It’s been about 5 year since I downed a buck, and about a few years since I posted on here so I figured this was the best time to break the ice. Monday morning came and my cousin and I woke up just a little after sunrise, due to my birthday was on Sunday (the 15th) so needless to say it was a slow morning getting up as I was feeling the effects of the whiskey shots and Coors Light from the night before!
We made our way overlooking a giant canyon that looked fairly easy to hunt on google maps, but standing at the top looking down in person I don’t think the devil himself would want to go down there. We ended up sitting on the top glassing down hoping that we would catch a buck making its way up the canyon, when I caught a buck on the other end of my optics bedding down. I casual ask my cousin “hey what would you do if we saw a buck down there?” As he replied, “down there?!...nothing, no idiot would go down there”….Well off I went down the canyon!! I showed my cousin where the buck was through the binos so he could keep an eye on him until I made my way down. We ranged him 800 yards away, but I wanted to at least creep down until I got within 300 yards to make a decent shot.
After what seemed like forever creeping down silently slipping on rocks cussing quietly as crawl over and under buck bush, I finally made it down to a decent spot and ranged at him 234 yards. I put my scope on him and then radioed to my cousin that I was going to take the shot. I steadied my crosshairs right behind his shoulder and squeezed…I hear my cousin on the radio scream “buck down buck down!!” followed by a silence, and then a “ooooh S*#%, he rolled over the cliff” As I only stood only 234 yards away I got the best view of him rolling down, as my head bobbed up and down with every time he bounced off a rock. Standing there in disbelief, my cousin radioed me saying “I’m pretty sure his rack broke off. Trying to make the best of the situation I just replied “that’s cool, wasn’t planning on eating the horns anyways”.
As I made my way over to the buck, I arrived expecting the worst but was surprised that he was all in one piece! And he was a better buck then I thought. Through my scope I thought he was a 2x4, but was surprised when I saw he was a 3x4. The irony that I thought he broke his rack off, but he actually grew an extra point! My Cousin finally arrived with the supplies from my pack that I left on the top of the canyon, and the real work began. The pictures don’t do it justice, but we were quartering the deer out on almost a 45 degree angle, and had to tie its legs down to a rock to keep him from sliding. After an hour or so of getting him all cut up, we loading up the game bag and off we went up the hill.
LUCKILY, it had snowed a few days before and there was still snow on the shaded side of the ridge so we could fill up out water packs and drink the cool water. As we made the trek up I couldn’t help to keep looking up and thinking to myself “yea he was right, only an idiot would go down here". Again it’s difficult to explain the angle of the ridge and the obstacles we had to go up, over, and around, but in the background of one of the pics you can get an idea of the terrain we had to go up. Well, finally 6 hours later we made it to the top! After a quick celebration we loaded up camp and got a hotel next to the bar!
