What an awesome experience, getting to hunt units during times when there are no other hunters with a rifle is neat, but getting to be in there when no other humans have tags and being able to come up with a plan and try to execute it is very fun.
When I bought the tag, like most, I had dreams of finding a 200" buck (they exist but are hard to find), and hopefully find a buck that I was at least sure went 190". I knew I was going to focus on the 200 GMU's. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't spent much time in any of those units. It was truly awesome to see how many people reached out to offer suggestions. What a great community of people.
I hunted at least one day every weekend other than a couple (and both days most), for the entire season, focusing on different areas at different times. It truly was just a fantastic experience.
As most of you are aware the weather wasn't ideal this year, and that had me panicking a couple times. I knew to the extent possible, I wanted to find a buck from a distance and get as many photos and video as possible, really study them and make sure that I was going to be happy ending this unique experience.
Luckily, I only found 2 bucks that would have been for sure shooters had I just had the late tag for that individual unit and this tag. The first, was just a nice heavy 4x4 but with nothing really special, a younger deer and I have taken bigger typical bucks, so he was a pretty easy pass. The second was the day I finally killed my buck and will be part of the write up later.
