Now, I kept telling myself and my daughter that we would not shoot a deer on opening day unless it was really big, and I even held to that....................for most of the day. We saw SO MANY bucks, and so many deer, period, passing on bucks that I had dreamed of harvesting my entire life!! It was very difficult to let some of these bucks walk away.
Let me give you a little background on my daughter. She is a freshman in High School, not really an outdoorsperson type. She is VERY girl, and she is VERY young teenager, so friends are very important to her, texting, talking on the phone, sleeping, watching TV,......... I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I had spent all summer getting her comfortable shooting the Rossi Youth .243 that I bought her, and we got pretty good, but she was still afraid of it. So, I was a little nervous about how she would perform when the moment of truth came, and I had read and heard lots of stories about young people FINDING the target in the scope, so we continue.
Opening was upon us, we were in the predetermined location (along with all the other tag holders), seems the canyon that I picked to start with on opening morning was a pretty popular place. Well, we didn't see any deer to start off, I blamed it on the numbers of hunters in the area, so we packed up to leave and try a different area. On the way out of that canyon, driving the truck, some hunters on the opposite side of the ridge jumped the two big bucks that I was hoping to see and get a chance at. They jumped the fence and ran across the road approximately 100 yds in front of the truck and it was chaotic madness for a few minutes trying to get everything setup for a shot. She couldn't get steady with her rifle and I was unsure about the distance shooting of that rifle, so we had the wifes .243 in the truck with us, so we had her shoot that. Anyway, got her set up, and by this time the 2 deer had calmed a little and were just walking the hillside away from us, but they were over 300 yds away now and wasn't sure how she could do on a shot like that, especially since she had not shot that rifle previously. I thought the deer were approximately 400 yds so I told her to hold the crosshairs right on the bigger bucks back and go ahead and take the shot when he stopped and she felt comfortable, so we waited. When she did finally take the shot, I was amazed! She actually hit where she was aiming!!! Right over his back!!
The way things work, we did not get on those deer again, and we continued on to a different part of the area. As we were driving, we were seeing deer, antelope, elk all over the place but didn't see anything that was really worth spending any time on. We got to our destination and decided we would stay in this area for the remainder of the day, since we could see a lot of country, and already were seeing a lot of deer.
So, right of the bat I spotted a nice, wide 5x5 bedded under some small junipers, but his true size was difficult to judge because of where he was at. We watched him for a while before making the decision to pass on him. So we continued to glass, it seemed everywhere we looked we saw deer, does, and smaller bucks. And I started to wonder if I had made the right decision to let her pass that buck. We continued glassing the area, and the same group of deer where that buck had been, but he had dissappeared into the quakies so we just 'kept and eye' on them and looked for more deer. As we were keeping tabs on those deer, more and more deer were appearing out of the quakie patch and more bucks were coming out.
As, we watched there were 5 4x4's including the one that we had previously passed and another that had longer tines, but a narrower frame, and numerous other bucks and does. And since I was doubting our decision to pass that deer earlier, I decided to make a move and prepare for this just in case. I told my daughter that I would probably take that deer if I had that tag (which I didn't, but that deer was bigger than a lot of deer that I see on any general season hunt, so I was a little impatient and eager, and not to mention WEAK.), and I would leave it up to her whether or not she wanted to take him. We watched these deer for a good while sitting under a Juniper tree 200 yds away. The deer practiced the rut that is coming up in a few weeks, chasing, fighting, intimidating, it was real fun to watch.
She was very nervous of all the other deer that were around, afraid of hitting the wrong buck. I told her not to worry, we had lots of time and if we didn't get a chance we would find another buck, today IS only the first day! She did end up getting the bigger buck in the open by himself and she decided to shoot. I ranged them at 270 yds. She shot, and the buck dropped in his tracks!! I was so happy that it turned out the way it did. I looked at her, she had tears in her eyes, I hope they were happy tears, but I don't think she would honestly tell me either way. We watched her buck for a few minutes to make sure he wasn't going to get up and crossed the canyon to look at him. We were all smiles and everyone was happy and excited, this truely was the best hunting season of all the 20 years that I have been hunting, I hope to only surpass this feeling next year. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Good luck to all.
I hated to end the season so soon, but this deer hunt will be hard to forget. I know there were bigger deer in the area but the experience was bigger and more rewarding than anything else. Thank you.
