So the story, on Sunday we were around multiple units on kind of our regular checks, getting as high as we could and start glassing. Saw plenty of bucks but nothing to get excited about. Finally, about 3:00, we are glassing a large pocket of deer somewhere around 60, we had seen at least a dozen bucks in. Suddenly, Steve goes, I think I got a good one. He did, we took photos and videos from 1.5-2 miles away until almost dark while making plans to go after the buck in the morning, as we felt there was a great chance we could get him.
After discussing and sending videos to a few on here and discussing what everyone thought he was, we made a plan to go after him in the morning.
The next morning we were greeted with an incredibly dense fog, so instead of hiking into where the buck was we decided to get to our glassing knob and wait. During this time, we literally couldn't see the area we needed to so we drove around some, at this time we came across a group of 7 bucks, it was raining incredibly hard and the bucks were only 125 yards off the road. One of the bucks had a frame we believed to possibly be better than the buck I shot and also had a couple kickers. I just don't like things to happen fast on hunts like this, as I think you usually have buyers remorse (ground shrinkage), without having a lot of pictures and videos to review, unless of course it is just an absolute monster.
At any rate, we let that buck walk and continued to hope the fog would cooperate. For several hours, any time the fog would start to lessen, the rain would pour and the fog would thicken, and that cycle continued forever. Finally, at about 11:30, the fog lifted for 5-10 minutes, so we both got behind the spotters to check the area we had seen the buck the day before. We couldn't find him, but did quickly see at least 50-60 deer in the area, and just like that, the fog was back. After a quick discussion, we both agreed he had to be there, so we drove the 30+ minutes and then started the hike into the area, which was made much more difficult because of all the rain we have had. At any rate, we were in position above the deer about 2:00. When we first sat and started glassing we could see quite a few deer and some bucks just in the fog and I thought I saw our guy, but he went over the hill and I started second guessing myself. At about 2:30 the fog lifted for good, it was now just us and our optics against the deer and the terrain. Between the two drainages and ridgeline we were covering, there was at least 100 deer, at least 20 bucks, but we just couldn't find our guy. We slowly repositioned multiple times with no luck. It is now about 3:15-3:20 and it is blowing 40 mph and raining hard. Due to the steepness of the terrain, we decided we just need to start slowing working down the ridgeline, peaking into both pockets and hope to find him. I am guessing at about 3:40, Steve goes I got him and he is close, get ready, I quickly scanned with my binoculars and saw him too, he was standing, staring into our souls behind a doe, Steve quickly put the spotter on him too, to make sure it was him (we were 99.9% sure already) and upon his confirmation, one well placed shot from 178 yards ended the hunt.
It was time to celebrate, we took pictures, shared some laughs and reminisced about the fun we had hunting together, 2 strangers, just weeks earlier, now tied to each other for eternity pursuing this buck. With darkness closing in, we caped the buck, boned out the meat, realized we only had one working head lamp, loaded up, and began our uphill and then steep downhill adventure back to the truck in the dark and fog.
It was a trip and hunt I will remember forever, and again, want to thank Steve (Ironhead), and hope to someday get to repay him, when he has the rifle in his hand.
As it turned out the buck was a bit better than we thought, and his frame that we had in the upper 160's - low 170's was actually 178 2/8 and he had 21 2/8" of trash, with a gross score of 199 4/8 and net score of 190 6/8. If you remember, in the beginning, I had stated I wanted to harvest a buck between at least 190", when I shot the buck, I thought he was going to be mid to upper 180's. So in the end the score didn't matter, I had a great time, shot a buck I thought was below my original goal and was ecstatic doing it. The score is just a number, the hunt and the deer are the memory!
