So never had the opportunity to post a story - looks like my son called me out, so here goes.
We made a plan to hunt a general area we have hunted before. When we left the house my wife said "Don't shoot anything, you know I don't like venison", O.K. So my plan was to walk my rifle and get a workout for our Idaho Elk hunt at the end of the month. We parked at the gate waiting for it to get a little lighter so we could see as we walked in. We passed one older hunter sitting on the road overlooking a clear cut with a setup that had a milk cart bungy corded to a dolly as his seat and an umbrella - nice!
We had walked probably a mile when we saw a clear cut on our right that slopped up to a nice tree line about 100 yds away. I decided to walk up to the tree line get on top for a view of the entire clear cut that was probably 100 acres is size. My son continued up the road, the wind was perfect, in my face and I slowly walked in until I could see the entire cut. As I got to the top I bumped a nice buck about 50 yds away, all I saw was ass and horns for about 5 seconds, he didn't know what I was but jumped down out of my sight into a little ravine, I waited for him to come up out the other side but he never showed. The rhododendron and salal were about 4' tall along with ferns and stumps. I walked further up until I could see down into the ravine - no buck
I was about to continue a little further when I saw a buck moving ahead weaving his way through this stuff - got him in sight and forgot my safety was on - damn my wife was right.
Clicked the safety off and couldn't find him when I noticed another buck behind him quickly weaving his way on the same trail. Got him in my sights and could only see horns and neck at about a 45degree angle walking away, I thought well I guess I'll shoot him in the neck and down he went or so I thought.
When I looked up I couldn't find him, this stuff was so thick - I had walked over where he should have been and couldn't find him, I starting thinking - did I miss, well I had walked around where he had dropped. Needless to say I was excited and relieved, I've hunted 20+ years with my son and never killed a blacktail, just enjoyed the experience of hunting with my son and family. I was there for his 1st buck and now he was there to see mine.
My wife and I ate the heart Saturday night - she loved it. We will have the tenderloins tonight and I'm betting she'll love that also.
Update - My wife did an outstanding job of preparing and cooking the tenderloins with red wine last night, if you were blind folded you would not have noticed it was venison.
