LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-08 AT 01:43AM (MST)[p]hunting strawberry, sheepcreek and the waters in the 80's pretty much ruined me on deer hunting.
haveing a deer or elk stolen was a yearly event, we hunted off horses and would push and sit on ridges watching for the deer we pushed. if we did shoot one ,by the time we got back to the horses and to the deer some A@@ hole was usually there, it happened every year, usually a guy with a kid,
but one year, i was 15 and shot a great little buck. i watched him drop, got to the horse, and took off, i get to it and start "trying" to clean it I heard some one crunching through the bushes and turned to see a scoped rifle aimed at my head, with some old sum beatch yelling at me to get the hell away from his deer, i got away from it and to my horse, and met my dad and grandpa who were working there way down to me, i was about to bawl when i told them the story, they took off like they were on fire, we got to the guy and he was just as bad to them as he was to me. after a tense moment we left him on the mountain with the deer. he was on foot and had at least 2 miles to take it.
i leaned a lesson that day. most guys will do anything for a set of horns.
later that day i shot a spike and was thrilled.
this was in the Bad old days of sheepcreek when seeing two bucks in the same hunt was rare.
since then i have had some really good experiences and a few bad ones, harder to remember the good ones though.
3 years ago i was glassing a pocket in a hole, i was watching a pretty good buck, WAY out of range for me, so i was just watching, awhile later i saw two orange dots skyline above him, then boom.boom,boom,boom......about 10 shots, i saw the deer get hit but badly, and he ran.....straight to me i smashed him in the lungs at about 45 yards with a .300 mag. i walked up to him and sat down, the two dots came running up to me yelling about me stealing their deer,
i looked up in total disbelief,
1. the shot that hit the buck was not a fatal shot, maybe a week later from infection. s this buck was not theirs at all.
2. they would have never seen this buck again had i not shot.'
3. i never had any intention of taking the buck.
after explaining to them, they were very appreciative. and i helped pack it out for them. he was just shy of 30 with a dropper.
had the roles been reversed i know they would not have done the same.