Post by: andersonjk4 on December 10, 2012, 11:12:20 AM
Opening day (Nov. 25) was fairly cold and clear. Deer were moving all over and bucks were out tending to does. Right off the bat I started seeing deer and bucks. Within the first half hour of the season I was watching an average sized 3 point watching over his little harem of does. I decided he wasn’t what I was looking for on the first day and moved on. I walked on further down to the river and as I come to a little clearing I see a couple deer on the hill about 150 yards away across the river. As I’m glassing them I notice another deer standing about 75 yards behind them and can instantly tell it’s a decent buck and he’s got me pinned. I slowly get down on my belly in the grass and the staring contest is on. After about 5 minutes (felt like 30) he decided I wasn’t anything to be concerned with and bedded down. But he was still looking right at me. There was a tree about 10 yards to my left, so I started slowly slithering over to it so I could get the tree between me and him. Once I got to the tree I got my binocs out to get a good look at him. He was a 3x3 with eyegaurds. Not real wide but really tall… but still not what I was looking for on the first morning of the season. I decided to move on. I walked a little farther up the river and spotted a few deer about 800 yards away. You could easily tell one was a nice buck. So I decided to make a stalk on him. He was with a little spike and they had disappeared over the top of a little ridge. I had to make a big loop to get on the downwind side of them. It took me about 30 minutes to get on the downwind side of the ridge and started to slowly work my way down it hoping to intercept this buck. About halfway down the ridge I started hearing deer moving in the brush below me. I got down and ready for him to show himself. All of the sudden the brush exploded and 6 to 8 does come busting out of the brush and up over the hill with a buck in tow. Dang it! I blew it! Then I thought to myself… that buck didn’t seem nearly as big as I thought he looked from a distance, so maybe it was a different one. I kept moving slowly down the ridge and spotted a bunch of deer on the next ridge over and could tell one was a nice buck. I could get a better look at him from the end of the ridge so I kept easing down the ridge. I got close to the end of the ridge and was glassing the buck in the distance when I looked down to see the little spike staring at me 30 yards down the ridge. He was bedded down. I crouched down to get out of his sight. I knew that bigger buck had to be close. I rose back up slowly to look around for the other buck, but he was nowhere to be seen. I eased back down out of sight to figure out my next move. Again I rose up slowly but the spike wasn’t there! I rise up a little further and there he is 20 yards to my left. He had gotten up and was trying to circle to get downwind. And right behind him was the bigger buck! I lowered back down into the grass so I was out of sight of the big buck but the spike had come uphill far enough he could see me and he was still closing the distance. I knew I couldn’t move much or else they would be gone. I still hadn’t got a great look at the bigger buck and wasn’t 100% sure if he was a shooter. I needed to get a better look. I raise back up as slow as I could and watching to my left to make sure the spike wasn’t going to bolt. As I turn my eyes slowly back to the bigger buck I notice he wasn’t where he had been standing. He was now right below me and walking up hill straight for me. And this was definitely a good enough look for me. He was definitely a shooter! But he was now within 20 yards of me and my gun is down at my waist level. I try to easy the butt to my shoulder but as soon as he sees me move my arms he twirls and is gone! Dang it! (I used a few other choice words in my mind). He was a nice wide 3x3 with really tall tines and huge eyegaurds. I ended up spotting this buck again a couple hundred yards away but he disappeared as I made another stalk. I decided to go back down to the river and see if the other three point was still bedded down. After the failed stalk my standards were beginning to dwindle. When I got back to where I had seen him bedded down he was gone. And so I started to walk on further only to see him run up over the hill. When I got a good look at him on the horizon I started to kick myself for not attempting a stalk on him earlier. He was bigger than I thought. I ended up having another close encounter with a 2 year old little three point but passed him up.
Post by: andersonjk4 on December 10, 2012, 11:12:52 AM
I played hooky from work the next Friday and was prepared to spend three solid days hunting for one of those two nice bucks that had eluded me the previous outing. The weather had warmed considerably and rain was in the forecast. Friday morning I woke up to temps well into the 40’s and a bright sky from the remainder of the full moon from a few nights before. The deer activity was a fraction of what it was just 5 days earlier. I spotted two average 3 points that day but decided to pass on them because my girlfriend was going to be coming out with me the next day and she really wanted to see me get a deer. I came back into town for a quick bite to eat on that Friday only to find this guy laying on the hillside right across from my parent’s house. He lay there almost all day taunting me. Day 2 of muzzy hunting ended uneventfully. Day three played out much like day 2 not many deer moving. The one legal buck we spotted bedded down with a doe in a spot that was impossible to get into range. I also had a 2nd doe tag in my pocket and my 7 year old nephew had been begging me to take him out. So we headed back in early to get him and take him out for an evening doe hunt. Unfortunately that hunt didn’t turn up anything either but he had fun getting all camo’d up getting to lead Uncle Jake around because we were hunting on the land out behind his house were his he had hunted with him many times.
Sunday was totally uneventful with gale force winds and pouring rain in the morning the weather was definitely on my side that day. Chalk another 3 days up in the unsuccessful column.
With the season ending on a Saturday I again played hooky from work to go out Friday. My girlfriend wasn’t working, so she decided to join me. The forecast looked like rain and wind again. We started out first thing in an area I had never hunted before but where some great big bucks had been spotted. We hiked in about a ½ mile in the dark to get set up at the top of a small draw. The rain started coming down and the deer were staying in bed that morning. I tried some light calling. A few doe bleats and some buck grunts lured one curious little spike out of the brush. But that was it. The rain was really picking up and so was the wind. We decided to go back to town get dry, warm and a bite to eat. The middle of the day was spent road hunting / scouting while the rain poured down and wind blew like crazy. About 1:00 the rain quit and the sky lightened. We decided to walk down to the river and see if anything would be out feeding. We jumped a decent 3 point at about 20 yards on our way down the draw. He trotted off but stopped at a little over 100 yards to look back at us. I had dropped to my knee and took aim and squeezed the trigger…. a slight hang fire, combined with my not so ideal rest and adrenaline fueled unsteadiness resulted in a clean miss right over his back. I had my first shot at an animal with a ML out of the way now, but I was really starting to get nervous I wouldn’t be able to close the deal this year. About a half hour after the missed shot the sky to the north go really dark and hail started coming down pretty good. Followed by one of the most intense lightning storms I’ve ever seen. We stuck it out until dark but only does showed themselves.
Post by: andersonjk4 on December 10, 2012, 11:13:36 AM
Nothing was moving along the river so I sat down and thought about my next move. While sitting there I spotted some deer way up a draw that ran down to the river. I could tell several of them were bucks and one was a decent 3 point and decided it was worth the hike to try to get within range. The deer were feeding up the draw away from me, so I hustled across the flat and up the bottom of the draw. I got up into the draw and could see a few does feeding high on the hillside but the bucks were still hidden in the bottom of the draw. I kept creeping along the hillside keeping myself camouflaged in the rock bluffs scattered along the hillside. I moved up to a little rock outcropping and spotted a spike and a little forked horn. But the bigger buck wasn’t with them. That’s when he came walking out from the bottom of the draw on the hillside across from me. I ranged him at 189 yards… too far for a shot. None of the deer had seen me yet, but the wind wasn’t in my favor and I was pretty exposed on an open hillside. I decided I had to try and sneak closer and risk one of them seeing or smelling me. I hunched down and snuck along the steep rocky hillside as the buck fed along the hill across from me. All the sudden a doe above him shot her head up like she’d got a whiff of something she didn’t like I eased down to a sitting position grabbed my rangefinder and ranged the buck at 163 yards. I’m confident out to 150 yards with my Elkhorn and Tru-glo Ghost Ring site, and the buck was standing perfectly broadside to me. I got my gun up on my shooting stick and settled in to make the shot. I got the dots lined up at the top back of front shoulder and he took a couple steps…. I took a deep breath and waited for him to stop. He did and I settled the dot back on the target and gave the trigger a squeeze. The muzzy jumped in hands and I heard the tell-tale wallop of a good solid hit. The deer tumbled to the ground with both front shoulders incapacitated. The kill was not as quick as I would normally like (or am used to with my .30-06), but the shot immobilized him and destroyed a lung so it was just a matter of time before he expired. Here is the only pic I took. I wish I would have taken more, but I was by myself and in a hurry to squeeze in an evening doe hunt to try and fill my second tag. (which ended with a miss right at the buzzer).
Post by: andersonjk4 on December 10, 2012, 11:14:08 AM
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