Well I promised everyone that I would post on here how we did after we got home. However, before I write about the hunt I want to thank everyone for their help and information. As i mentioned before, the NM folks are the best people I have ever met. I want to especially thank CRAZEYMAES, OUTNABOUT, GATOR, TERYNITUP, ALLENINNM and DROPTINE45 for their help. Not only did these guys help with phone calls and emails but I want to point out that TERYNITUP, whom I had never visited with before, even when out of his way to call and leave me a message on my cell phone while we were down there scouting to tell me about a nice buck he had found (we spent one cold and windy evening sitting in a sage valley but never found him though). Thanks again everyone!!!
Some of you questioned if we got either of the South Dakota bucks we were after. Unfortuneatly we didn't get either of these bucks, but my son Braden did harvest a decent buck opening morning.
Our trip started out pretty good. While driving into the area from Chama Saturday afternoon, we spotted a real nice buck out with some does in the middle of the afternoon in unit 4. While driving into our unit we spotted this nice buck along the trail. We passed up shots at a few deer this size during the hunt.
Saturday night and Sunday morning we spotted several nice bull elk and a couple herds of cows. Sunday morning we spotted what we felt was a solid 170 class buck. We had previously agreed that 170 would be our goal before squeezing the trigger, so we marked the spot on the map and decided to scout for other fall back options. We had previously crossed a creek on Saturday and I wasn't comfortable keeping our camp on the opposite side of that creek with the pending forcast so we decided to pull up the tent and get back to the "safe side" of the creek. this is when our trip took a turn for the worse. Well as it turns out we got the truck stuck coming back across the creek in a different spot. I know I shouldn't have risked coming back thru at this spot but I didn't want to backtrack and waste 15 - 20 minutes. After about an hour of futile attempts I had my son walk up the trail to where we had seen a truck parked earlier in the day. As it turned out we nearly missed these guys as they were pulling out to leave. They were nice about the situation and pulled us out with their brand new truck (still had the dealer plates on it). It was a little disheartening having to get pulled out by a dodge!!!
Well as you can see, when we hit the opposite bank, the front valance got broke off from under the bumper. (I never liked that thing anyway and knew it was only a matter of time before it was going to get caught on something.) As we were going down the road we noticed what sounded like a vacuum leak from from the engine. I also noticed a slight loss of power and that I wasn't getting the usuall amount of turbo boost. The noise continued to get louder so the decission was made to head to Albuquerque to get it looked at. As it turned out, when the valence got torn off, it cut a hole in the turbo piping that goes to the intercooler and thus the noise and loss of power. Well after losing a day and a half of valuable scouting time we were back in the woods.
Fortunatly it snowed about 5" while we were in town so we decided to use our final scouting day driving to some areas we wanted to check out and look for tracks. We didn't see anything more promising than our sunday morning spot so we elected to start there on opening morning.
After saturday the nights got pretty cold (down to around zero) but we stayed warm in the tent. The cold weather did keep the deer moving a little better in the mornings and evenings in spite of the full moon.
Opening morning we went looking for the 170 buck but didn't find him on the same ridge so we decided to cross over to the opposite ridge and try spotting him from the opposite side. As we were going up the other side a large buck and a doe came running straight at us. I told Braden "don't shoot - he's only got one horn". the buck stopped 60 yards away and we got a chance to look him over pretty good. After he ran off, we both agreed that he looked like the same 170 buck that we had spotted Sunday morning. I told Braden not to worry that he might be a different buck, or that at least it probably meant that there was another even bigger buck in the area that broke his antler off during a fight.
After getting back to the truck for some lunch, we received TERYNITUP's message about a nice buck he had seen. We called him up and talked about what he had seen and decided to go check it out since it was in the area of what we felt was the second best area. That evening we sat out in the sage flat in the cold and wind but didn't see anything.
Thanksgiving morning we decided to try go back to the first area since we hadn't seen any other hunters in the area and we felt that there was probably some other big bucks in there. We came across the "one horn buck" again and watched him in his bed at 150 yards. After looking at him the second time we were really begining to think that he was the 170 buck we had seen on Sunday. Fortunatly, we had also seen a really nice buck headed into some junipers with some does about 700 yards on the other side of the fence from our unit boundry. Thinking that this bigger buck might be the one that broke the 170 buck's antler, we decided to come back that evening and see if they fed across the fence into our unit.
That evening not long after setting up on a ridge to spot for the evening, I spotted a couple does down in the sage valley below. As soon as I got the spotting scope on them I noticed a buck come up out of a dranage behind them and immediately recognized him as the original 170 buck from sunday morning - and he had both of his antlers!!! The "one horn buck" was not the same deer but coud have been his identical twin.
We watched the three deer for a while and the buck bedded down. After another 10 minutes, the two does fed off, and to our suprise the buck stayed bedded. We were able to sneak up to about 175 yards of the bedded buck and waited for him to get up. After getting set up for the shot it was only another 10 minutes before the buck decided to get up. However, when he got up, he immediatly started walking directly away from us. I told Braden to get ready for the shot and I whistled at the deer. He continued to walk away and was a few steps from going over a small ridge so I decided to whistle again but louder. This time the buck stopped and looked back, and Braden took the shot and dropped him in his tracks.
As we approached the buck, I appologized to Braden as I had missjudged the size of this buck. It wasn't a 170 buck, instead it was a 180 buck!!! We were both extremely excited and overcome with emotion after thinking that this buck had broken off one of his antlers.
After we got home Braden put a quick tape to him and came up with 180 1/2" gross and 2 1/2" of net deductions.
This was a wonderful hunt getting to spend quality time with my son and getting to experince some new country. I know that last year 180 people applied for this one non resident tag and just found out yesterday that nearly 100 people applied for this single tag this year. I know Braden was very lucky for drawing this great tag and we are very apprecieative of NM for having these youth opportunities. We just hope that we did justice to this unique opportunity.
Thanks again to all that helped make this a hunt to remember.
Brian and Braden