Well it's about time. I was finally in on a kill this year. My cousin hunted eastern Wa the first couple of weekends and wasn't successful, so I told him we could go to an area I know and I'd try to help him fill his tag with a blacktail. We got set up in a clearcut this morning right as legal hunting hours began. Sat there for an hour and didn't see anything. So we get back in the truck and drive from clearcut to clearcut, stopping often to glass any promising areas. After a few hours we still hadn't seen anything but tracks, not even a doe.
We also had seen almost no other hunters, so for that we at least felt fortunate to have the woods to ourselves. Actually, in 5 hours of driving Weyerhaeuser roads we saw two other vehicles. So we weren't totally alone out there but it sure felt like it. It seemed odd that this was the last weekend of deer season and very few people were out hunting. Anyway, at 1:30 we got to the very last spot we were going to glass before we headed home. I put the binoculars up and here's a buck looking at me. I whistle at my cousin and he comes over and I try to point out the buck. He had left his binoculars in the truck so it took him a while to find it. It's kind of difficult when you tell someone the deer is "by the stump" when there are 15 possible stumps it could be.
Well he gets rested on a log and with the deer facing us directly, he aims for the throat. It appears to be about 200 yards away. Should be an easy shot, but when he shoots the buck turns and runs behind some brush and little firs. I'm watching and don't see him come out the other side, and knowing that if he had been hit it would have been a neck shot and should have dropped right away, so I assume my cousin missed completely. After about a half a minute suddenly the deer materializes just to the left of the brush patch and is standing broadside right in the open. I point it out to my cousin, he swings over and shoots for the shoulder this time. As I'm watching with the binos, the buck just immediately flips over on it's back and kicks a little and is done.
The hardest part was clawing our way through the blackberries and over the 4 foot logs, down into the bottom of the draw where the buck was laying. When we finally got down there a doe and fawn take off out of there. And finally, after an hour of floundering around in that hell hole, my cousin yells at me and says he found it. Fairly small bodied buck, after boning it out, it ended up being a fairly easy pack back up the hill to the truck. Much easier than we expected. Oh, and I forgot to mention, just before this I got a grouse with my 30-06! First grouse of the year. It was a good day.
