It’s been two years since I brought home a blacktail, and once again I’m back on the same property that I got my first and third deer, and my first bear.
Well wouldn’t you know it, a bear shows up on of my cams the day after bear season ends.
It was below freezing but, no rain in the forecast which I was quite thankful for because I was planning to hunt from a tree stand over a clearcut instead of in my blind in a another spot because all the legal hour bucks had been pushing through the clearcut.
Climbed up and got settled about 6:40am. Didn’t take much time but my left foot got super cold despite the Scheens Beartooth 200g, sock liner and Marino wool socks. Of course somehow my thermos wiggled out my pack and was in the truck. Oh well, sit and suffer. It was cold enough for frost on my Silencer and start to develop on my eyelid.
In all other areas of insulation I’m dialed in but, I’m congested and achy, so sit and suffer. By 9:00am there’s full sun and I alternate pushing a foot out the trim of the stand to get radiant heat on them. With my left foot out I start getting too comfortable and sleepy. I blink slowly and think I just saw a buck ~100yds away. Blink again and yup, it’s got multiple points. SWEET! I’ve never brought home a branch antlered deer. Since I had gotten too comfortable and had a foot hanging out, I had to shuffle a bit and get setup to shoot. STUPID. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready! This buck hears me, looks over, and silently said goodbye. Bounding back to where he came. It’s 9:30am and I’ve been busted. UGH. I had planned to hopefully get done in the morning and get on the road for an out of state hunting trip.
So i sit and suffer.
The day drags on and about hour five it’s time to climb down, and get my thermos for lunch and let the dog out the truck for a bit. Good instant Shinblack warmed me up good with a nice walk while she went back and forth on the road. Afterward, climb back up and sit. Lots of glassing takes place hoping to find an ear or something hiding somewhere. Periodic calling did not bring anything in. Blacktail doe estrus scent wasn’t doing anything. Sit and…..a friend texts and says he’s got apples for me. So another good time for a break and put some apples out.
Back up the tree…sit….3:45pm rolls around and my wife is asking how I’m doing. I tell her I’m looking forward to the day being over potentially in the next hour and fifteen minutes. I’m tired and hungry.
4:30 comes and it’s time to be ready for prime time. Scanning…it’s a 207yd shot to the tree line so anything moving above the brush is normally visible. Scanning. OOO what’s. It’s a deer at the tree line, eating a tree. I see glimmer between his ears, look through the scope, it’s a spike. Now, do I shoot him in the neck or wait for him to move closer and get a broadside? Heck I’m not waiting for him to get closer, he’s moving and could go anywhere. I have a very stable shooting platform up here..the same bags I use to sight in and I know without a doubt, 200yd groups are less than a MOA with this rifle are the norm. Oh he’s broadside now. PEW…flop…he gets up and walks…NOT TODAY, STANLEY! PEW…still moving??? PEW, drops down/disappears.
So I sit and wait to see if he reappears somewhere. It’s 4:50pm. I get distracted by some noise coming from another property I know the owners of, trespassers in a truck. I call that in get ready to climb down. While walking through the brush I see that truck driving the opposite direction because they can’t get out the property.
I get to where I believed him to be and there he was.
It got dark real quick and despite the headlamp it was cumbersome getting him dragged out easily. We normally do not gut on this property, so I dragged him out whole which about killed me. Definitely the longest drag I’ve ever done. I’ve have always shot deer a few yards from a road on this property and the other aforementioned one. Maybe I should have shouldered him up
and carried him out.
Post mortem inspection revealed I hit him all three times.
Two entries
Went across
And through the other side.
Poked his guts.
Another round hit him in the tenderloin which didn’t really bother me to loose a bit of them. Much better than loosing most a shoulder. Maybe that was the first shot that tipped him over while moving.
Got him in the truck and drove to a friend’s place to skin and get cooled. A nice 30 degree night and no insulation or heat took care of cooling him off good.
Vacuum packing will finish up later today.
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