Colorado Smoke Pole Buck

U

utahheadgear

Guest
Here is my 2010 Colorado buck. Had another great hunt, although deer numbers seemed down from previous years. This guy was the best I could turn up after four days, so I decided to give him a go. A quick stalk, and a boneheaded move by me poking my head up too early, and he was off into the next drainage. I figured I was going home dry after that, and rightfully so, but I had a hunch that he had gone into a particular stand of timber so I decided to setup there later that evening and hope I was right.....

Sure enough, on my way in that evening I caught him coming up the trail I expected him to come out of the timber on. He was pretty surprised to see me standing in his way.......BOOM!

He's 164 2/8" gross.

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Congrats man on another nice buck.... You seem to keep gettin' in done, year after year!!!!!
redelkarcher>>>--------------->
 
Sure a nice one, and great pictures to boot.

Mark
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My hunting spot is so secret, not even the elk have found it yet.
 
Great job! I wonder if the hard winters or the Edwards boys from Utah have had a greater impact on the bucks in that unit?
 
headgear,

You are quite the muzzleloading master. Congratulations on another great smokepole buck. You're pictures are awesome as usual. Have you started writing your Muzzleloading in High Country book yet ?
 
Ide be stoked if i followed my hunch and it all worked out! Nice deer! Seems like more than a few colorado guys are coming home empty this year.
 
Muzzleloading the High County, by Utahheadgear

Chapter 1:
Be prepared to hike either straight up, or straight down at well over 12,000 feet above sea level (yeah right, you can't prepare for that). There is no in between.

Chapter 2:
Glass until your eyes feel like they are going to bug out of your head.

Chapter 3:
Get butt-lucky.

The End.


Seriously though, it was pretty cool to have my hunch work out as well as it did. For every ten hunches it's probably rare that one of those works out, so I was pleased.
 
Great buck and great pictures. We're you by yourself? Or did you have some help? Just considering a solo high country myself and didn't know if that was a smart thing to do or not.
 
My Dad was with me for a couple of days, after that I was hunting on my own. I was alone when I killed and packed the deer.

A "solo" hunt however, is relative. Although the country I hunted is very rugged, it was not a backpack hunt and I had my wife and kids along. They stayed in camp. I made sure my wife had a map and knew where I was going. That way, if I didn't make it back in a reasonable amount of time she could send out the search and I would be found quickly in the event of an emergency. I wasn't too far off the beaten path.

A solo backpack hunt into this type of country (and there is lots of it in Colorado) would be a totatlly different story. I would be VERY thoughtful about hunting alone in this country under "backpack" circumstances. A seriously sprained ankle, bad fall, or broken bone is more of "when" than "if" and if you weren't missed by someone for several days or a week, you could be in bad trouble. The weather is extremely variable and cold, wet weather, even snow, is common this time of year at those elevations.

That said, if a guy rented a sat phone or had one of those new SPOT GPS units to send emergency messages you would probably be just fine.

Hell, if you fell and died up there, at least you would die happy, right? Maybe you don't need that sat phone afterall! :)
 
Nice buck, Great first Book, I like the last part the best it what I'm good at. LOL


"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".
 
Awesome buck! I watched that buck all summer. Congrats on killing him. I remember seeing you at the trailhead opening day.
 
Rock04,

You must be the guy who had also killed a buck in the area on the opener, correct? We talked briefly in the parking lot and you where waiting for a buddy to arrive. If so, I saw you coming up the road later that night. I couldn't tell for sure because of the distance I was looking from, but that "buddy" looked to be about 5 feet tall, blond, and of the female variety. I don't blame you for waiting. :)

Congrats on your deer. I'd love to see a photo of him.

Oh, and let's make sure to keep the unit number to ourselves, huh?

Fun stuff. Small world.

Later.
 
Utahheadgear- First of all, I would never give up the unit number. I was surprised to see you and your dad going in their for deer as you are the second hunter I've seen in 5 years going for deer. My buck is posted on the Colorado forum if you would like to see him. Its titled 2010 Muzzy Buck. I felt bad when I saw you guys walking up that mountain that night, right past the gut pile! Looks like you did okay anyway. Awesome pics of your buck. Especially because I can see where I shot my buck right behind you in your pix. Yes, that was my wife helping me that night. It was the only help I could find, and she did awesome! I saw some of your bucks from previous years and I have seen and stalked some of them. Kind of weird. Very small world! Diddo on keeping the unit a secret! Let's enjoy it while we still can draw the tag.-Rock04
 
Amen to that Brother. We will have to compare notes next year. I too have seen very few hunters over the years, which is why I keep going back. Great hunt out there, although this year the numbers seemed down a bit. I was thinking that the winter two years ago might have had an affect. What did you think?
 
I don't know if its the winter or too many tags for the rifle seasons later on, but the quality is going down hill for sure.
 

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