Well, I was going to have Jr come on here and do a thread himself, but between basketball and homework we could be waiting a couple of weeks. Soo... I guess Dad will have to tell the story...
We camped at about 3,000 feet, on a flat in the Blue mountains above Dayton,
wind and weather were horrendous. I am not sure how many knots or mph the wind was blowing, but I can tell you that my metal frame 16X20 wall tent blew over twice, came back to camp Friday and Sunday and stuff was strewn everywhere.
3 inches of snow, sleet and ice Saturday morning... Battery cable rattled loose Friday, I thought my battery was dead (luckily the guy camped next to us was a diesel mechanic and figured it out).
Of course with the weather, nothing was moving, we hunted Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday without even getting a shot at a whitetail doe (Justin had 2 tags, the Blue Mountain Foothills buck tag, and a 2nd deer whitetail doe tag). Then, Saturday evening, last light, pouring rain, 2 does walked out in front of us at 30 yards and he couldn't see through his scope for a shot. I'm not going to lie to you, the kid was pretty bummed out. There may be some dents in a big cottonwood tree where he was slamming his head against it.
On a tip from Woodchuck, we hunted one spot up around 4,000 feet. Saw some rubs, a few tracks, tried a little rattling and grunting, but the storm blew in while we were there and that was that. We did see two herds of elk, bedded down out of the wind, 2 spikes and one nice 6x6, but not a single solitary whitetail. Weather was just too nasty, specifically the wind.
Then, Sunday morning, the weather cleared up just long enough to get the deer moving. Finally we spotted a lone doe, stopped the truck, PathfinderJR scrambled up the hill with his .308 to get prone. The deer was over 250 yards (guessing, I didn't range it),only the top half of her was visible due to the curve of the hill and the hill was VERY steep. I pulled his .308 out from under him and put my 7mm in it's place, then told him to aim low due to the angle. Shot and a miss, over her back. "Aim low" I told him again. Another shot and a miss. "No, no, no, that's really steep, aim REALLY low. " He held the crosshairs in the grass about where the bottom of her belly should be and touched off a round. Perfect shot, right behind the shoulder. So, he learned a lesson about shooting at steep angles. We dressed her out and had about the easiest drag downhill to the truck. Could have just about ridden her down the hill it was so steep.
About 9:30 we were heading down the road to an area that Jackalope had suggested, and I glimpsed a heavy looking deer picking it's way up a hill through the star thistle a few hundred yards from the road. We stopped and I said "We'll look at him, but I think it's a mulie." I pulled up the binos and immediately saw it was a big buck with two whitetail does.
Justin jumped out (this time with my 7mm) and ran up on the hill to get prone. The does spotted him and ran to the right. The buck followed, and as luck would have it, stopped on a finger, turned directly towards us and stared. 294 yards, straight uphill again. First I said "Wait for him to broadside", but then realized that he was about to bomb out of there and said "Never mind, if you have a shot, you had better take it now". A second later the gun boomed, the deer lurched, tucked his tail and ran off the finger into the draw.
"I HIT HIM!" Jr shouted.
"Well, he acted hit" I allowed (not wanting to get too excited until I saw the buck dead on the ground.)
"No." JR insisted. "I hit him. Right where his neck and his chest ccome together. That's where I was aiming, and I held a little low this time."
"OK, I said. "Let's go see"
It took us a few minutes to climb the steep hill he was on, JR chattering the whole way. When we got up to the finger, we found him lying not 30 yards from the tracks he was standing in when JR pulled the trigger. The entry hole was directly through the center of his chest, right at the base of his neck. You can barely see it (no blood, just a dime-sized cirlce) in some of the pictures.
The buck was much bigger than what I had expected him to kill. Probably be a LONG time before he gets a shot at anything this big again. We green-scored him at 147 7/8 (gross) Sunday night. Bigger than any whitetail that I have ever killed.
Sunday night was spent taking down camp, skinning two deer, and carefully caping out his buck.
We'd both like to than everyone that emailed and PM'ed tips for us when they heard that JR drew this tag. Especially Woodchuck and Jackelope (who's area's we were kind of in-between when we lucked onto this guy.
And, for those of you who haven't experienced it yet; I can tell you without question, that when your kid kills a buck bigger than any you have ever killed yourself, you wouldn't trade it for the world....
Here's some pics.
