Hunted a new area this year for deer in WA. Ended up spending a decent amount of time out in the woods, cruising around and scouting either solo or with the fam. Things kicked off mid Sept when I took my boys out for a scouting trip to get them outside and we stumbled into some bears. Got to cut the distance with the truck to get within range and ended up being able to tip one over with my new .300! Deer season came around and the first task at hand was to work on getting my brother in law his first buck. About 2 hours into the hunt his first day we were able to turn up a spike and he made a great shot and had his first buck! Next up was my wife, day one we saw lots of deer and a couple spikes but never got a good opportunity at anything. Late morning of day 2 she put a great shot on a spike we turned up and just like that she had punched her first deer tag! Finally got to hunt for myself with my huntin buddy starting the 29th, day one was the theme of the season and turned up nothing but spikes again. Up to this point, every buck we had found was a spike. Our next day we started checking some new country, started off with a couple more spikes, while watching one spike I caught some movement behind him and it turned out to be a dandy buck. Heavy and tall but narrow. Would’ve been my best BT yet but we never got a crack at him. Started seeing tons of deer when we finally found a good one who did not want to leave his doe. He was locked on us at 232 yards facing straight on. He was in some brush so I got cozy and steady and squeezed one off and throat punched him. He’s a great buck and bigger than the one we saw earlier that day. A tall and wide 3x2 with eye guards and decent mass. We were stoked. Got him dressed out and got back in the hunt. About 30 minutes before last light we turned up an absolute masher. Huge framed book caliber blacktail but he had us pegged and gave us the slip before we even had a chance. Saw over 30 blacktail that day. Last day of season we went out to chase him but never could turn him up. Another day full of deer but no shooters. With 30 min of legal light left we found a little forky that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and my buddy was tagged out. Other buddy has the quality tag for the area and has turned up 3-4 shooters in 2 days but the deal hasn’t been sealed yet! It’s been a great year so far, week and a half from now we will be headed to Montana and I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us!
