I killed a dandy buck yesterday morning at 8:17 am rutting hard. He had piss running down his legs and his tarsal glands were fired up! Nice big swelled neck, and his nose up a does .... uh....tail. Anyway here is the story. Had a bad morning starting out, ended up not getting to my gate I walk into till 6:55. Anyway I started up the hill to where I start my hunting 2 miles in. Well about 1 mile up the road my phone vibrates, I got service and have a message,. A customer of mine called the day before and was going to bring a whitetail in at 10:00. I dont get cell service at my house and he didnt leave a message on the home number so I'm just now getting it. Its now 7:20 , my hunt just got cut short , thats fine I need the buisness. I decided to look over a clearecut about a mile and a half in instead of hunting the timber roads. I didnt see a deer in the clearcut untill I got to the end where I spotted a doe and a yearling. I scanned around looking for a buck but didnt see a thing. There is a little sliver of cut above and to the left of me that you can see but only peices because there is a thin line of timber you have to look through to see it. I saw a doe moving up out of a small drainage, then I saw a real light brown deer behind her kind of poofed up. I thought it was another doe or yearling because of the coloring. Well once it came out into the opening I saw it had a big main beam on the left horn. Here I am, wasnt going to hunt the clearcut because I just dont like to and have better luck hunting the roads in the timber and reprod patches for nice bucks. I usualy kill a nice buck within about 35 yards or less. I should probably just use my bow like Bone. Anyway I didnt have my shootin sticks so I had to find a rest . Theres one in the middle of a bunch of dead sticks pilled up off the end of the landing. I get to it and rest my gun on the "rest" and its rotten and breaks. I made it work anyway. Oh man, I didnt have my range finder either. Oh well I figured it was about 400 yards so I held just over his back calmed my breathing and heartrate down for a minute and squeezed the trigger . BOOM! Hes still standing there looking over his back. BOOM! Hes still looking over his back. Hey dumby , I think to myself , its not that far what are you thinking! So I put it on his shoulder and squeeze , BOOM, SMACK! I watched the doe walk around for a bit looking up the hill so I sat and watched her till she disapeared after about 10 minutes. I made my way over to find him pilled up where he stood. I dont get rattled with nice bucks but for some reason I did a little this time. Good thing he was stupid and in love or I wouldnt have conected on this old buck. I watched this buck two years ago but never seen him again till now. At least I think its the same buck. I' put in alot of miles on my legs , and it finally paid off. about 43 miles this buck season (4 days). I ended up boning him out and making one pack out of the hole. OH MY! after getting up out of the hole and going about 3/4 of a mile down the road I couldnt go no further. This was a big bodied blacktail. I had to dump half the meat off and come back for it. I weighed my whole pack I was packing. It weighed 140 lbs. I was packing a little less than my bodie weight out. No wonder I couldnt hack it. Ive always packed my bucks boned out alll the way back to the truck. I think coming up out of a crap hole of a clearcut took alot out of me to start. Anyway thats the storie. Ill post som pics in a while.
