Back in the fall of 96 I had my first encounter with a giant muley I gave the nickname of 'Double Drop'. He was by far the biggest nontypical I've ever seen in my entire life. Big Mainframe with a ton of trash and big droppers on both sides. His image is still imprinted on my brain all these years later. My best guesstimate is that he was at least a 240 class buck, a buck of many a daydream and many a nightmare. I will never forget my first encounter with him. I had a early season Sept moose draw. I kept on checkin a very nice high elevation meadow complex lookin for a bull. To get to this meadow I had to venture up an overgrown logging road that was pretty thick with alder. Everytime I came to this one corner, a spike muley would be standing in the middle of the road. I worked with a guy that was new to the area and he was a new hunter. He just wanted a buck, so I told him that I'd show him where this spiker lived. We left early one Saturday morning and hit the overgrown road pretty much at first light. As we bounced our way up the road, low and behold, there was the spiker, right were I had last seen him. My buddy got out, fumbled with his bullets and the buck just stood there. For what seemed like forever, my buddy finally got settled in and shot. A solid clean miss. As I watched, all of a sudden the ditchline was engulfed by antler as a Giant buck stepped out and bolted. Being a tight corner in the road, I grabbed my rifle and ran up to the corner and had that one and only shot opportunity, Texas Heart Shot, which I passed on, as the buck entered the rhodo. I ran headlong into the rhodo thinking I could get a shot on him up close and personal. Boy was I wrong. It was a JUNGLE in there. I could hear the buck mere metres from me, and I couldn't see a single thing. The buck slipped out of there and I was left with a very strong desire that I needed to kill THAT BUCK.
Over the next several years, I had several encounters with this buck, most of the time, just hearing the classic thump of a buck crashing through the timber and seeing the monster hawg tracks he'd leave behind. The summer of 98 I was doing forestry work in the exact same area and one of my co-workers had a face to face with Double Drop. This guy didn't hunt, but he'd been working in the bush for years and had seen many a big buck. He told me when he first saw the buck, he thought it was an elk!!! That fall and the next, I chased Double Drop all early season, cutting his tracks many times, only to be spun in circles. He was more a ghost than anything. And he could read me like a book. Just like other Legendary muleys I've encountered, I was never able to seal the deal and he probably ended his long life as catscat.
This past weekend, during the Youth Season, I took my son to the same area that Double Drop had lived. We had an awesome morning and saw 7 different bucks. During the course of the morning, we put the stalk on a great typical, 175+. He was real, real tall and had really deep back forks. A smoker buck for sure. We stalked in on him to 15 yards, but every time my son got set up on a stump for a rest, the bucks vitals were blocked by brush. We kept on edging closer and closer and when the buck stepped behind some brush, we made our move. We were almost on top of him, and then all hell broke loose. A yearling basket racked 4 point with double drops was bedded in the high fireweed only mere yards from us and he bailed, causing the Big Typical to bound for the safety of the timber edge. I tried in vain to stop him by shouting 'Hey Buck!!!!' but he wasn't falling for that. Like a ghost he vanished into the rhodo infested timber. I had to laugh cause that little double dropper wasn't much more than 50 yards away from the last place the Giant Double Drop was spotted around 10 years previous. The little rascal was probably Double Drops great grandson.
Over the next several years, I had several encounters with this buck, most of the time, just hearing the classic thump of a buck crashing through the timber and seeing the monster hawg tracks he'd leave behind. The summer of 98 I was doing forestry work in the exact same area and one of my co-workers had a face to face with Double Drop. This guy didn't hunt, but he'd been working in the bush for years and had seen many a big buck. He told me when he first saw the buck, he thought it was an elk!!! That fall and the next, I chased Double Drop all early season, cutting his tracks many times, only to be spun in circles. He was more a ghost than anything. And he could read me like a book. Just like other Legendary muleys I've encountered, I was never able to seal the deal and he probably ended his long life as catscat.
This past weekend, during the Youth Season, I took my son to the same area that Double Drop had lived. We had an awesome morning and saw 7 different bucks. During the course of the morning, we put the stalk on a great typical, 175+. He was real, real tall and had really deep back forks. A smoker buck for sure. We stalked in on him to 15 yards, but every time my son got set up on a stump for a rest, the bucks vitals were blocked by brush. We kept on edging closer and closer and when the buck stepped behind some brush, we made our move. We were almost on top of him, and then all hell broke loose. A yearling basket racked 4 point with double drops was bedded in the high fireweed only mere yards from us and he bailed, causing the Big Typical to bound for the safety of the timber edge. I tried in vain to stop him by shouting 'Hey Buck!!!!' but he wasn't falling for that. Like a ghost he vanished into the rhodo infested timber. I had to laugh cause that little double dropper wasn't much more than 50 yards away from the last place the Giant Double Drop was spotted around 10 years previous. The little rascal was probably Double Drops great grandson.
