Nice deer, looks great ,what’s the story on him ?
Thank everyone.
I am beyond happy with him. Was everything I wanted out of the Quality tag I drew last year.
It was for a palouse area unit.
I had plenty of time off of work but the issue was the cost of where I would stay. I was at a reasonable priced AirB&B but didnt have a ton of money to throw at it. Was counting 150-200 deer a day, with about 1/4 of them being bucks. But I was a little early for good rutting. The forkies were chasing and sparring but I wasnt seeing much bigger besides one or two the day before the season opened. Season opened on a Friday, I got in the area Thursday. Friday I saw a lot. No shooters. The weekend I saw a lot of deer but was not seeing any mature bucks besides one on private just down the road from where I was staying. I reached out to try get access but got no response. It was a big 3x4, not quite as wide as this guy I got, but taller.
I got some cool phone scope footage of him though.
I had been on public and a couple "reserve" private properties.
Monday started 3 days I had access to a prime piece I wanted to hunt that was "hunt by written permission" landowner was a super cool dude. If he wasnt out of town he would have brought is side by side out to retrieve my buck with me.
His property also had a very large state block behind it that was locked in by private. I saw 2 small whitetail bucks on his property before I crossed into the state chunk. The wind was howling and a storm blowing in from the south. When I reached the edge of the state land I followed the boarder up to the north side of it. I saw a dozen or so does in a draw along the northern boarder of the block and one big 2x3 with a gunshot wound across the top of his back. They all went across private and gone. The fingers and draws all went east to west. I worked my way to the center along the northern boarder of the state block and started working straight into the wind southward. Every time i could peer into a draw, there was deer on the south side of it, so the slope they were on faced north, the best they could get out of the howling wind. One time just a doe, next draw a little 4x4 basket racked whitetail (man they the whitetail blended into the CRP so much more than the mulies, never saw that whitetail till it was running.) The next draw was a smaller shallower one and wasnt expecting much as I walked into it without peeking over the rise slowly like I had been. The direction the buck was facing saved me. He was standing facing directly away from me. I dropped to the ground where the rise hid me. I knew even in that fraction of a second by body size that he was a good buck, and I was 150 yards away. I crawled as close as I could to get over the rise and get a good look. One glance through the binos and I knew he was a shooter, wasnt sure how many points, but knew he was legal and the frame said the rest. It took forver for me to get a shot, he turned facing me and I was afraid to move due to him looking right my way. I had to raise up high enough to see him over the rise that I couldnt shoot prone. I waited for a long while and finally said screw it. I rolled to my back, feet facing him, and did a sit up and brought the gun up on my knees. Crosshairs found his chest, boom, and he went straight down like a ton of bricks. Another nice buck bolted from behind the next rise after the shot. About a mile of a pack and most downhill or flat with a game cart. So pretty cake, even though the first uphill part killed me, super out of shape and he was a big boy. Swollen neck, roman nose, fresh bleeding battle scars on his face. That he was a clear cut 4x4 was the icing on the cake. I wanted a 4x4 so bad, I normally hunt blacktails and seem to have the 3 point curse. Even my big blacktail that scored 121 3/8" was a 3x3. And this guy being as wide as he is. Like I said, he was everything I wanted out of this tag. A local taxi over there skinned the head out for me, and it was cold over there that week so I hung and butchered him at the place I stayed. Went home with a clean skull cap, frozen cape, and packaged frozen meat minus the scraps I would grind when I got home. Even managed a couple tries at pheasant hunting for the frist time. Spent the mornings and evenings just driving around after I filled the tag enjoying seeing all the deer and watching all the rutting activity and getting phone scope such. Got a nice smaller 4 pt breeding and chasing a doe over the course of an hour and chasing off a forky every time he dared come close to that one doe. Was an amazing experience.
