2020 Deer post em here

[fishnfur]

What a toad!  I never cease to be amazed at the antler size that Mulies can grow.  Wonderful buck!  Congrats!

[abhold87]

Well I started out the year with 3 tags... 2 down 1 to go 😁. I drew second deer antler less here in Washington and the Sumpter unit in eastern Oregon. Started off by trying to fill my doe tag after my military weekend and headed out to my area I had been scouting Monday morning. After many ridges, draws, and 7 hours of hiking/hunting I decided to head back to the truck and move to the next spot since I hadn’t seen a deer yet. While walking back the rattle snakes decided to come out. I sat there throwing rocks at the second one for a little bit and then kept moving. 10ft later there’s a huge snake in the bush to my right so I jump back to the left and as soon as I do that 20 yards in front of me I hear deer start to run. A doe and a small 2 point move up the hill out of this little draw and stop broadside at 50 yards. One shot with the new bullets and she dropped like a rock.

Eastern Oregon hunt.
  Because of all the craziness of Covid I didn’t get to head down and scout like I would have liked to. So BaseMap and Onxmaps scouting happened a ton. I headed down this last Saturday morning to an area I thought might be pretty good. I planned on hiking high into the backcountry for the first 4-5 days and then heading down to lower elevations for the last part of the week. Goal was to try and shoot something nice at the beginning and then focus on just getting anything legal at the end to bring meat home. The first day I hiked up and went over to a big basin to get water only scaring a few deer and finding lots of tracks and mountain goats. The full moon was so bright I figured that most the deer moved only at night, first light, or last light. Sunday morning I left my camp and headed down to a draw I hadn’t been yet hoping to find deer that hadn’t been spooked from the day before. While sneaking down I got to a glassing point and within 10 minutes I spot a BIG buck feeding out of another draw towards the bottom of the basin below me. At 500 yards he looked huge in the first light and I had a little buck fever going. I began to move down to him as he disappeared moving left to right. I made a plan to move to the right into the basin and hope that he would pop out of the thicker area into the open moving to bedding. So I sat down an waited but chose a poor position with no shooting rest available. After a little while a buck pops out around 340 yards walking quickly. I make a bunch of buck fever decisions and never get a shot off as he walks into some more thick brush in the bottom of the basin and disappears again. This buck looked a little different and like he had a 3” kicker. So now I’m pretty sure at this point that my mind is playing tricks on me. After sitting there for hours waiting for him to come back out I decide to head back up to camp and get out of the sun and heat. I head back down to the same area around 3 and began to watch the same area until last light. With around 15 minutes of light left and still no deer I decide to pack up and head over to watch the other draw for a couple minutes before I head back to camp. As I do this walking on a log about 5 feet from where I was sitting I break a stick as I loose my balance a little bit. I look back down into the basin an see something dark that wasn’t there all day long at 330 yards. I put the binoculars up and see a great buck standing broadside looking right at me!!!! Of course he would pop out when I just left the spot that I had a solid shooting rest. So I drop my binoculars, sit on my butt and take aim off my knee... boom...whackkk...he runs around 15 yards and starts just to stand there staggering. I move to my left and take my pack off so I could use it as a shooting rest and fire another round off. Boom..whackkkk. He stands there swaying for another couple seconds and then tumbles down the hill. Lots of excited calls later and one of the hardest pack outs I’ve had he’s butchered and on the wall since I’ve had a whole week of vacation to work on him. Exciting hunt and fingers crossed for late muzzy now.

[Bango skank]

Wyoming high mountain hunt.  Region H.  This was a great adventure.  Can't wait to do it again.

Thats a great buck there.  Im going to hunt deer in idaho in less than a month.  Both white and mule will be fair game.  Never seriously hunted mule deer before, so as much as i love whitetail im hoping i can shake up a muley buck like that, something that would turn my crank enough to notch my tag on a mule deer and check that off my bucket list.  Probably not going to happen, but who knows. 

[Gonehuntin01]

Great story and buck.  Way to get in there and get it done.  Congrats.

[fishnfur]

Awesome.  Stellar shooting at that range.  Congratulations.

[Lapua07]

I don’t post on here much anymore but figured it’s been awhile and even longer since I pulled the trigger opening day. Thanks to a good friend for convincing me to go only having one day to chase mule deer this year. (They are and always will be my favorite) There’s a piece of reality that sets in after being fortunate enough to take an old mountain buck that is irreplaceable. I was lucky enough to have the right wind and the upper half over my hunting partner. After letting a couple decent white tail bucks walk this morning and regretting it most of the day as I hadn’t seen another deer.. I crested a small ridge and came face to face with this guy under 20 yards. Glad I built another long range gun to shoot archery range... poor guy didn’t even get a kick in. Long pack, long drive home, season is history.

[elkrack]

Cool buck!

[Stevewazfishing]

Whacked this nice black tail opening morning!

[jstone]

Anyone hunting up high at snow level

[buglebuster]

Here is my 9 year old daughters first deer! 160 yds dropped in her tracks with a 6mm creedmoor shoooting 105gr bergers. An emotional morning for me!

[justyhntr]

That's an awesome picture of the 2 of you buglebuster, congrats.

[jasonstevens]

Bout time you have some competition. Great job

[Fatherof5]

Great job coaching her !!!!

[hawks33]

Super cool buglebuster. Congrats man!!

[Watimberghost]

 

That's too cool