Wife’s Palouse tag

[buglebuster]

I always put my wife and my kids in for this tag knowing the numbers are down, because I know what it used to be. Was always one of my favorite areas to hunt and see a bunch of deer. When we found out she drew in June, I was optimistic the deer had been rebounding but didn’t hold high hopes. The area we hunt we have seen a few whitetails since the blue tounge outbreak in 2021 and planned to start there. A few forum members also sent me some pins to checkout if need be. Opening day finds us hunting an eyebrow in a wheat field that always seems to hold some deer. After glassing and not turning anything up I set my wife on the west end and circled around to the east side to push the brush in hopes of pushing something to her. 100 yards into my push I thought to myself, we always seem to jump a buck right here and that very second one jumps up and heads toward her in the brush. I message her and tell her to get ready because I jumped a buck. Told her I didn’t get a good look but to verify 3pts before shooting. She said he came through 80 yards below her but looked small and didn’t present a shot anyways. We left that area, happy to see there was deer around. We checked out a few other areas and did some glassing only to turn up mule deer, who seemed to be rutting hard!

We drove back by the original spot we hunted and saw a deer in the wheat field nose to the ground running all over the place. I told her that’s a buck we need to get a better look. Threw the spotting scope on him and he was just a spike. I figure he may have been the same one we jumped earlier in the morning. The next few hours found us driving around checking out chunks of land that I used to hunt, and a few some forum members shared. We never turned up a single whitetail. Things weren’t looking good. We decided to venture back down where we’d seen the little buck figuring there must be a few more in the area the way he was asking. As we’re nearing the area I see a deer coming across a field nose to ground. A whitetail. We drive up the road to get a better look and realize it was the same spike! Around this time a friend who’s hose were staying at sent me a text telling me he got us permission on some land and that he could meet at 3:30 and show us around.

We meet up and instantly spot a buck and doe up on the edge of an eyebrow and head in. I was trying to get under 500 yards and we were almost there as he chased a doe off the field edge over the other side. We walked up to the eyebrow and slowly walked the edge looking down. We get to the end and I spot 3 does at 80 yards looking our way. We get her setup on the tripod and wait for the buck to step out. 6 does and no buck! They trot over the hill and we follows again seeing no buck. They trot over the next ridge and we didn’t have much light left so decided to head back to the truck. As we crest the hill where we came up we spot a buck and a doe running up opposite ridge out of range. I believe he ran out before the 6 does and circled back. My buddy was heading over to help so we talked on phone and came up with a game plan for the morning and agreed on time to meet up since he’d be getting in late. At first light we checked out the area we saw the deer the night before but didn’t see anything on land we could hunt. From the road I spotted a buck and a few does heading up to the corner of the property so watched him until he disappeared. We decided to go check out a few spots and come back mid morning and look for those deer bedded. Maybe set my wife up and do some pushes if we couldn’t find them.

The other spots turned up no whitetail, just more muleys and coyotes. We headed back to where the buck had gone toward. Once we crested the ridge I glasses up a spike on the skyline bedded 665 yards away. A little closer look found a larger framed buck hidden in the weeds below. We couldn’t make him out very good and dumb me, left the spotting scope in the truck. I hiked back and got it and we instantly saw he was a shooter! We came up with a game plan to drop down, swing around a knob in the wheat field and that would put us roughly 450 yards away from the deer. The plan worked perfectly and we settled in 462 yards away from him. All we could see was his head, no body, so no shot presented itself. I dialed the scope and got her comfortable as we watched him. Did some fawn distress hoping he’d stand but he wasn’t interested. About 30 minutes later he stood up and as he was stretching, she shot and put him right back into his bed without even flinching! The 6.5 PRC is a great round! We all hugged, high fived, and celebrated! 2 years in a row she’s made awesome shots on her deer. We got up to the buck, took some pics and got him quartered up. A nice 4x4 I feel is a great representation of the tag, especially in the current situation. Thanks for reading now to get back to cutting meat, I’m getting pretty tired of that

[full choke]

 

[teanawayslayer]

Right on! Thanks for sharing

[rainshadow1]

   Great hunt!

[Mfowl]

Way to go! Congrats to the Mrs!

[Rutnbuxnbulls]

Congrats, nice shooting Mrs! Cutting meat is a good problem to have!!

[redi]

Congratulations to you both. Always impressed with your success and involvement of the family. Great job.

[Twispriver]

Nice deer and good story - thanks for sharing

[Dan-o]

Congratulations to you both. Always impressed with your success and involvement of the family. Great job.

 

[Boss .300 winmag]

Nicely done.👍

[Machias]

Nice!  Congrats!!!

[buglebuster]

We were all shocked at how well endowed this fella was in the tail department, so my wife decided she wanted his tail for a keychain

[wadu1]

You know deer porn is not acceptable on this site

[follow maggie]

That’s a pretty good trip

[elkoholic1]