt in a nut shell. Sitting at home day after Xmas, watching TV, cleaning up the Christmas carnage from the kids, tree down etc, my wonderful wife says to me, "why don't you go hunting"....Thats all I needed to hear, I asked my 3 boys if any of them wanted to go and all said "NO" so I was out the door. I told my wife I'd wear my new Sitka hat for good luck! I ended up going to one of my best spot's, there was alot of snow and snowing lightly. I started looking for tracks and couldn't find any, which is very weird for this area. I decided to go up on the ridge top and look in the bedding areas, nothing! So I decided to head right into the sticker bushes, huckleberry and salal bushes and try and spook something out. It worked and I jumped this deer who ran out the other side. It took me about 15 minutes to get unstuck and get to where he went, I saw him take off again and head into a small timber patch which I knew very well. I backed out and went around to the other side about 200 yards and started still hunting back in his direction. I figured that I'd either see him or his tracks coming in from this way and he'd probably be watching his backside knowing I'd been chasing him. I had almost went through the whole timber patch and was within about 40 yards of where I'd last seen him when I looked up and there he was looking at me. I slowly looked down and nocked a arrow and came to full draw. I slowly raised my bow up, turned towards him and settled the pin on his shoulder and squeezed the trigger on my release. It was done in a flash, arrow went through the near shoulder and exited behind the other side shoulder, he went about 40 yards.
Equipment used:
Martin Firecat Pro X 70lbs (320 fps)
ACC arrows, 2" Flex Fletch Flash vanes
100 Gr Wasp Boss Bullets
Spothogg SDP7 sight
Trophy taker rest
