B
bbentley392t
Guest
LAST EDITED ON Aug-19-12 AT 06:59PM (MST)[p]Most of the guys I know tend to be a little bit more selective or picky, especially when hunting a LE unit with the amount of bucks like the Books Cliffs has...well to be completely honest I'm not one of those guys, lol. After making 3 separate scouting trips over the course of the past 2 months or so, I quickly learned that finding deer out there wasn't going to be the problem...it was just a matter of 'which' deer, because it seems like there's literally something for every taste out in the Books. For a guy like me, I went into this hunt with the mindset of simply bettering my biggest buck (which isn't hard with a 24" 3x3), my goals for this hunt were to harvest a 24-26" 160 class 4x4...should that be the case I'd be absolutely ecstatic, kind of a tall order but not completely unrealistic either.
Well, to make a long story short...after an inconsistent wind pattern helped bust my first stalk of opening day I was kind of disheartened and in a bad mood. I had closed to within 35 yards of a buck snug in his bed that had a good chance fitting the profile I was after...but thanks to the abundance of tall oak brush on those ridges out there, a shot just never presented itself at that distance and the wind ended up giving me away. After that myself along with a friend who also had a tag (and our 2 spotters) started glassing a canyon where we had previously seen several good bucks grazing that morning, my companion was after a higher caliber of buck and we just so happened to find a buck that fitted each of our bills a few hundred yards from each other...we made a game plan for a stalk should one of us have the opportunity to harvest or possibly both, that sounded pretty solid. So we started heading towards the other side of the canyon while our spotters kept tabs on our bucks, after a quick 1.5 mile walk we reached the point along the ridge where we needed to switch into stealth mode and make something happen...at this point my heart was racing because I knew that within minutes I'd have the chance to finally do something that I've been dreaming of for years, hoping and praying that I didn't blow it.
When I'd reached the point in my stalk when I knew that I should be getting really close to shooting range, I was against the edge of a big flat boulder and peeked over the edge...there were two decent bucks feeding at the base of the rocks. I had a pretty good idea of how far they were and didn't risk the extra movement of pulling out the range finder, so I drew back and started to stand up only to find one of the bucks had me pegged...before I knew what happened he started bounding off through the brush and I just assumed he took the other fuzzy buck with him. Sitting there in disgust, I slowly peeked over one more time to surprisingly find the bigger of the two bucks still there...quickly I drew back again and took one step up & forward onto the flat boulder, took a quick guess then put my 40 yard pin right on his motor... ... ... ... THWAACK!!! I've never heard a sweeter sound, than when my Slick-Trick hammered that unsuspecting muley and then watching him tumble over in the oak brush a mere 65 yards away...my nerves were a mess and my knees shaking because I couldn't believe what had just happened, I had just FINALLY arrow'd "my buck".
The scenario was becoming more & more perfect with each passing moment, from the location of the shot I could see in plain sight my bloody arrow and oh what a gorgeous shade of red it was...after retrieving the arrow I quickly nocked another just in case even though I knew he was down. A short 65 yard tracking job later, I came around a giant oak brush to find a gorgeous expired buck and it took me a minute to gather my bearings but it quickly hit me what I had just accomplished. Within minutes my friend had arrived and we were giving each other high fives and a big ol' bear hug to celebrate, next we snapped a few quick photos and began to quarter my buck out...it was just about 7 PM or so when I hit him and it wan't until 10 that we were out of the bottom of that canyon and back at camp, we performed a quick rough score and came up with 25.25" wide @ 159"...I was pretty pumped! Obviously his G2's are a bit shorter than I'd like, however his solid mass and pretty frame make it hard to find much fault with him and I'm looking forward to having him hanging on the wall and cooking in the skillet...I couldn't have asked for a better ending or a better group of guys to share it with, thanks for helping make this dream of mine a reality!
Well, to make a long story short...after an inconsistent wind pattern helped bust my first stalk of opening day I was kind of disheartened and in a bad mood. I had closed to within 35 yards of a buck snug in his bed that had a good chance fitting the profile I was after...but thanks to the abundance of tall oak brush on those ridges out there, a shot just never presented itself at that distance and the wind ended up giving me away. After that myself along with a friend who also had a tag (and our 2 spotters) started glassing a canyon where we had previously seen several good bucks grazing that morning, my companion was after a higher caliber of buck and we just so happened to find a buck that fitted each of our bills a few hundred yards from each other...we made a game plan for a stalk should one of us have the opportunity to harvest or possibly both, that sounded pretty solid. So we started heading towards the other side of the canyon while our spotters kept tabs on our bucks, after a quick 1.5 mile walk we reached the point along the ridge where we needed to switch into stealth mode and make something happen...at this point my heart was racing because I knew that within minutes I'd have the chance to finally do something that I've been dreaming of for years, hoping and praying that I didn't blow it.
When I'd reached the point in my stalk when I knew that I should be getting really close to shooting range, I was against the edge of a big flat boulder and peeked over the edge...there were two decent bucks feeding at the base of the rocks. I had a pretty good idea of how far they were and didn't risk the extra movement of pulling out the range finder, so I drew back and started to stand up only to find one of the bucks had me pegged...before I knew what happened he started bounding off through the brush and I just assumed he took the other fuzzy buck with him. Sitting there in disgust, I slowly peeked over one more time to surprisingly find the bigger of the two bucks still there...quickly I drew back again and took one step up & forward onto the flat boulder, took a quick guess then put my 40 yard pin right on his motor... ... ... ... THWAACK!!! I've never heard a sweeter sound, than when my Slick-Trick hammered that unsuspecting muley and then watching him tumble over in the oak brush a mere 65 yards away...my nerves were a mess and my knees shaking because I couldn't believe what had just happened, I had just FINALLY arrow'd "my buck".
The scenario was becoming more & more perfect with each passing moment, from the location of the shot I could see in plain sight my bloody arrow and oh what a gorgeous shade of red it was...after retrieving the arrow I quickly nocked another just in case even though I knew he was down. A short 65 yard tracking job later, I came around a giant oak brush to find a gorgeous expired buck and it took me a minute to gather my bearings but it quickly hit me what I had just accomplished. Within minutes my friend had arrived and we were giving each other high fives and a big ol' bear hug to celebrate, next we snapped a few quick photos and began to quarter my buck out...it was just about 7 PM or so when I hit him and it wan't until 10 that we were out of the bottom of that canyon and back at camp, we performed a quick rough score and came up with 25.25" wide @ 159"...I was pretty pumped! Obviously his G2's are a bit shorter than I'd like, however his solid mass and pretty frame make it hard to find much fault with him and I'm looking forward to having him hanging on the wall and cooking in the skillet...I couldn't have asked for a better ending or a better group of guys to share it with, thanks for helping make this dream of mine a reality!
