F
freedivr2
Guest
Fellas, once again, I am truly humbled by a good number of you guys and your abilities and skills. Why? Because my hunt this year allowed me to use some of the skills you have honed, and experience some of the physical pains you've endured to obtain the Monster muleys that grace your living rooms and dens. The most important part of my hunt this year lies right here, in my lessons learned. After this year?s hunt, I very honestly have a much higher respect to those of you who do your homework, put in the hours, and work hard for your beautiful bucks. This year was the toughest hiking and hunting I'd ever done in my life. So my hat is off to each of you, as the bottom line is??.hard work pays off (mostly), and in general, you truly do make your own luck.
Last week, hunting public lands in central Colorado, I continued my quest for a good public lands wall hanger muley (a 170 class or better buck, to me, is a trophy). I finally did see a few bucks of this level, through a couple of new lessons; 1) the value of a GOOD spotting scope and 2) that a lot of these bucks, once disturbed, quickly move to adjacent private lands.
We saw and did a lot in our 6 straight days of hunting this year. Our focus the first few days were on a cow elk and those elusive 170+ class muleys. On the opener, I came within 200 yards of some slightly spooked elk (2 bulls, 2 cows and a calf) and learned (a little late) the value of a couple of soft cow calls in getting them to stop and slow down. I left them alone for perhaps another day. Also had a chance at a sole cow at 80 yards, but too many Aspens were between us and as I closed the distance, the wind must?ve shifted as she got outta Dodge quickly. The first few days we stubbornly kept to the same general 2 square mile area, seeing a lot of sign and ?knowing? that our luck would change. It didn't. On the 4th day, we tried a new area, mainly an open sage area where we'd spotted some huge bucks browsing a day earlier. We stalked the sole grove of aspens in the area, to find nothing there but bedded does. But the stalking worked well, as we were within 25-40 yards before any of them knew we were there. The big bucks we'd seen the day before had kept to the private land side of the fence and bedded in another grove of aspens not 400 yards from us.
A little frustrated, on day 5 we returned to familiar haunts, but went higher. Our reward was; not even a sighting of a cow or a buck.
On day 6 we decided to try a new area, one that a good friend of mine had recommended, and one that a couple of archers told us they'd seen muleys in. This was to be our last day of hunting as my partner had to return home for his daughter?s B-day party in two days. This was it. Loaded with anticipation, this hunt I put my gear on my pack frame, decided to get as high as possible, then spot and stalk. Sometimes it's funny how things work out to change simple plans like that. My partner and I split the backbone of the ridges up to the top of the bowl (about a 1,500 foot climb) and out plan was to meet at a meadow up top. When I got to the top, my partner was nowhere in sight. I radioed him to see if he was OK. Not only OK, he was near the bottom of the mountain, with a 3 x 4 muley down!! Cool! He had to return to the car to get his pack frame, so he told me to hunt my way down the mountain and then we'd pack out his deer. He advised me busting buckbrush, as that is where he found a number of bucks and does at the bottom. I also remembered a couple of elk archers telling me they'd seen a lot of muleys bedded in the Aspens. It was almost 8am, some of the does I'd seen on the way up were starting to bed, so I decided to go into a large grove of Aspens just below me. About 50 yards inside the Aspens, peripheral vision caught some movement. To might right, a buck had gotten out of his bed at about 75 yards from me. He was slightly uphill and it was kinda dark in the trees. But, I could see he had more than a couple of points per side, possibly a 3 x 3 or better. Luckily, there were no Aspens in the direct line between us, so I quickly looked for a rest. Only 2 steps to my left I found a good tree to help steady my aim. I moved quickly but smoothly to it, as this buck already had me pegged. Through a new new front crosshair and rear peep sight of my .50 cal Omega (and much thanks to OSOK, Dslaughter and Cooter for this incredible improvement to the Omega), I took aim at low on the base of the neck and squeezed off. With no wind, the black powder made seeing a hit impossible, but when the smoke cleared, a deer was standing just steps beyond where the buck was. It was a doe that must?ve been bedded just behind the buck, and was gone within a couple seconds. I walked straight over to where I had last seen the buck AND THERE HE WAS! Dropped on the spot from a 295 grain powerbelt hit in the center of the neck. It was over. In the peace of the Aspen canopy, right then, I took a minute to thank God and also all of you guys for helping me finally, finally, get my elusive 4 x 4 in a scenario I could have only hoped for. In addition to all the lessons learned on this hunt, two more wonderful things came with this buck; he was dispatched instantly and he is my first ever 4 x 4, complete with eyeguards, hardened antlers with ivory polished tips! He only measures 18? wide (outside), so to most of you, he's still a dink. But to me, he's a treasure I will never forget. I will also never forget the pack out off that mountain with this deer. It took me 4 hours just to get down to flat sage brush with ? of him, and I was so spent that I had to leave his front quarters and head in some adjacent black timber to be picked up the following morning (a much easier hike this time as I could plan the route, but the mountain was as steep as I would ever probably want to climb). One thing I tried that may or may not have worked well to keep the critters and bugs off the animal that evening and early Friday morning; I cut off some spruce boughs and put them under, around, and over the front quarters, stuffed some grass in the nose, secured his antlers to a tree, peed around the tree best I could. The next morning, no magpies, no yotes, no bears, nothing had touched the deer!! This trick might have concealed his blood scent just enough to keep them away, that plus the temp had gotten down to 24 degrees. So that's my muley story for the year (although I do have one more tag for next month here in Calif.). But like I said, now I'm starting to understand, and I want to close by saying thank you to all you guys who certainly own part of this buck along with me!
Last week, hunting public lands in central Colorado, I continued my quest for a good public lands wall hanger muley (a 170 class or better buck, to me, is a trophy). I finally did see a few bucks of this level, through a couple of new lessons; 1) the value of a GOOD spotting scope and 2) that a lot of these bucks, once disturbed, quickly move to adjacent private lands.
We saw and did a lot in our 6 straight days of hunting this year. Our focus the first few days were on a cow elk and those elusive 170+ class muleys. On the opener, I came within 200 yards of some slightly spooked elk (2 bulls, 2 cows and a calf) and learned (a little late) the value of a couple of soft cow calls in getting them to stop and slow down. I left them alone for perhaps another day. Also had a chance at a sole cow at 80 yards, but too many Aspens were between us and as I closed the distance, the wind must?ve shifted as she got outta Dodge quickly. The first few days we stubbornly kept to the same general 2 square mile area, seeing a lot of sign and ?knowing? that our luck would change. It didn't. On the 4th day, we tried a new area, mainly an open sage area where we'd spotted some huge bucks browsing a day earlier. We stalked the sole grove of aspens in the area, to find nothing there but bedded does. But the stalking worked well, as we were within 25-40 yards before any of them knew we were there. The big bucks we'd seen the day before had kept to the private land side of the fence and bedded in another grove of aspens not 400 yards from us.
A little frustrated, on day 5 we returned to familiar haunts, but went higher. Our reward was; not even a sighting of a cow or a buck.
On day 6 we decided to try a new area, one that a good friend of mine had recommended, and one that a couple of archers told us they'd seen muleys in. This was to be our last day of hunting as my partner had to return home for his daughter?s B-day party in two days. This was it. Loaded with anticipation, this hunt I put my gear on my pack frame, decided to get as high as possible, then spot and stalk. Sometimes it's funny how things work out to change simple plans like that. My partner and I split the backbone of the ridges up to the top of the bowl (about a 1,500 foot climb) and out plan was to meet at a meadow up top. When I got to the top, my partner was nowhere in sight. I radioed him to see if he was OK. Not only OK, he was near the bottom of the mountain, with a 3 x 4 muley down!! Cool! He had to return to the car to get his pack frame, so he told me to hunt my way down the mountain and then we'd pack out his deer. He advised me busting buckbrush, as that is where he found a number of bucks and does at the bottom. I also remembered a couple of elk archers telling me they'd seen a lot of muleys bedded in the Aspens. It was almost 8am, some of the does I'd seen on the way up were starting to bed, so I decided to go into a large grove of Aspens just below me. About 50 yards inside the Aspens, peripheral vision caught some movement. To might right, a buck had gotten out of his bed at about 75 yards from me. He was slightly uphill and it was kinda dark in the trees. But, I could see he had more than a couple of points per side, possibly a 3 x 3 or better. Luckily, there were no Aspens in the direct line between us, so I quickly looked for a rest. Only 2 steps to my left I found a good tree to help steady my aim. I moved quickly but smoothly to it, as this buck already had me pegged. Through a new new front crosshair and rear peep sight of my .50 cal Omega (and much thanks to OSOK, Dslaughter and Cooter for this incredible improvement to the Omega), I took aim at low on the base of the neck and squeezed off. With no wind, the black powder made seeing a hit impossible, but when the smoke cleared, a deer was standing just steps beyond where the buck was. It was a doe that must?ve been bedded just behind the buck, and was gone within a couple seconds. I walked straight over to where I had last seen the buck AND THERE HE WAS! Dropped on the spot from a 295 grain powerbelt hit in the center of the neck. It was over. In the peace of the Aspen canopy, right then, I took a minute to thank God and also all of you guys for helping me finally, finally, get my elusive 4 x 4 in a scenario I could have only hoped for. In addition to all the lessons learned on this hunt, two more wonderful things came with this buck; he was dispatched instantly and he is my first ever 4 x 4, complete with eyeguards, hardened antlers with ivory polished tips! He only measures 18? wide (outside), so to most of you, he's still a dink. But to me, he's a treasure I will never forget. I will also never forget the pack out off that mountain with this deer. It took me 4 hours just to get down to flat sage brush with ? of him, and I was so spent that I had to leave his front quarters and head in some adjacent black timber to be picked up the following morning (a much easier hike this time as I could plan the route, but the mountain was as steep as I would ever probably want to climb). One thing I tried that may or may not have worked well to keep the critters and bugs off the animal that evening and early Friday morning; I cut off some spruce boughs and put them under, around, and over the front quarters, stuffed some grass in the nose, secured his antlers to a tree, peed around the tree best I could. The next morning, no magpies, no yotes, no bears, nothing had touched the deer!! This trick might have concealed his blood scent just enough to keep them away, that plus the temp had gotten down to 24 degrees. So that's my muley story for the year (although I do have one more tag for next month here in Calif.). But like I said, now I'm starting to understand, and I want to close by saying thank you to all you guys who certainly own part of this buck along with me!
