The green river water shed is doing pretty good this year, good bulls some cows and the buck my dad and I took today. The number of deer seen by us in 2 days was, 1 doe and 2 bucks. We saw two cows today and one spike bull. I hope the rest of the buck tag holders find their dream bucks! We found a good buck today, spent all day Learning roads and burning diesel. Around 3 pm we found a really nice clear cut that covered lots of ground, decided to stay till dark. While Glassing I found a white elk shed About 200 yards uphill right at the tree line. Well, my butt has been getting kicked on shed hunting the past couple years, so no way was I going to leave it laying there for those damn Chipmunks to keep chewing on! Little did I know I was within 150 yards of a good buck! I forgot to mention that it poured all morning, by the time I got back to the truck, I was soaked from the waist down, but i broke my losing streak!
Side note- my dad has diabetes, it’s a constant struggle to keep his blood sugar levels good. This tag was his disabled buck tag. On October 3rd this year he took his first bull with the little Naches disabled tag. He will be 78 tomorrow.
So when I get back to the truck with my chalky shed, I see my day eating every thing he brought that has sugar and drinking as much orange juice as he can. His blood sugar was at 60, I think 40 is dangerous. He was shaking and confused, scared me and I said let’s just road hunt out of here. Well, I had to take one last glass into the cut, 345 yards out I see something odd. It’s so odd I have to keep looking, I shut off the truck to keep all vibrations as low as possible to focus on what looked odd. With my 10x42 Binos , that tiny little white patch Kept looking like a suspect. I walked about 20 yards closer, rested my binos on my shooting sticks, and confirmed what my mind was trying to tell me, I was looking at a white faced ghost!
I’ve been blacktail hunting since I was 18, I’m 51 now and I’ve never seen a better buck in my optics. I look at my dad and give him the wide open arm, silent, holy sh*t sign! So I get back in the truck and we discuss what to do, he tells me to take him. I’m severely conflicted, I want nothing more than to see him take a buck but he is not in good shape. He says, look at me (shaking), I can’t make the shot. Decision time, do I shoot his deer for him, or wait for another day? He tells me again, take him son! We decided I should take this deer, I was shaking like a leaf, the coffee I just drank didn’t help with that!
I drove down the road enough to make it a 200 yard shot, gun on shooting sticks, turn scope up to 6 power and put the cross hairs on him. He was still bedded down looking at us. Boom! Took me about 30 seconds to pull the trigger on that first shot, couldn’t quit shaking! He jumped up, did a walk backwards dance and I put one more in him. My first shot was money, didn’t know it at the time so a second shot was sent, that shot was bad, broke his hip and messed up some good meat. But, he was down!
I heard my dad yelling, he saw that last flip of the deer and go down, he was more excited than I was (maybe!). After my last shot, I saw a really nice 2 point stand up, he didn’t leave till I was 40 yards away from him. My dad and I hugged and well, we just embraced the moment. This year has been beyond what I can explain. The day before we got the call that he was cancer free, his first elk, my biggest blacktail ever, what is next?? He has one more permit to fill, a second deer (doe) tag for the desert unit. Sorry for the long story, just feeling good right now. Thanks to igotanewknee and his guys for help loading our deer, was great to talk with you guys and enjoy each other’s success. What a day!
