Short story: Very first archery season and first archery mule deer taken on the Wasatch extended unit on public land. I made a 45 yard quartering-to-me shot and put the buck down in about 15 seconds and no more than 30 yards from the scene. I got a complete pass through with the ulmer edge and it created massive entrance and exit holes and lots of blood.
Long story:
A few days ago I posted a question about hunting in the snow and now I have my own first hand experience about hunting in a blizzard. Well, I was able to get out on Saturday and took a gamble on an area that I have always thought would be a productive area come the cold snowy weather. Well, it turned out to be a very cold, windy and wet day. For the most part visibility was so bad that we couldn't see out beyond 100 yards. The weather made it extra difficult to spot and stalk so we resorted to ambush hunting. We walked the edges very quietly and just were not seeing anything move at all. It was so windy the snow was comin in horizontally. Nothing was gonna move in this weather. We formulated a game plan to find an area that was more sheltered from the wind and sit and watch.
Fortunately I have spent a lot of time in this particular area and I knew of a couple small canyons/draws where the wind might not be so bad. As we moved into this area we saw a group of five does being pushed by a very large two point. These deer pushed off before we could get after them.
We continued down lower into this draw and discovered that the wind was hardly blowing. We picked a spot on one side of the draw overlooking a very active game trail. Earlier this fall, I spent a lot of time in this area and saw lots of does use this game trail. I knew it would be a great area for rutting bucks.
We set up so that it was a 45 yard shot across the draw to the hillside with the game trail. Well, all of my scouting paid off because we hadn't been in position for 2 minutes when we saw a nice buck come over the ridge. He was coming across the hillside on the exact game trail we were watching.
This buck caught us off guard (he literally came in after about 2 minutes of us sitting there) and I fumbled trying to get an arrow nocked and get my big thick gloves off. We were very well hidden and the buck just kept getting closer. I drew and he caught a bit of movement and stopped at 45 yards. I lined up my peep, sight, and the deer's vitals. I released the arrow but couldn't see where I hit because of the heavy snow fall. The sound of the impact and the way he took off was promising. The deer crashed into a thick oak brush patch and was making all sorts of noise trying to move through it. After a few seconds of the crashing it stopped and then we heard the tell tell tumble of death. We walked over to the arrow and this is what we found:
We followed the blood trail that grew increasing large and found him wrapped around a tree not 40 yards from the scene.
Comin out heavy!
This was a big bodied buck and my pack weighed 98 lbs coming out. My buddy had a small day pack so he could only help carry a single quarter. We packed him out 4 miles to the truck. My Mystery ranch metcalf pack performed beautifully.
This was the second animal I was fortunate enough to take this year during the extended archery season. I was able to catch a herd of elk still rutting at the end of october. I was able to get in on the herd and call this satellite bull in and make a 70 yard steep up hill quartering away shot. I was shooting the slick trick standard and got a complete pass through and put the bull down in 60 yards. I posted a more detailed story of this hunt on the elk forum. Here is a link to that story
http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID12/15535.html#.UolhlvnUD0U
This was a great season for me. One that I will never forget. Neither of these animals are huge by any means but I worked very hard for both of them and they are both trophies in my book. It makes it even better that I was successful on both tags my very first archery season and both were taken on over-the-counter tags and on public ground.
A big thanks to my hunting partners this year... Kevin, Bryce, Jonathan, Travis and Landon.
Long story:
A few days ago I posted a question about hunting in the snow and now I have my own first hand experience about hunting in a blizzard. Well, I was able to get out on Saturday and took a gamble on an area that I have always thought would be a productive area come the cold snowy weather. Well, it turned out to be a very cold, windy and wet day. For the most part visibility was so bad that we couldn't see out beyond 100 yards. The weather made it extra difficult to spot and stalk so we resorted to ambush hunting. We walked the edges very quietly and just were not seeing anything move at all. It was so windy the snow was comin in horizontally. Nothing was gonna move in this weather. We formulated a game plan to find an area that was more sheltered from the wind and sit and watch.
Fortunately I have spent a lot of time in this particular area and I knew of a couple small canyons/draws where the wind might not be so bad. As we moved into this area we saw a group of five does being pushed by a very large two point. These deer pushed off before we could get after them.
We continued down lower into this draw and discovered that the wind was hardly blowing. We picked a spot on one side of the draw overlooking a very active game trail. Earlier this fall, I spent a lot of time in this area and saw lots of does use this game trail. I knew it would be a great area for rutting bucks.
We set up so that it was a 45 yard shot across the draw to the hillside with the game trail. Well, all of my scouting paid off because we hadn't been in position for 2 minutes when we saw a nice buck come over the ridge. He was coming across the hillside on the exact game trail we were watching.
This buck caught us off guard (he literally came in after about 2 minutes of us sitting there) and I fumbled trying to get an arrow nocked and get my big thick gloves off. We were very well hidden and the buck just kept getting closer. I drew and he caught a bit of movement and stopped at 45 yards. I lined up my peep, sight, and the deer's vitals. I released the arrow but couldn't see where I hit because of the heavy snow fall. The sound of the impact and the way he took off was promising. The deer crashed into a thick oak brush patch and was making all sorts of noise trying to move through it. After a few seconds of the crashing it stopped and then we heard the tell tell tumble of death. We walked over to the arrow and this is what we found:
We followed the blood trail that grew increasing large and found him wrapped around a tree not 40 yards from the scene.
Comin out heavy!
This was a big bodied buck and my pack weighed 98 lbs coming out. My buddy had a small day pack so he could only help carry a single quarter. We packed him out 4 miles to the truck. My Mystery ranch metcalf pack performed beautifully.
This was the second animal I was fortunate enough to take this year during the extended archery season. I was able to catch a herd of elk still rutting at the end of october. I was able to get in on the herd and call this satellite bull in and make a 70 yard steep up hill quartering away shot. I was shooting the slick trick standard and got a complete pass through and put the bull down in 60 yards. I posted a more detailed story of this hunt on the elk forum. Here is a link to that story
http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID12/15535.html#.UolhlvnUD0U
This was a great season for me. One that I will never forget. Neither of these animals are huge by any means but I worked very hard for both of them and they are both trophies in my book. It makes it even better that I was successful on both tags my very first archery season and both were taken on over-the-counter tags and on public ground.
A big thanks to my hunting partners this year... Kevin, Bryce, Jonathan, Travis and Landon.
