Good Memory Bucks

[bigmacc]

I recently read this thread through and really enjoyed it. It seems like Bigmacc is doing the heavy lifting though. I thought I should add a story. This thread has been pretty centered on the Methow so I will diversify it out. This took place on the Humptulips side of Quinault Ridge, specifically on the Phillips Cr rd. The area is all overgrown now because the forest Service has given up on logging but at the time there were still pretty big clearcuts that attracted deer and elk. Time frame is the mid-80s.
There were three big clearcuts and one small one at the end of the road and Dad and I decided it was a likely place for a morning hunt. We weren’t the only one though as when we approached the fork in the road near the end there was a pickup sitting waiting for daylight. We got out to talk to him and it was a local guy we knew. Of course he planned on going the same place we were settled on. We all agreed he would hunt that fork of the road which was two big clearcuts separated by a recently logged strip that had blown down. We went the other way which was a big clearcut and a smaller one. I was going to go down a middle ridge that divided the cut into two big canyons while Dad walked the road down one side and through to the smaller cut.
Where I left the road, the ground kind of humped over for a ways making it hard to see very far, extenuated by three and four foot tall fir trees. I barely got started when I jumped a buck and he was out of sight in an instant. I knew he was a nice buck, turned out to be a three point. I ran down the hill to where I could see a bit better and after a while I saw him sneaking up the other side of the canyon. On that side it went up to a ridge that kind of broke down in three benches. He was just coming up onto the highest bench. I took a rest on a stump and when he stopped on the bench squeezed one off. About a 200 yard shot. He dropped and laid there. I knew when I crossed the draw he would be out of sight for quite a while so I sat still and watched him for several minutes. No movement so I finally got up and headed down into the draw. Maybe five minutes later I gained the other side and there he lay. I poked him with the rifle barrel. Behind me there was a chunk so I turned around and laid my gun down on it and turned around to dress the deer. At this point the damn thing jumped up and took off. He went downhill and over the bench and out of sight. I grabbed my gun and raced after him. When I got to the edge of the bench he was right at where the next bench ended. I hastily threw the gun up and the damn scope was fogged over. I fired a shot anyway and of course missed as he went out of sight over the bench. I hurriedly gave chase but was cleaning my scope this time as I went. I got to the next edge and there he was a couple steps away from going over the last bench and out of sight forever as there was doghair below this. This time I could see though and shot him through the ribs quartering forward. I had succeeded in chasing him to the farthest point from the road but at least he was down for good this time. As I remember right the first shot had hit him high and found that point just below his spine and high on the lungs. He couldn’t breathe well or he probably wouldn’t have stopped twice for me to shoot at him. I made a pack out of him and dad came down and packed my gun out.
We never heard a shot from the other fork of the road so I dare say if we had went where we wanted we would have went home empty handed that day.

 ....Great story, as if we were there. You ever do any hunting up around Camp Grisdale? My grandpa (my moms dad) logged for Simpson back in the day, the last of the real "logging camps", grandpa and grandma lived up there for 15 or 16 years I believe, back in the 50,s and 60,s, man they killed some big elk and blacktail up in there. Once again, great story

I have done quite a lot of hunting across the river from Grisdale, actually downstream where the Ring of Fire bridge crossed the gorge. In fact I have a memorable buck story I will write out from there. I applied for a job at Grisdale in 1973 but never was hired. Later on after Grisdale was gone I logged on the upper Wynoochee the last sales that Simpsons walked away from. Mayr Bros bought the left overs but the enviromentalists stopped about half those sales because of Spotted Owls.

 . I think my grandpa retired out of there in the late 60,s, possibly very early 70,s . I remember as a boy(50,s/early 60,s) walking around town and seeing elk in the garages during elk season, some hanging off dozer shovels etc, man some of those of those big Rosies were the size of big horses back then. I remember once when there was 6 or 7 big roses all layed out on the old outdoor basketball court that had the roof over it, by the old school. My dad took a picture of them but I don't know where the picture went, probably in a box we haven't been through yet, who knows, they were all monsters. My dad worked up there for a couple years when he got out of the Marines, cool place, I remember driving the old dirt road from Grisdale down to Montesano to get supplies, at night you were dodging elk and deer crossing that road for miles, you could only go about 20 or 25 because the road was in super bad shape so not to much of a danger running into one I remember we had to stop  one night and let over 100 head of elk cross the road, we watched em for about 20 minutes, dozens of bulls and a few dandys. Good times. Looking forward to your story.

[Humptulips]

Wynoochee buck as promised above.
This was the biggest buck I ever got and I think ever saw and I missed him.
Right where the 7400 line heads up the hill there is a hill that I have killed four bucks on. It's all growed up to brush now but in the day it was my favorite spot to go. They logged units on it in three different years and the last time they logged, the part right along the mainline going up the hill was logged. The rest being growed up by then. It's a couple miles to bike in past the gate.
On the third day of season I was there at the bottom of the hill in the morning. I cut up a ridge to a middle spur road and was walking the road back. Walked out a short spur that had a narrow triangle between it and the main road. I'm talking maybe 150 feet wide at most. It was thick with second growth hemlock maybe three feet high. As I walked by, a flock of blue grouse flew up so my attention was drawn to the place. I walked on out, looked over the hill and started back. I glanced over this narrow triangle and there was a deer and then a buck with horns like I had never saw before. They must have been bedded down when I first walked by. He was walking straight away from me following the doe. A pretty difficult shot but I had my shooting sticks so I tried to shoot over his back and hit him in the head. Three times I tried and missed every time as he nonchalantly walked over the hill and out of sight. I was just sick, the biggest buck I had ever saw and I let him get away. I assumed I had shot high as I didn't have much room and didn't want to hit him in the rump. I was pretty upset with myself though.
I kept hunting up in the area and about a week later I was walking down the road about mid-day and of a sudden there is a buck walking down the road straight away from me. I think a two point. Close too, like 100 feet. I set up on my shooting ticks and attempted another over the back shot. At the shot he bailed off the road and was gone. I could not believe I had missed. That did it. I hopped on my bike and headed for the truck and went home and then to the pit. I'm not sure how the scope got off but it was shooting three inches to the right. Elevation was 2 inches high which was alright but I decided to just center it. After doing that I thought I will probably see a buck at 300 yards tomorrow.
The next morning found me waiting in the dark at the foot of that hill where the 7400 goes up. At first light I snuck out to the edge and on top of the ridge at 300 yards was a doe and that monster buck silhouetted against the sky and broadside this time. I set my shooting ticks up and dropped him with the first shot.
How many times do you get a second chance at a great buck? 

[Humptulips]

Another story from the same unit as the above story.
Right where the 7400 line breaks up the hill from I think the old 600 line (I don't normally pay much attention to RD numbers) is my favorite unit. I guess if you have good success in a place it becomes your favorite. At the bottom of the hill on the south edge there is an old skid road coming down the hill that was a pretty good trail and as my usual habit I headed up that trail at first light this morning. It was a stormy day but as I climbed that ridge it became worse as the wind blew the rain sideways from the south. About halfway up the ridge flattens out with a shallow draw to the south that climbs to a higher ridge on the other side of the draw. As I looked across the draw into the wind a deer broke up the hill and across. I soon saw a second deer following and I was sure it must be a buck based on the size and the way it was acting following the lead deer. I pulled my scope covers off and the scope was immediately covered in water from the driving rain hitting me in the face. it was difficult to see through the scope and a swipe across the lens seemed a wasted motion.  I followed the second deer all the way across the clearcut straining to see horns to no avail. As the deer reached the upper corner of the cut where an upper road met the doghair from a previous clearcut the doe or I assumed it was a doe went behind a big old growth fir stump and out of sight. The second deer stopped just before the stump and looked back towards me. I think the doe stopped behind the stump and was blocking his way. He stood there for several minutes but try as I might I could not see horns. As he started to go he swung his head, I saw horns and pulled the trigger and he was gone. It all seemed to happen in the same split second. I was sure I got a good shot off but I never saw anything after. I stood there watching for a while but for better or worse it was all over. I finally got going and walked over. About 20 feet above the stump and maybe 12 feet off the upper road was a very nice 4 point with eyeguards laying. One of the biggest bucks I had ever taken and one of the easiest packs out too. Still a bit over two miles to the car but I went and got my deer cart and by midday I had him loaded in the truck.

[redi]

Hump. You need to post some pictures

[bigmacc]

 Well I'm gonna tell this story, without permission , he can sue me I guess .

My brother had just gotten out of the military after a 20 year career, retired with all kinds of "specialty type training" under his belt and one of those involved "shooting". My brother has always been a good shot, even when he was just a boy he was shooting deer with open sights, calm, cool and collected. He's killed deer at 100 yards and even 200 yards with open sights, this, before he was even out of high school. Lets just say, he's a good shot, best I've ever seen, bar none.

Now fast forward. He retires, comes to hunting camp for the first time in years, he was doing tours all over, half the time nobody knew where he was because of what he did. He's pretty excited to be hunting again after many years, him and I go to "Millys Rock". She was a friend of my great grandmas who hunted out of the Little Bellingham camp back in the 30,s and 40,s, her and her husband Dave hunted an area that did, still does and will always(hopefully) produce some good bucks, between the two of them, lets just say they killed a lot of memorable bucks, ill leave it at that. We only have a couple pictures of them because they weren't actual family. My dad told some very special stories of these two, they were great friends with grandma and grandpa and also spent a lot of time with them up in Alaska fishing and hunting.

My brother and I are sitting on the rock, its pouring rain, then fog, then more rain, then clear, then fog on and on. Im trying to glass a trail that leads to a bench between the fog and rain rolling in and out. My brother is watching our backside that holds another trail, both will eventually meet a mile or so away then move on to another staging area. We and "Milly" are in the sweet spot. After about an hour or so of playing games with the weather I spot a big fella, by himself moving up the trail, head down, sniffing everything he could and not familiar with his surroundings, he's a migrator, dark, heavy coat and lookin for fun. I tell "Derwood"(we'll call him in this story), Hey, we got a good buck here, he comes my way, by this time the buck has come up onto a bench about 200 yards away, moving but not running. I give a bleet, he stops, looks in our direction, Derwood is already set up, buck is broadside, I'm thinking "how cool is this", he shoots, BOOM!......buck doesn't move but he can't see us, Derwood fires again, BOOM! buck still hasn't moved, I'm looking through my binos, Derwoods asking calmly, "where my hittin", I say calmly "I don't know, I can't see anything kickin up", he chambers another, BOOM, then another, BOOM, how many BOOMS do I have Any way there was a total of 5, buck still there, hasn't moved, I have no idea where these shots are going, my brother looks at me and says "I didn't think of this but I only got one more round in my pocket"(I have a rifle with me but don't want to butt in )
 He flies a Hail Mary and for the love of god and Milly he drops the buck! I will not say what he said to me after the buck dropped like a sack of spuds, it was said calmly and cleanly, just as he's always been, nothing bothers him . The buck was down and it was a dandy, wide and heavy 3 by 3, not his first buck and not his last buck but for me, one of my favorites......Good job bud, love ya



Now if you do decide to sue, ill tell the story of the four by two , well hell, that rhymes 

[Humptulips]

Your brother has company. I once shot seven time at an elk. First shot killed it but I got off 6 more before he fell over and never touched a hair on it with those 6 shots. Sometimes excitement gets the better of you. That is a story for memorable elk though, wrong forum.

[bigmacc]

Well I'm going to throw another on here, its not an oldie, just happened this year but its  Good Memory "Bucks" that I won't forget and I'm sure my son won't either.

It was a goofy season for sure this year, myself having a lot of things on the plate, my sons wife having family weddings going on clear across the country and my lifelong hunting pard having to deal with a sick pup back at home. I actually ended up putting on a ton of truck miles during this years hunt and not a minute was devoted to "road hunting" . I knew we were going to have to get the job done ahead of time in a hurry because it was going to be a circus, we knew it going in. We all put our heads together trying to figure out "the best bang for the buck" with a season that held no migration, no weather, no wind and not a lot of deer, period.  We ended up in an area we knew bucks would be, nobody bothering them, pretty much ever. We came up with a plan that involved myself, my son and my pard, it would not be easy, the terrain was rocky, dense and straight up and down. We would come into it 3 hours before shooting time, exactly the way my great grandma taught me decades ago. We did, we all hit our spots after about a 4 mile walk in(left at 1 A.M), spread out about 100 yards between my son and I and about 400 yards between my pard and I, me being in the middle. We hunkered down as we've done many times in the past when the circumstances called for it. I woke up first, looked to my right at my son, who is only 100 yards away but were watching totally different terrain, my pard to my left I can see in my binos, all of us ready.

About an hour goes by and theres a "blindspot" that grandma used to tell me "get on your belly and crawl there, never silhouette yourself", I did. Took me a couple minutes but I got there, flat as a pancake, peaked over and about 200 yards downhill there was a couple dandy 4 points traveling together, headed for a bench that led to a saddle, once there they got to that saddle they would be gone. We never use any electronics when we hunt, I won't have it, no phones, walk talks  or anything, we use hand signals, period! When I'm gone I'm sure that will change and probably happens when I'm not out there . Im glassing these two bucks for awhile now, just moving, feeding, don't even know I'm there. I get back to where I can give a signal to my son, he gets it with my hands, "2 bucks, both good, get here", he's there in under 2. We both get ready, he picks the one he wants, I put the crosshairs on the other, we count down from 3. We shoot at the same time, he shot at the lead buck, it spun then dropped, mine took about 10 steps then dropped. We watched them both tumble head over ass down this canyon, we knew not to take our eyes off them until they piled up. My daughter in law was in the escape route and could also see a secondary entry to this spot, she heard the shooting, hustled over but nothing else moving. We all sat for an hour or so, not wanting foul up my pards hunt a few hundred yards away. We signaled him we were gonna head down, after 20 minutes or so of sliding down(steep shale) we kicked up a big 2 point, nothing for the DIL. We kept moving, found my sons buck, thick, heavy  4 by 4 (26"wide) when we heard a shot, BOOM, close, a few people know of this spot but not many,(we hunted it all week and never seen another person), we were 400 yards or so down the chute when we heard the shot. I told my son, "thats @#$%), he said "sure sounded like him". we all hunkered down, AGAIN, waiting. We let about a half hour go by when we seen my pard come around and under a big rock bluff, he signaled "nothing going on here". We evenually made it to our meeting spot, we had 2 bucks, 2 dandys, both 4 points and both beautiful animals, probably twins or siblings. We asked my pard what happened, he said he watched us go down another chute, he knew we had both shot so he just sat and watched. He seen the big 2 point come up the bench then about 5 minutes later he said, and I quote, "I seen the second largest deer I've ever seen come up not more than 30 feet under where you guys were sitting" The buck stood there, my pard had one shot, he seen the bullet smash rock behind the buck, the buck took a couple hops and was gone. Dang thing must have been bedded directly under us in the rocks, we were probably shooting over him when we were shooting the other two We went in later and spent into the dark looking for blood. My pard said he seen the "second largest deer" because he has killed the largest since the mid 80,s, its known as the "$&*^$%@# BUCK". Any ways, this was a memorable buck for me this year for a few reasons, my brother and I had killed bucks in this spot years ago, my nephew and I the same,  my great grandparents, the same, we've all killed bucks here. This was the first time we've actually killed 2 at the same time. All my years of hunting with my dad, it never happened. I feel blessed, one of my best seasons bud, love ya.

[bigmacc]

Early 1970,s, I had a buddy who moved up here from Arizona, he is my age and was just about where I was at the time, freshly married and starting a family. He is an avid hunter, hunted Arizona his whole life up until this point, everything from Couse deer, to desert mulies to Kaibab mulies to wild pigs to domestic pigs turned farrel, years after a livestock truck tipped over during a snowstorm up around Flagstaff, a couple hundred pigs escaped after the wreck and became BIG and farrel after a few years, not to mention reproducing, they were tearing up prime elk a deer winter range and Arizona fish and game opened up a season on them but thats a whole other story, the pigs he and his brother killed were unbelievably huge.

Leon moved up here and immediately wanted to hunt, he became part of the little Bellingham camp and was welcomed by all, the camp was just a fraction in size of what it was during the hay days but he was welcomed by all. Leon killed a lot of big bucks over his 20 or so years in camp but one will stand out in my mind above all the others he killed, even the 2 bucks he killed that were closing in on 30" while part of our camp and the many big Arizona bucks I seen pictures of that he and his family killed. This one was special.

I remember it being a really cold season, not a lot of snow but I don't think we made it out of the single digits the last 10 days or so of the season, everything was freezing, eggs, milk, you name it. We had to keep things in the tent in ice chests to keep everything from freezing, we have pictures of beer cans all around the bon fire to keep the beer from freezing, a few nights it was 8-9 below zero where we were. We had 8 big bucks hanging and Leon had opportunities but he wanted a non typical, all the nice big bucks he had killed in his lifetime(Arizona and Washington)had been beautiful "typical" framed bucks. I think we had a couple days left in the season, I had killed my buck a couple days prior and asked Leon if he would mind another set of eyes, he welcomed it. We went out an old trail directly out of camp, an area the old-timers swore by but we youngsters just never put a lot of time into, it was literally a trail that led right from the tent flaps and ended a couple miles out. It was a jungle, it did have cover, water and feed with a boatload of cover and cover, did I mention jungle

Leon and I got roughly a half mile out when we noticed movement downhill, this was an area you walked, a step at a time then listened. We actually seen this buck, we could see antlers and a huge body, slinking through the jack pine jungle. Im guessing he was maybe 60-70 yards downhill when Leon gave out a mouth bleet, stopped him in his tracks, I put glasses on him and told Leon you might want to take a look at this, he lowered his gun(he was waiting for me to whisper shoot ), he put his binos on him and (ill never forget it, said "thats a weird one") he brought his rifle back up and within seconds, just like that we had a buck down. We walked up on him , sliding down some of the steepest, thickest crap you'd ever want to be in. When Leon gave the bleet that buck had froze in the only shooting lane on that hill, I swear! We got to him, a big bodied one by twenty seven! , yep, about a foot and a half long spike on one side then a mass of antler on the other, about the size of a softball with 27 points coming out of it, looked like a pin cushion! . The Game guys would always come to camp to see what we had hanging, when they came up that time, they asked if they could bring a bio up to get a look at him, they weighed the 3 pieces(we cut him into 3 pieces to get him up the hill), guts out of coarse, legs cut off at the knees, all this weighed by the Game department on their scales came to 227lbs and that was with the hide off of the 3 pieces. I won't say what they figured his live weight at but that wasn't the memorable part of this buck, it was a 1 by 27, each of those 27 "pins" sticking out of the cushion was an inch or more long!...... Leon is back in Arizona now, but this buck was one of his and my favorites

[HntnFsh]

Cool stories. Thanks for sharing!
Always enjoy them!

[bigmacc]

Cool stories. Thanks for sharing!
Always enjoy them!

Thank you. I’ve said it before but I’ve forgotten more than I remember, there’s still some that I will never forget, hopefully 👍

[Ghost Hunter]

Great stories for a Christmas morning.  Not sure how I missed this, had to come off the mountain, I guess. 

[Humptulips]

Yep, I love this thread. Sitting here waiting for Christmas dinner so I guess I'll add a story.
My Brother-in-laws business limits the time he can get away to hunt so we were out on his last day trying to find a buck. I had already been successful so was sans firearms. No luck the entire day. I don't remember if we saw any deer but no bucks for sure. We were headed home and I remembered a small place I had seen quite a lot of sign in and said what do you think of giving this place a look. He was game for one last chance.
We had to walk in about a half mile. I had never hunted the spot because it was so small. The place was a small patch they had logged barely 200 yards long by maybe 200 feet wide completely surrounded by brush, road going right down the center. There was a big pile of brush they had stacked near the end of it. Not sure what I was thinking but I walked around this pile of brush from my Brother-in-law and up jumped this buck. Shot straight away and my Brother-in-law got a shot off as it went in the brush. It was going away and as it turned out he hit it in the shoulder but not in the chest cavity.
It was gone but there was a good trail going into the brush. We followed it out. Shortly it forked and my Brother-in-law went out the left-hand fork which was better traveled. I went out the right-hand fork, not really expecting to go more than a few steps, I was looking for blood. Just to the side there was a long butt and sticking up behind it was some horns. Things started happening fast then. Knife in right hand I grabbed his horns with my left and pulled him over the stump and cut his throat. I hung on as he struggled to get up but never gained his feet.
It was a respectable three point and one of several last-minute bucks my Brother-in-law got.
 

[ChelsieLim]

The first buck I shot is still in my memory. It was a beauty, and the second one was even better - wish it were time for me to get another hunt again!

Deerhuntingfield.com is the premier site for information on deer hunting and deerhunting! I'm proud to say it was my first deer out of bow, since that was the one I drew it with.

[AL WORRELLS KID]

[quote author=bigmacc My dad took an old timer back in "67" that was a monster. The fish and game fellas said it was the biggest buck they had seen at the time, figured him at over 400 lbs. on the hoof (mule deer), the darn thing only had one tooth left and they figured he never would have made it through the winter, (they said my dads buck was 12 1/2 to 13 1/2 years old.)
[/quote]

[Humptulips]

[quote author=bigmacc My dad took an old timer back in "67" that was a monster. The fish and game fellas said it was the biggest buck they had seen at the time, figured him at over 400 lbs. on the hoof (mule deer), the darn thing only had one tooth left and they figured he never would have made it through the winter, (they said my dads buck was 12 1/2 to 13 1/2 years old.)

[/quote]

Geez I bet that SOB was tough.