2010 Montana Whitetail 10-24-10

[whacker1]

The long story:

Saturday I arrive at the area I intend to hunt about 45 minutes before daylight to find the gate I locked.  Well the gate I intended to walk in behind is only about 1 mile up the road, so I decide to just park and head off on foot.  Well I saw a few does and a few deer that I only saw tails of as it was getting light.  I worked my way up in the area I intended to go and saw a couple more does.  I hoofed it all the way to the patch of timber I had hunted a bull a few weeks earlier during the archery season, but it was already like 12:30.  So, I jump into the timber and make it about 300 yards and on to the top of the ridge and the whole hillside erupts.  I had walked into their bedding area without knowing it.  It was my first time to this part of the hill.  Anyway elk going away from me on my right, on my left, and behind me.  I didn't see a one.  I picked one of the trails that was heading the way I intended to go and followed it up one side and down the other and up the next side where I lost the trail.  I gave up as it was getting late and decided to exit the other side of the timber on the upper road.  Well I reached the road and decided I better head back to the pickup.  It was now 3 and I had 8 miles to cover before dark at 7.   I glassed the clear cuts and thinned areas and kicked up a few whitetail.  I came across a group of mule deer about 2/3 of the way down the hill and had 4 - 2 points in the mix, but nothing worth shooting.  So I make it to the main road and here comes a truck bombing down the road, and they were nice enough to stop and I asked how they got in, because the lower gate was shut this morning.  He said the upper gate was open.    So, I continued on walking down the road since I was almost back to the truck just in time to see them coming back up, because, you guessed it lower gate still shut.   

[whacker1]

Sunday - I am exhausted from the day before, so I decide to see if I can find the upper gate he mentioned.  And sure enough it is open, so I make my way to a clearcut and wait for it to get light.  After daylight I take my time getting to the patch of timber I was in yesterday and saw a few deer along the way.  I am getting ready to get out fo the truck and my sore akeing muscles tell me to go check to see if the upper / upper gate is open.  I make it about 200 yards from where I intended to park and spot a deer standing in the timber.  I drive on by and walk back down to see it was a buck and shot him in the neck at 40 yards.  He was DRT.  

I drug him down to the gravel and took a couple pics.  Not near enough photos.  Here is the one good pic that huntnphool cleaned up for me.

My self-imposed parameters for whitetail in Montana this year was to shoot a buck larger than I have shot to date.  Well this one met the parameters, so I had to pull the trigger.  After getting it home, I realized it was wider than I had initially thought, when I looked at the narrow ones I had shot in the past.  

[quadrafire]

Nice buck Neil!
Were you shaking bad when you took the pic?

Finally some payoff after all your time in the hills this year. I'm sure your wife is happy.
I'll be looking forward to some of your sausage

[quadrafire]

Neil
That looks like the bigger brother of your 113 '09 buck.

[Machias]

Very nice buck, congrats!!

[whacker1]

Neil
That looks like the bigger brother of your 113 '09 buck.

Yes, wider is the main difference.  Seemed like a bigger body than my 2009 buck.  Way more fat on this whitetail than any of the others I have killed, but that could be in relationship to it being from Montana or that it was at 4400 feet in Elevation or that we are expecting a more significant winter than 2009-2010 winter.  But some of the Fat layers on his back and rump were in the 2-3 inches thick.  I am looking for this one's big brother in WA still.  I am trying to inch my way up to a 120 class or better buck. 

[ser300wsm]

Congrats to ya, very nice and fat buck.

[Pathfinder101]

Nice!   :tup:That's a healthy lookin' deer.  Don't want to be a pessimist here, but he looks like he was gearing up for a loooooong winter...

[C-Money]

Congrats! Super whitetail!

[Widgeondeke]

Nice buck right there. Way to stick with it.