M
massandtrash
Guest
During my scouting trips I had become very concerned with the lack of deer in my area. Each trip produced tons of rain, with very few buck sightings. In prior years there had been large numbers of huge bucks seen on each trip. In talking with IdahoBugler he convinced me that the lack of sightings was due to the foul weather. There was some truth to this but during the hunt I was still disappointed in the numbers of deer being seen.
Four days prior to the opening of the hunt my buddy and I packed our gear in about two and a half miles to our camp site. We spent the next few days glassing searching for the bucks we wanted. We started getting discouraged when all we were seeing were smaller bucks and does. We maintained our optimism and before we knew it opening day had arrived. We spent two hours in the dark climbing to where we wanted to be, and as the sky started getting light we could see orange everywhere. I wasn?t surprised by this due to the amount of people I had seen hunting this area in the past. Although there were quite a few hunters it was nowhere near what it had been in previous years. We spent the remainder of the day killing ourselves trying to locate a decent buck to stalk. The best we could do was to locate more moose than deer. The next day would produce about the same amount of sightings with no trophy bucks.
Day three we decided to hunt an area that had produced a big buck for me in 2002. The next morning found us side-hilling in the early morning light. No sooner had I made it a few hundred yards when I heard what I thought to be a deer sneaking away from us up a ravine. I went into stealth mode. I would take a step, glass, take a step, glass. This went on for about 2 minutes when above me 150 yards away stood a nice buck standing broadside looking my direction. I pulled up my TC encore, looked at him and thought; is this the buck I want? I lowered my gun to get a different perspective and seriously considered passing on this one. All kinds of thoughts were going through my head when I finally realized how hard this hunt had been and how few bucks we were seeing. That is all it took for me to make my decision to shoot. I shouldered my rifle and took a quick offhand shot. At the report of the gun the buck dropped in his tracks. He tried dragging himself downhill, so I moved in closer and finished him with a shot in the neck. I looked back at my hunting partner and gave him a success signal. At first I was somewhat disappointed in my decision to take this deer because he was just not what I was after. During the walk up to my deer I began to realize that this was the only deer I had ever taken that got bigger as I walked up to it. Once I saw the mass and length of his G 2?s I began to get really excited. I must say I am very happy to have taken this buck, and very thankful that I chose not to pass on this one.
I will follow up with a story and pictures of the 2002 buck I had taken in the same area.
M&T
Four days prior to the opening of the hunt my buddy and I packed our gear in about two and a half miles to our camp site. We spent the next few days glassing searching for the bucks we wanted. We started getting discouraged when all we were seeing were smaller bucks and does. We maintained our optimism and before we knew it opening day had arrived. We spent two hours in the dark climbing to where we wanted to be, and as the sky started getting light we could see orange everywhere. I wasn?t surprised by this due to the amount of people I had seen hunting this area in the past. Although there were quite a few hunters it was nowhere near what it had been in previous years. We spent the remainder of the day killing ourselves trying to locate a decent buck to stalk. The best we could do was to locate more moose than deer. The next day would produce about the same amount of sightings with no trophy bucks.
Day three we decided to hunt an area that had produced a big buck for me in 2002. The next morning found us side-hilling in the early morning light. No sooner had I made it a few hundred yards when I heard what I thought to be a deer sneaking away from us up a ravine. I went into stealth mode. I would take a step, glass, take a step, glass. This went on for about 2 minutes when above me 150 yards away stood a nice buck standing broadside looking my direction. I pulled up my TC encore, looked at him and thought; is this the buck I want? I lowered my gun to get a different perspective and seriously considered passing on this one. All kinds of thoughts were going through my head when I finally realized how hard this hunt had been and how few bucks we were seeing. That is all it took for me to make my decision to shoot. I shouldered my rifle and took a quick offhand shot. At the report of the gun the buck dropped in his tracks. He tried dragging himself downhill, so I moved in closer and finished him with a shot in the neck. I looked back at my hunting partner and gave him a success signal. At first I was somewhat disappointed in my decision to take this deer because he was just not what I was after. During the walk up to my deer I began to realize that this was the only deer I had ever taken that got bigger as I walked up to it. Once I saw the mass and length of his G 2?s I began to get really excited. I must say I am very happy to have taken this buck, and very thankful that I chose not to pass on this one.
I will follow up with a story and pictures of the 2002 buck I had taken in the same area.
M&T
