Finally!

[savagehunter]

Let me start by saying I haven't killed a buck in 18 years. My wife didn't like guns and when we got married I sold mine. 4 years ago my 16 year old son came and asked if I was ever going to teach him to shoot. Talk about bad dad complex. I went out and bought us rifles and taught all 5 kids how to shoot. My son's birthday is Sept 11th . That year he told me all he wanted for his birthday was to go on the high hunt. With a little help from a lot of great guys we have done that hunt 4 times now. Until he got a job we also hunted regular season together. For the last two years he has only had enough time off to hit the high country so I have been hunting reg season for blacktail alone. I grew up in western oregon and had hunted blacktail since I was 11. Washington public land was a totally different critter. Any roads without a gate were saturated with road hunters real tough hunting with the crowd. So last year I started hiking in  behind locked gates and started seeing deer . Last year I missed out on a huge 4x4 at 113 yards when I didn't get my safety all the way off. Last day of the season too. I was bummed. This year I started off  in the same spot and hunted 5 full days without seeing even a doe other then the drive in or out before or after shooting light. Saturday I was headed back there then decided to check out something I had seen on google maps instead. At first light I was a mile and a half in when the wind and rain hit. By 130 I had covered about 4 miles and was pretty wet from the inside out. I found a burnt out landing that looked down over a huge clearcut. I heard to buck hitting it up pretty good in the draw to my left but after dropping in there was unable to locate them as it was really thick. I decided to drop off the landing into the cut which was half reprod half burnt. As soon as I hit the road I looked up and there are 4 deer skylight ed above me. My glass showed Me three does and a spike . I have never been picky so I set up on a stump and took care full aim and squeezed on off. He didn't even flinch. Two more shots that were clean misses and they calmly walked over the ridge while I dug out more ammo. I booked it up and around and knew they had crossed the ridge and went downhill into the reprod so I followed. Ended up jumping them and two other does and couldn't have gotten a shot off. Went back to look for blood knowing there was none. I figured there was something wrong with my scope and started trying to figure out how to sight my gun in . At the bottom of the unit about 1500 yards away was a metal door so I hiked down made a mud mark on it and fired 3 rounds not technical but it showed my scope was off about 8 inches to the right. I adjusted the scope but didn't test it because I only had three rounds left. On the way back to the top a real nice fella named scott stopped and talked to me. He said he'd give me a ride out if I was still around after shooting light. I had 45 min of light left and was 2 miles from my truck. Well I headed out toward the head of the unit seeing 3 more does on my way. The road dropped out of the clearing and I came around a corner and here comes another deer walking up the road at about 150 yards. Another doe I thought and didn't want to spook her. Couldn't see horns through my binoculars. At 75 yards I looked through my scope and all of a sudden she grew horns. With my scope off I wanted to wait until he turned sideways but never got the chance at 20 yards I let him have it. He ran in 6 circles in the middle of the road and I took another shot clean miss . He took of like a bolt but I could tell he was hurt. At about 125 yards I fired my last bullet and he went down like a ton of bricks. No stud by anyone's imagination but he represents 4 years hundreds of miles thousands of dollars and my determination to get it done. Just spent all day butchering him out pretty big spike at 130 pounds gutted. Very relieved to have finally killed my first washington buck.

[savagehunter]

Also a big thanks to scott who showed up and drove me and the deer to my truck saving me a two hour drag

[brew]

congrats brother...

[fishnfur]

Pat yourself on the back.  You earned that buck!

[police women of America]

Congratulations! Any buck is a good buck!

[pianoman9701]

Congratulations on a nice buck. Well done! 

[Widgeondeke]

130lbs is a big spike.  Both mine and my sons bucks only weighed 97lbs hanging w/o guts.

Congrats on a hard earned blacktail

[h2ofowlr]

Congrats on your harvest!  It definitely can be a lot of work and rewarding / frustrating money spent.  I will continue to do it until I can't anymore.

[WAcoyotehunter]

Congratulations!!  Way to tough it out and get one down!  I think you have found a pretty good spot; I suspect you're going to continue to have success now that the hard work is done.

[jackelope]

Way to stick with it, man. Glad you notched your tag. 

[wt]

An inspiring effort! Way to stick to it!

[csaaphill]

nice glad you got it done.

[Skyvalhunter]

Congrats on a fine animal. Bore sight investment time.

[savagehunter]

What sucks is I had this gun shooting half inch groups at the beginning of the season. Back to the range.