Blue Mtns. Foothills west hunt recap.

[D-Rock425]

Started the hunt off Saturday morning and wasn't looking for any thing giant and planned to shoot the first legal buck and head off to fill my Montana tags.  I hunted 4 days without laying eyes on a buck.  Then final on day 5 a tiny tiny little forkie with an eyegaud and I let him walk because I'm such a trophy hunter . 
Day 6 I hunted a feel free to hunt area beating the brush and bumping deer out but only turned up a few does and 2 spikes.  That evening I jump over to another feel free to hunt area and saw a few deer and final caught a glimpse of a shooter buck in a wheat field walking away from me over the hill 150 yards  away.  I went straight after him thinking he'd be close whenni got there and I was wrong when I got to where the deer was he was almost 300 yards out right on the edge of field.  I dropped my pack got prone and shot I was pretty confident I hit the buck but he just jumped over the edge down into the canyon and I couldn't see where he went.  Looked for blood for over an hour into the dark and came up with nothing but I still wasn't convinced I missed so I headed right back in the morning.  Looked and looked no buck no blood no sign of a hit.  I was still in the canyon side hilling when I jump a buck at about 40yds that was clearly hobbled in the rear end so I pulled up and shot quick thinking (hoping maybe) it was the deer from the night before.  Well it wasn't this buck was much smaller then the buck the previous night.  This buck had been shot in the hind leg above the knew.  Wound was old and infected.  There was no muscle mass in that hind quater his leg bone had been shattered.  A little disappointed in my miss of the bigger buck but happy to put this one down and maybe end some suffering.

[Rainier10]

Good job ending the suffering for that guy.

[7mmfan]

Well you filled your tag and did some good taking a wounded buck out. From the sounds of things, that's not a wound that was going to heal. He would have suffered a long time until some coyotes finally at him alive. Good work.

[Karl Blanchard]

Well you filled your tag and did some good taking a wounded buck out. From the sounds of things, that's not a wound that was going to heal. He would have suffered a long time until some coyotes finally at him alive. Good work.

  Good on you D for doing what was necessary.

[ch1pnasty]

your hunt sounds similar to ours , I was able to harvest a decent 4pt on the 2nd day of the hunt . we seen very few whitetail bucks the days after that and on the 5th day my buddy shot a deer that had been attacked by a cougar during the summer leaving him with scratches down his back  and a busted antler . we seen a few bucks that would have been legal deer but where broken also .
congrats on your buck .