Eastern Montana Muley

[cipryan]

Took the long weekend and headed to my hometown of Glasgow.  I had a buck tag, mule deer doe, and two whitetail does. My goal was a 4x4 min. and wanted a whitetail, have a small addiction to them.  Friday was full of missed opportunites on only three hours of hunting due to the drive.   Saturday morning I didn't see one buck on shootable land, and took a couple long hikes trying to fill my mule doe during the day.  Saturday night, the hunt was blown by some dumb ass in a white ford probe driving all over looking for a buck he said he shot.  The milk river is close to the road and this guy was all over it and the land and everything.  I spent the rest of the night watching deer in an adjacent field.  Sunday morning, we were all dreading tag soup with it being our last day and went back to the river to try to get right this time.  Ended up seeing a decent 3x4 but not in range, but we did see a fawn in a field that had been shot and throat was slit, kind of pissed me off and was pretty disappointed with the hometown at this point. 

I went back to the high prairie to get the mule doe, and on the way came across a whitetail buck 4 uptop with a massive drop tine.  Another blown opportunity, I was sick to my stomach, but had to press on.  Started hitting the ridge line looking for muleys and kicked up about 10-12 does and at the back of the pack was a nice looking buck.  Does and buck run over next ridge, not spooked to bad.  So like a big dumb animal I sprint for the next ridge with the wind in my face, and the group runs up the ridge and the buck stops to check me out, I set up and took a shot at 75 yards.  Saw him crumple and get up and run back down the ridge and lost site of him.  My buddies came over we checked for blood and saw nothing, so we followed the path of least resistance and went down with one guy on top looking for him in the coulees to see if he gets up.  First draw nothing and I pushed him out of his bed about 1200 yards from where I hit him he got up and slowly made his was against a hillside towards the creek bottom.  I moved to the top of the hill and took the final shot.  This was my first muley, once again a whitetail geek.  But now I am undecided.  The first shot ended up being a passing liver shot, so I was happy I found him before he move to far, hard to track on the dirt and prairie grass.  Not a bad four point.  But every single deer and animal I have taken is truely a treasure and I am proud to move amongst these animals.

Five minutes after I loaded up the buck, I took the mule doe at 250 yards.  Went into town to show my son and found out that someone had an opening on their land and wanted to get rid of some depreditation does.  So we took two more does down on the milk.  One of the does, turned out to be a button buck, was wounded real bad, he had a sack filled with blood on his right shoulder and a broken back hip.  I don't know how he was still moving but he limped up to me at 40 yards with a spike and doe.  So I put it down and could only salvage half the deer the back hip was hamburger, and the front was just gross.  Chalk it up to good conservation.

Also got a new truck.  So it was a really good week.

[cipryan]

Another pic.

[bobcat]

Nice looking buck. Man that's a long drive for only a two-day hunt!     I don't even like driving 5 hours if all I've got is a weekend. But, you definitely made it worthwhile...congrats!

[WonkyWapiti]

This thread had it all: a great story, a nice deer, and a cool new truck!  Thanks for sharing.

[HuntingFanatic]

Sounds like an action packed sunday! Congrats!

[arrowflinger]

Sounds like the making of a country song................great story, nice buck and a true sportsman for finishing up that wounded deer.

[huntingnut]

Nice buck and a great story.

[jackelope]

I don't even like driving 5 hours if all I've got is a weekend.

I used to drive 4 hours to go fishing for the day...no more.
 
my rule was i had to be able to fish/hunt/hike/whatever for twice the amount of time it took me to get there...4 hour drive, spend 8 hours fishing, 4 hour drive home.

great story, great pics, thanks for sharing
how do you like your new truck?

[cipryan]

The truck is amazing.  Glad to finally get one instead of rallying the subaru everywhere.

Something about my hometown and hunting, a sort of kinship.  Growing up in a small town just has different aura about it.  I would do the drive all over again, to get back to that simple comfort for two days.  The DoD put me on the wrong side of the state.

[missinmt]

Nice story and pics.  Glasgow?  I think you can see End-of-the-World Ridge from there, right?  Thought Chester was a long drive.

[LongTatLaw]

Hey nate...sounds like fun...wish I was there!

I hope ur putting that buck on the wall...you know I love Taxidermy and Id put a much smaller oe on the wall.

Since you had such a good weekend...I guess Im not mad that you werent home to help me drag my bear out of the woods. I killed him just a few hundred yards up the hill from where we called in those Bulls that afternoon.

Ill hit ya up when I get back from Wisconsin and we will go get ur bull tag filled!

dave