2016 East Side Hunt-Very Blessed, BBD

[Buckhunter28]

It's been 9 years since I've been to the area we used to hunt every year, and I got quite the welcome back this year on my hunting trip. The last I hunted this area, I was only 7 years old, so I was just going with my dad to hunt with him, but I am now old enough to hunt on my own and have harvested 3 deer(now 4) since 2012. It started in spring, we went on a weekend trip with our hunting group(my dad's buddies) and did some clean up on some property of a member of our group in order to fit my dad and I's wall tent for the upcoming season. October 14th came, we left at 3a.m. with a loaded truck and cargo trailer, both of us more than excited for the hunting to come. Our group has done well in this area over the past 16 years, and I couldn't wait to finally have the opportunity to hunt it for myself. Anyway, we arrived around 2, set up our camp, bs'd with our buddies, then did some scouting. It's any buck for whitetail, and 3 point min for mulies. I was hoping to tag a whitetail, but I wasn't going to pass on a nice mulie.

Opening day finally arrived, I passed on 2 small whitetail bucks, and then one from our group shot a buck, and was tracking blood but couldn't find it, so his father came to help him look and ended up shooting a nice 3 point mulie with eye guards. My dad and I went to go see if they needed help, they had it under control and were going to continue looking for the wounded buck, so my dad and I continued our hunt. It started to downpour on us, and at about 1:30 while hiking a steep drainage, my dad glanced below the trail, motioned me over, and was looking at a great mulie, to which I said, "Damn nice buck, you better hurry and shoot." Of course he did, and he drilled it through the lungs. As we walk up to it, we discover another bullet hole, the wounded buck! We were ecstatic to have found it and been able to harvest it before it was wasted. A 6 hour pack out, we are back at camp, exhausted. The next day we did a quick 4 mile morning hunt, one nonlegal mulie, and a lot of does, then back to camp to butcher meat. The next 2 days we did about 7 miles each day, turned up some small whitetail bucks, but nothing of which I wished to tag.

-Now Wednesday, my turn to fill my tag. I was ready to put some miles on today, as we only had a few days left until we had to head home. We headed on our hunt around 8, and got to where we really wanted to be around 10(we hunt in a slow manner). Anyways, the area looked very promising, so we made our way through the timber, stopping every 10 steps or so to look around for any movement. Around 11:30, we got a call on the radio from one of the guys in our group saying he had on down and needed some help and mule tape, so we started to move a LITTLE quicker towards him(I was still wanting to hunt). Luckily, he was in the direction we were headed anyways, so I continued on the route I had planned on hunting. We started walking, and around 12 I hit a nice cattle trail, which was headed right were I wanted to go, about two minutes later, as I'm watching the drainage to my right, my dad whispers at me, "Ben, I got a deer to your left. I don't know what it is yet." Of course as soon as I heard "deer" I threw my rifle up, flipped up my scope cover, and found the deer in my scope. It was a nice buck, and I said to my dad, as he grabbed for his binos, "F**k that's a nice buck." And as soon as the words left my mouth a put a round through his left lung and into his spine(He was looking at me). He dropped where he stood and rolled about 15 yards down hill. My dad barely had time to see it in his binos, but we were high fiving and all smiles. As we walked up it was bigger than either of us every imagined. More high fives and pictures, and I said a prayer thanking God for this opportunity, a quick humane kill, and time with my dad, while my dad made a radio call to our group saying we had a nice one down. We hung it in a tree and left it over night(I packed the head and cape out that day) and we came and boned it out and packed it out the 4.5 miles the next day. This is my biggest buck to date and I am extremely blessed to have gotten to harvest him. Most of all, I'd like to thank my dad for taking me hunting, teaching me my love and passion for the outdoors and hunting, and I'm so thankful to have such a great father, and be able to spend time and these experiences with him.

Good luck to all out hunting, stay safe, and thanks for reading the long right up 

-Dad's Buck is first pic, mine comes after

[Buckhunter28]

Few more pics

[JakeLand]

Wow !!  Congrats!! Both dandy bucks

[huntnfmly]

Very cool congrats

[highside74]

Eatonville represent! Way to go to you and your dad.

[fishnfur]

   Super nice bucks and photos.  Good on ya!

[Scott68]

Well done and thanks for including the story!

[X-Force]

Great memories! Awesome bucks

[HUNTaHOLIC5]

Awesome bucks! Congrats 

[Mfowl]

Congrats! Both are great bucks!

[Widgeondeke]

Two very good bucks.  Congrats to you both 

[go4steelhd]

Fantastic bucks
Nice work guys

[PA BEN]

 

[Skyvalhunter]

Very nice buck!! Your dad was right when he said "F**k that's a nice buck."

[Buckhunter28]

Thanks all for the comments, still taking it all in, very blessed and fortunate on this hunt!