W
Wetzel
Guest
Hey guys, I thought I would share my deer hunt with you guys. I have shot a few okay mule deer in my life but nothing great. This summer my friend and I spotted a really nice buck. My friend really likes to name special animals, so he right away called this one Twin Towers, due to him having irregular rear tines that go straight up and almost perfectly mirror each other. For years I dreamed of shooting a really good mule deer to have mounted and hang on my wall. "Twin" was a really big 3 point that wasn't as wide as some but made up for it in his mass. Now I know some of you have shot monsters, but this guy was a monster to me, and I had big dreams.
A few weeks before the opening of the deer hunt Twin just disappeared. We continued to watch and look but he we couldn't spot him again. The opening of the deer hunt gave me some chances at some decent bucks, but I was on a mission so I passed them up. I am still relatively new at hunting, so patience is something that I am not great at. Night after night I continued to come home late to tell my wife and little girls that I still hadn't shot one. At this point in our lives we really appreciate the meat, so telling my wife about animals I passed up was tough. I knew that settling on a decent buck would mean giving up the big buck, so I kept at it.
Days continued to pass and I helped multiple friends get out the decent bucks they had shot. I have to admit I was getting desperate as the season was coming to an end. I set a day that would mean a decent buck would then have to be taken to avoid eating my tag. As it turned out, that day never had to come. My friend and I started out one morning with a plan to go and watch a spot that a big buck liked to hang up in. As the morning light started to allow sight we glassed and glassed. Nothing. It was so cold that morning I couldn't drink from my water bladder till 10 am as the hose was frozen, so sitting and glassing was not very pleasant.
We decided to hike up a ridge and take a big look around. Nothing. We spotted a few does and fawns feeding, jumped another few does and fawns, still nothing. A long ways out we spotted some others, but to be honest it was too cold to sit behind a scope and figure out what they were. We decided to continue with the plan we talked about that morning, which was to hike a few miles to another spot. My friend had woken up in the middle of the night with this plan (he's like that). He hadn't been to this spot in quite a while and I had never been there.
As we walked and started to finally warm up I wondered about this plan. We were walking across a few miles of flat sage brush, and I didn't see how this was going to work out without a buck running away at full speed before we even knew it was there. We finally came to the where the flat ended in a drop off. The side hill was covered with intermittent quaky groves. We decided that my friend Jeff would drop down about half way and walk the groves while I would go to the end to watch what came out. I got almost to the end and was about to walk out on the point to watch when my friend frantically came over the radio saying he had spotted a big buck feeding. He told me to go back and follow his tracks. As I started to do this he then came over the radio even more frantic "it's Twin!" and said a bunch of things that made no sense to me.
I took it that I was supposed to sneak through the trees as Twin had circled back behind him for some weird reason and I was going to jump him. Now I am not a fan of jumping an animal and hoping for a running shot, so I wasn't thrilled. It turns out my friend was so excited he just wasn't making sense. After a while of sneaking he comes back over the radio frantically asking where I was and why it was taking so long to get to him. I finally realized he hadn't jumped Twin but was watching him and simply didn't want me to bust him. When I got to Jeff I crawled up and slowly looked at Twin. The first thing I noticed was that he was much bigger than I he looked from a long ways away. The mass on his horns was amazing. I dropped my pack and crawled with my gun to get into position for a good shot, the problem was he was laying down facing directly toward me. There was no good shot! I decided to wait him out for a better shot.
Time seemed to drag, my feet went to sleep, I was thirsty. At one point Twin laid completely down like a dog laying on his side (I have never seen a deer do this), at which point my friend whispers in my ear "congratulations, you got him, he just laid down and died of old age", I wasn't amused. After what seemed like forever but really only was about an hour and a half some doe's come busting by. We didn't know what had spooked them so were afraid some other hunters were heading our way and we might lose twin. I decided I better take a shot or miss my chance. I waited until he turned his head enough to put a bullet right behind the front shoulder and squeezed off a shot. He jumped up broadside to me and his body looked the size of a spike elk, I put one more in causing him to nosedive. Long story short, we had gotten Twin. It was a really great experience. Below are some pictures.
A few weeks before the opening of the deer hunt Twin just disappeared. We continued to watch and look but he we couldn't spot him again. The opening of the deer hunt gave me some chances at some decent bucks, but I was on a mission so I passed them up. I am still relatively new at hunting, so patience is something that I am not great at. Night after night I continued to come home late to tell my wife and little girls that I still hadn't shot one. At this point in our lives we really appreciate the meat, so telling my wife about animals I passed up was tough. I knew that settling on a decent buck would mean giving up the big buck, so I kept at it.
Days continued to pass and I helped multiple friends get out the decent bucks they had shot. I have to admit I was getting desperate as the season was coming to an end. I set a day that would mean a decent buck would then have to be taken to avoid eating my tag. As it turned out, that day never had to come. My friend and I started out one morning with a plan to go and watch a spot that a big buck liked to hang up in. As the morning light started to allow sight we glassed and glassed. Nothing. It was so cold that morning I couldn't drink from my water bladder till 10 am as the hose was frozen, so sitting and glassing was not very pleasant.
We decided to hike up a ridge and take a big look around. Nothing. We spotted a few does and fawns feeding, jumped another few does and fawns, still nothing. A long ways out we spotted some others, but to be honest it was too cold to sit behind a scope and figure out what they were. We decided to continue with the plan we talked about that morning, which was to hike a few miles to another spot. My friend had woken up in the middle of the night with this plan (he's like that). He hadn't been to this spot in quite a while and I had never been there.
As we walked and started to finally warm up I wondered about this plan. We were walking across a few miles of flat sage brush, and I didn't see how this was going to work out without a buck running away at full speed before we even knew it was there. We finally came to the where the flat ended in a drop off. The side hill was covered with intermittent quaky groves. We decided that my friend Jeff would drop down about half way and walk the groves while I would go to the end to watch what came out. I got almost to the end and was about to walk out on the point to watch when my friend frantically came over the radio saying he had spotted a big buck feeding. He told me to go back and follow his tracks. As I started to do this he then came over the radio even more frantic "it's Twin!" and said a bunch of things that made no sense to me.
I took it that I was supposed to sneak through the trees as Twin had circled back behind him for some weird reason and I was going to jump him. Now I am not a fan of jumping an animal and hoping for a running shot, so I wasn't thrilled. It turns out my friend was so excited he just wasn't making sense. After a while of sneaking he comes back over the radio frantically asking where I was and why it was taking so long to get to him. I finally realized he hadn't jumped Twin but was watching him and simply didn't want me to bust him. When I got to Jeff I crawled up and slowly looked at Twin. The first thing I noticed was that he was much bigger than I he looked from a long ways away. The mass on his horns was amazing. I dropped my pack and crawled with my gun to get into position for a good shot, the problem was he was laying down facing directly toward me. There was no good shot! I decided to wait him out for a better shot.
Time seemed to drag, my feet went to sleep, I was thirsty. At one point Twin laid completely down like a dog laying on his side (I have never seen a deer do this), at which point my friend whispers in my ear "congratulations, you got him, he just laid down and died of old age", I wasn't amused. After what seemed like forever but really only was about an hour and a half some doe's come busting by. We didn't know what had spooked them so were afraid some other hunters were heading our way and we might lose twin. I decided I better take a shot or miss my chance. I waited until he turned his head enough to put a bullet right behind the front shoulder and squeezed off a shot. He jumped up broadside to me and his body looked the size of a spike elk, I put one more in causing him to nosedive. Long story short, we had gotten Twin. It was a really great experience. Below are some pictures.
