Little Pathfinder's Late Whitetail Tag

[Pathfinder101]

This spring Little Pathfinder was pretty excited, he had drawn his first  “good” tag, the Blue Mountain Foothills West late whitetail buck tag.  By July we were making phone calls and knocking on doors to get permission, since most of the whitetail we know of in the area are on private land.  We secured a couple of spots and hung some cameras on a couple of pieces we knew.

[Pathfinder101]

Then, of course, the drought.  Blue Tongue started hitting hard in August and September and we started hearing the same thing over and over… “Well, there were whitetails here…”
We live at the edge of town, with a marshy “creek” about 100 yards behind our house.  We had 2 whitetail bucks and a little gaggle of does and fawns that would pass back and forth along the creek that we watched all summer.  One day early in September we noticed a terrible stench and went to investigate.  Found one of the does, face down, dead in the creek.  As we all know, things were like that all over.  Everyone I talked to was finding dead deer, many of them bucks. 

[Pathfinder101]

By the time the general season rolled around, our enthusiasm for the prospects of LP’s tag has tempered significantly.  I asked him if he just wanted to hunt the general season for mule deer, but he declined.  Never having shot a whitetail buck, he was determined to take his chances.  In addition, our mule deer spots were losing bucks almost day to day (not to Blue Tongue, but the drought was pushing them off the property we hunt closer to the river and the irrigated fields).  LP still decided to remain in a support role and assist me and PathfinderJR in harvesting our general season mule deer. 

[Pathfinder101]

Finally, opening day rolled around.  As many of you know, I am a high school teacher, so my time off in the fall is pretty limited.  We had secured a couple of properties that were within driving distance of school.  No time to hunt before school started in the mornings, so all we were going to get was an hour before dark each night, one weekend and Veteran’s Day to hunt. 

[Pathfinder101]

We decided to focus primarily on a single property (actually, 3 properties that adjoin, covering most of both sides of a single canyon) and watch the brushy hillside every chance we got to catch a big one cruising.  After a couple of nights we had seen bucks, but nothing worthy of the tag.  This is a nerve-wracking situation,  passing on bucks, not really knowing what is still alive, with Blue Tongue killing deer right up into the season.  A couple of days in, we were buoyed by a text from the landowner with a picture of the buck we were after in his back pasture at 8am.  If I weren’t a teacher, of course we’d have been out there, sitting on that hill, less than 300 yards away.  But at least it was good to know he was out there someplace.

[Pathfinder101]

We did wind up getting one chance at him;
On Monday evening we were driving to the property and just before the field were we park we saw a buck standing on a steep hillside next to the road less than 100 yards away.  I slam on the brakes and we bail out, immediately recognizing him as a basket racked 3 point (not counting eyeguards) with a busted G3 that we had passed up twice earlier.  He was all puffed up and squatting like he was peeing, but he wasn’t peeing.  He wouldn’t even look at us.  Weird.
“Does he look to you like he's injured?” I asked LP. 
“Yeah dad.  He’s acting hurt”
Just then, I saw a quick flash of an antler tine behind him.  We couldn't really see the field behind him due to the steep roll of the hill.
“There’s another buck!” I whispered.  “He just got his butt kicked.  Get up there while I pull the truck off the road.”
Little Pathfinder started churning up the steep hill while I pulled off the gravel.  As I started up the hill, I heard a shot.  About 30 seconds later I got to him.  LP looked like he had just been in a fire-fight.  Apparently, he had walked into a rodeo.  As soon as he crested the hill, he said there were deer running pell-mell.  Yes, the big one was there.  Also, the 3 point that just got his buck kicked, trying to figure out where to go, unable or unwilling to jump over the fence he was next to (probably because of the big buck that had just kicked him out of the field).  And he thought there was another deer (probably a doe?) down in the brush to the left.  He saw the big buck take off and tried a running shot, but didn’t think he had connected.  Just as I arrived I saw the big buck for a second, crest an open hill about 300 yards away and he was gone.  As you can imagine, LP was being pretty hard on himself for having missed.  He probably would have had a better chance if he had the presence of mind to put out his bipod legs, but he had just thrown the rifle up on a strand of barbed wire which made for a pretty bouncy rest. 

Thursday was going to have to be our last day.  I had to go out of state for work Friday. 
On Monday, I ran into one of my former students, Tate, at Sportsman’s Warehouse.  After talking about the appalling lack of whitetails, he offered to take us out on a property that he thought would still have deer on it.  The weather had chilled and we thought the deer would be moving.  Wednesday night we hunted a large field on the back side of a creek that did indeed hold a good amount of deer, including several smaller, basket racked 3 points.  They were smaller than the ones we had been passing on, so LP elected to pass on them, knowing that we would have one more day.  I decided to take a personal day on Thursday for one last dark-to-dark effort. 

[Pathfinder101]

We spent the morning watching the hillside that we’d been hunting all season, hoping the big guy would make one more appearance.  We did get to see him in the headlights as we were driving in that morning.  He ran into a wheat field we didn’t have permission to hunt and stood broadside long enough for us to confirm that it was him (also that he wasn’t hurt) just before legal shooting light.  The rest of the morning was uneventful, except for a few elk and a couple of herds of mule deer getting pushed around by small bucks. 

[Pathfinder101]

That afternoon we got a call from Tate.  He had secured us permission on another piece of property.  He said it was a small piece, kind of hard to hunt, but it held deer and the shot would probably be close.  We met him a drove out to the piece, hiking in a couple of hours before dark and setting up on the steep hillside overlooking a small meadow surrounded in brush.  The hill we were sitting on was so steep that you had to scoop out a little divot for your butt to keep from sliding down the hill in the soft, damp dirt.  No chance for a rest for the rifle.  I didn’t like that.  The furthest shot would be under 200 yards, but when Little Pathfinder shouldered his rifle, all he had to perch on was one wobbly knee and it looked to me like he was moving a lot.  There were trees to our left and I moved over to one trying to find a spot for him to sit that would have some more support.  As I was looking for a good spot, the deer started showing up.  We were pinned on the hillside, unable to move.
A couple of does filtered in and out of the opening.  About an hour before dark, two does settled in and started feeding.  We had our bait set, with an hour before dark.
30 minutes later we saw movement in the brush to the rear of the opening.  “Buck coming in.” Tate whispered.  “Get ready.”  I saw Little Pathfinder slowly shoulder his rifle, trying to balance on the steep hillside. 
At first, it looked like another small, basket racked buck.  From the side, the antlers weren’t tall and the portion that stuck up above the ears didn’t look heavy.  The buck ran into the clearing and started chasing the two does around like a cutting horse.  He made a circle and then came straight on towards us.  That’s when we saw the mass near his bases and the double eye guards.  Last day.  Last hour.  Better make good on this opportunity.  I blew on a grunt call and the buck stopped dead and stared at us.  LP looked impossibly wobbly from where I was sitting. 
The rifle went off.  Clean miss.  He racked in another round and fired again.  Another miss.  The buck hadn’t moved.  I could hear Tate telling LP to calm down and relax before shooting again.  The buck took a couple of fidgety steps but stayed in the same area.  I blew on the grunt call again and the buck froze again.  A second later a third shot rang out, and we heard the meat report.  The buck ran about 20 yards, stopped and tipped over dead.

[Pathfinder101]

Although it wasn’t the buck we had been dreaming about, it was the second best buck we had seen all season.  Little Pathfinder knows a gift from God when he sees one (that buck stood there for 3 shots!) and was as happy as if he’d just shot a B&C buck.  He kept thanking Tate over and over for getting us on the land, then we showed the buck to the landowner and started the thank-you’s all over again.

[Pathfinder101]

I am proud of how he stuck with the grind for all 10 days, never missing an opportunity to get out and hunt, never getting discouraged (not counting kicking himself for missing that running shot) and never giving up.  We enjoyed the time together, the hours and hours of glassing deer and elk and the excitement when you see a whitetail buck with his nose to the ground, trotting along on a mission.  I have raised one son to adulthood already, so I think I have a better sense now of how important and precious these experiences are.  Here’s hoping that they keep coming.

 

[boneaddict]

There you go. Nice!

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Good job LP!

[bigmacc]

Excellent!...

[Pathfinder101]

I must be the worst picture-poster on this website.  Half of my photos are flipped sideways and upside down.  Anyone know what causes that (and/or how to fix it)?

[buckfvr]

Great buck !