M
Mule_Deer_Crazy
Guest
We'll see how this picture posting thing goes, I had to do a lot of resizing!
I was afraid that hunting an HMA was going to be an absolute zoo, but we never saw a single person the entire opening day? My buddy had never shot a buck or even a deer for that matter with a rifle. He kept saying, "Now you're not going to make fun of me for shooting a little forked horn are you?" I assured him I would not, thus the bar was set pretty low. I wanted him to have a fun experience and if a forked horn would do that, that was fine with me.
We positioned ourselves in the heart of this canyon, because I knew there were going to be at least 15 people crawling everywhere around us at daylight and we wanted to be set up when they pushed everything back into the canyon. Daylight came and went and we saw five bucks at daylight too far away to shoot and by 8:30 still hadn't seen a soul?
With nobody to kick the deer back into the canyon and with temperatures already in the mid-70s, we decided to hunt through the last canyon within the HMA, glassing the shady areas hoping to catch a little buck trying to stay cool.
Our first good look into the canyon was atop this huge rock perched on the side of the hill. As we crested the rock, I dropped down and started scanning the canyon floor ahead of us. I remember thinking as I brought my binoculars up that there should be a buck bedded under a big shady rocky overhanging rock up the bottom of the draw (course I always think there should be).
As my binos scanned beneath the rock, much to my surprise there was a deer. And it was a nice buck on top of that! My buddy finally found him under the shadows and moved forward til his bipod would allow him a good angle to shoot from. He was only about 200 yards away and was laying on his side like a dog, so I told him to hold a little lower on the body than mid-point.
At the shot I was surprised to see the buck sitting upright, but quickly realized where he hit when I saw the huge cloud of dust hanging in the air in front of the buck (he was bedded in some real powdery stuff). I immediately whispered hold higher and shoot again. He connected that time, but the buck got up and started walking out from under the overhang.
When he cleared the trees, I could see the hit on his shoulder, but the buck was still moving pretty good so I said take him again. I guess he was trying to scare the buck to death with the third shot, becasue it was a miss too.
The buck started going between this huge rock and some sagebrush, heading up a draw when he touched off shot four. I saw the buck go down hard with a big explosion of debris right at his head. It looked like he got the buck, but also looked like he'd blown up the right antler at the same time.
When we got down there he had actually shot the buck through the neck and what I saw was the bullet exploding against the big rock. At just under 29 inches wide, my buddy was pretty stoked! That's usually the way it goes. The guy that would be happy with a forky usually ends up killing Mr. Big! I didn't have the heart to tell him he'll probably spend a lifetime trying to kill a nicer buck.
My buddy with his buck. He was shooting from atop the big rock
in the background on the skyline.
Me with my buddy's buck in front of the rock ledge where he was bedded.
We thought it would be fun to find our buddies with the "Go Hunt Your Own State" on their back window so they could actually touch a buck, but didn't want to press our luck! As with most things, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time! When we got over there, there wasn't another place in the whole canyon where we'd have even seen that buck from. And when we started packing the buck out, we noticed the HMA boundary only 50 feet above the bedded buck.
It never hurts to be lucky!
I was afraid that hunting an HMA was going to be an absolute zoo, but we never saw a single person the entire opening day? My buddy had never shot a buck or even a deer for that matter with a rifle. He kept saying, "Now you're not going to make fun of me for shooting a little forked horn are you?" I assured him I would not, thus the bar was set pretty low. I wanted him to have a fun experience and if a forked horn would do that, that was fine with me.
We positioned ourselves in the heart of this canyon, because I knew there were going to be at least 15 people crawling everywhere around us at daylight and we wanted to be set up when they pushed everything back into the canyon. Daylight came and went and we saw five bucks at daylight too far away to shoot and by 8:30 still hadn't seen a soul?
With nobody to kick the deer back into the canyon and with temperatures already in the mid-70s, we decided to hunt through the last canyon within the HMA, glassing the shady areas hoping to catch a little buck trying to stay cool.
Our first good look into the canyon was atop this huge rock perched on the side of the hill. As we crested the rock, I dropped down and started scanning the canyon floor ahead of us. I remember thinking as I brought my binoculars up that there should be a buck bedded under a big shady rocky overhanging rock up the bottom of the draw (course I always think there should be).
As my binos scanned beneath the rock, much to my surprise there was a deer. And it was a nice buck on top of that! My buddy finally found him under the shadows and moved forward til his bipod would allow him a good angle to shoot from. He was only about 200 yards away and was laying on his side like a dog, so I told him to hold a little lower on the body than mid-point.
At the shot I was surprised to see the buck sitting upright, but quickly realized where he hit when I saw the huge cloud of dust hanging in the air in front of the buck (he was bedded in some real powdery stuff). I immediately whispered hold higher and shoot again. He connected that time, but the buck got up and started walking out from under the overhang.
When he cleared the trees, I could see the hit on his shoulder, but the buck was still moving pretty good so I said take him again. I guess he was trying to scare the buck to death with the third shot, becasue it was a miss too.
The buck started going between this huge rock and some sagebrush, heading up a draw when he touched off shot four. I saw the buck go down hard with a big explosion of debris right at his head. It looked like he got the buck, but also looked like he'd blown up the right antler at the same time.
When we got down there he had actually shot the buck through the neck and what I saw was the bullet exploding against the big rock. At just under 29 inches wide, my buddy was pretty stoked! That's usually the way it goes. The guy that would be happy with a forky usually ends up killing Mr. Big! I didn't have the heart to tell him he'll probably spend a lifetime trying to kill a nicer buck.
My buddy with his buck. He was shooting from atop the big rock
in the background on the skyline.
Me with my buddy's buck in front of the rock ledge where he was bedded.
We thought it would be fun to find our buddies with the "Go Hunt Your Own State" on their back window so they could actually touch a buck, but didn't want to press our luck! As with most things, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time! When we got over there, there wasn't another place in the whole canyon where we'd have even seen that buck from. And when we started packing the buck out, we noticed the HMA boundary only 50 feet above the bedded buck.
It never hurts to be lucky!
