My Best Whitetail

[Scott68]

Story to follow.

[SemperFidelis97]

Those are some crazy eye guards, looking foreword to the story.

[_TONY_]

awesome crowned eyeguards!

[HunterofWA]

Sweeeeet! thats a real nice one! when'd ya get e'm?

[Watimberghost]

Total stud!

[Scott68]

One of the reasons I went to law school at Gonzaga was because I could be close to my favorite hunting grounds.  Not exactly the best basis for choosing a law school, but it was most definitely important to me.  (One of the reasons that I did my undergrad work at EWU as well).

I shot this buck at 3:30pm on the last day of modern rifle season in 1994.  I had hunted the same area throughout the season and had routinely been in a mix of both whitetail and mulies during my hunts.  This particular area was on the side of a relatively tall peak, with patches of timber and a creek running through the bottom.  The area had been thinned about 2 years prior, so there was still a skid trail that was about half-way up the side of the hill and it ran from the main road to a small basin that was fairly open about a 1/2 mile away.  (For the sake of description, on my walk into the basin the peak was up the hill to my right, while the creek was down the hill to my left.) 

The best part was that the skid trail had been dug up where it intersected the main road, so unless you knew it was there, you couldn't see it when you drove by.  I would park my truck at the main road and I always walked the skid trail.

Opening morning I walked the skid trail in and when I got to the basin there were a group of mulies standing about 200 yards away in the fog.  I saw a few does, but I could make out a giant buck (much taller and wider than the whitetail in this story) that was working its way up the tree line.  Instant buck fever, but for every 5 seconds it was visible, it would be obscured by fog for another 20 seconds.  Absolute torture.  I made my way up the skid trail, parallel to the group of mulies trying to get a better vantage point.  When the fog started to break, I watched it meander into the tree line.

I gave chase through the trees and eventually down the side of the hill and into the creek bottom.  One of those descents where you don’t realize you’re in the bottom until you look up and realize, “I’m in the bottom”.   You just know that if you look over the next outcropping, he’ll be standing there. 

Then, you run out of outcroppings and find yourself surrounded by old snags, water and a long slog back to the top.

Seeing that buck had me committed to this area for the season (and not so committed to going to class for a few days).

I made the same hunt every day.  Walk to the back of the basin, hang a left and then drop into the bottom and work my way out, or walk to the back of the basin, hang a right and climb to the top of the peak and work my way out.  Each walk would take about 3 hours, so I’d do it once in the morning and then once in the afternoon.  I saw lots of deer, both whitetails and mulies, but I never saw the giant muley again.

I wasn’t trophy hunting.  I was pretty determined to take the first available buck, but I was seeing some of the same smaller bucks virtually every day, so I started getting more selective as the season progressed.  (Maybe I just needed a reason not to go back to class?)

By the last weekend of the season, I was feeling a little regretful about my decision to be selective … in fact, I was feeling pretty foolish.  Chasing that muley was like chasing a ghost at that point; however, with the rut in swing, I still felt a like all was not lost.

The last morning, I worked my way to the basin and jumped a large group of whitetails.  They spooked and made their way to my right and up towards the top of the peak.  I could spot one buck at about 400 yards that looked pretty impressive, but I didn’t chase them up the hill.  I was determined to work the creek bottom/lower hillside in the morning so I let the whitetails go and dropped over the hill.  About 4 hours later, I was back at my truck asking myself why I didn’t chase the whitetails.  (I knew the answer:  haunted by the ghost muley).

I made my way back down the skid trail and into the basin.  It was about 1:30pm by the time I got into the basin and because it was late in the season, I knew that it would be dark by about 4:30/5:00pm.

I made a right turn and began to zig zag my way up the side of the peak.  At a comfortable pace, I knew it would take me about half an hour to reach the top.  There was an opening just before the crest of the peak that was mostly grass with a little bit of timber for cover and I had usually stopped in that clearing for a bit on each of my walks to gather myself before working the ridgeline back out to the main road.  This was also the same direction that the whitetails from that morning and gone.

I was about 50 yards away from the crest of the hill (and just a little winded), when I saw two does crest the hill and start working their way directly at me.  I knelt down in the grass, which was about thigh high, and figured I’d hang out there as long as I could and see if anything else followed them over the crest. Shortly thereafter, 3 more does came over the crest and they all had that “we’re in the rut and we’re all jittery” look about them.  At this point, I’ve got minimal cover and the closest does to me are only about 15 yards away.

That’s when this guy walked to the crest and stopped.  Perfectly sky-lined and broadside to me.  Honestly, I had no idea how big he was.  I saw horns, thought “big” and then tried to control my shaking as I put the gun to my shoulder very slowly, doing my best not to spook the does that were almost right on top of me.

It was 50 yards, almost straight up hill.  First shot cracked and he never moved.  He stayed standing and sorta’ clinched up a bit, to the point that his back even arched.  I have no idea what the does did.  I was so focused on getting the second shot off that I had no comprehension of anything that was going on around me.

Second shot.  He face-planted without moving an inch.  That’s when the fun started.

I really had no idea how big he was as I made my way up the hill.  I knew he was “big”, but I didn’t really have a clue.  I was thinking “nice four point … maybe?”.

When I got to him, I was dumbfounded … almost to the point of not really knowing what to do.  I can remember putting my gun down, kneeling down to start field dressing and then realizing that I was shaking so badly that I was scared to get my knife out for fear of loping off a finger.

I tried to start counting points, but that mostly resulted in my hands holding the base of the eye guards and trembling.

I started to realize that I had about an hour and a half of daylight left and I still had to get him off the hill and down the skid trail, by myself.  The hill was so steep that by the time I had him field dressed, I had to walk back up the hill about 100 yards to retrieve my gun and my gear that was still laying where our field dressing adventure had begun. 

(Looking back on that, I wonder how in the h*ll did we slide down the hill so far, but it probably has something to do with having zero cares in the world at that point and not paying much attention to anything other than my good fortune!)

I knew that there was a camp about a mile down the main road and I knew that those guys had ATVs.  So, I got my buck to the bushes along the skid trail, marked it with my hat (I knew it would be dark by the time I got back) and made a beeline for my truck.

I jumped in my truck and got to the campsite to find 3 guys, with three nice bucks hanging, just beginning to eat dinner.  I always carried seafood (I’m from the coast) with me when I hunted to exchange with people for permission to hunt or for help if I needed it, so I got in my cooler and retrieved 3 vacuum sealed smoked salmon and proceeded to ask if they would mind helping me drag out my buck.

No one moved.  (In retrospect, I was still so excited that I’m sure I looked like a lunatic to them).  One guy asked, “ummm … how big is it?”.

I said, and I remember this like it was yesterday, “well, it’s pretty much a 4x4, but it’s got eye guards that kinda’ crown and then some stickers in a few places, and it’s really heavy … and … if you wanna’ count all the countable points, it’s like a 10x11 or something”.

They were up and running instantly.  One guy followed me back to the trail head on his ATV and we ended up getting my buck back to my truck by about an hour after pitch dark had set in.  I followed them back to their camp, where we all took pictures of our bucks together.  Then, the guy that helped me opened his wallet and pulled out a picture of a buck that was identical to mine.  He told me he had harvested a buck from the same spot as me about 6 years earlier and he had no idea that there were still bucks that big running around that area.

By the time I got out of their camp and started my drive back home, at least 30 other hunters that were driving out of the woods that night had stopped to take a look.  I never got tired of telling the story.  

This was my first whitetail.  He scored at 178 ½ with an inside spread of 21 inches.  The eye guards are 10 inches tall.

My dad, who I called from the forest, was so excited that he drove all night from the coast to meet me in Cheney just to help me hang it in my garage.  One of the best memories of my life.

[NRA4LIFE]

Da Turdy Point Buck.  Nice.

[Lincoln4]

Sweet buck!  Thanks for sharing!

[stew pidasso]

Really cool

[deerhunter_98520]

An awesome story! Thanks for sharing!

[TommyH]

Very nice buck! 

[Dan-o]

WOW, what a great buck!

Thanks for sharing the story.

[pope]

Great buck for sure! The story is one of the best I've read, especially the part about slipping down the steep hill 100 yards while field dressing.

[bowhunterforever]

Awesome buck Love them eye guards

[redi]

Great buck and story.