LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-11 AT 01:24AM (MST)[p]Well hell.......you finally got me too.
My first deer hunt was in 1961. Took one shot with an old Enfield .303. Aimed at one muley and hit and killed a completely different deer. Only missed hunting deer one year until 2005 at which time I decided I would never kill another Utah deer with a general season tag until our deer herd was back on its feet. I still scout for my grandsons and encourage them to shot when they see a buck they want to kill.
I hope, before my eyes and knees are completely gone, I can kill more deer in Utah but unless things change, I'm in the bleachers when it come to Utah deer. I don't begrudge anyone else killing deer, as long as the DWR issues tags people have a right to hunt and harvest. I got plenty of issues when it comes to mule deer management but as long as they're selling tags, people have the right to try to fill them.
I kept tack of my numbers until some time back in the 80's, when my kids started shooting deer, after that, I lost track. I only remember killing more than one deer a year once. I always told my hunting buddies, "don't you ever kill a deer and expect me to tag it, and I will not kill a deer for you, kill your own and let me kill mine."
I've never killed a bragging buck. I've had three chances that I can remember.
One was a running away shot at a stud of a buck out on Parker Mountain. I guessed him at 350 yards and held the old BAR 7mm about a foot over his head and hit right where I'd aimed. By the time I cussed a little and composed myself I figured he'd run another 75 to 80 so I figured I hold in the same place, about a foot over this head again, and sure enough, I hit right between his antler again, a foot high. He must have been a lot closer than I'd figured, because, you know, I'd have never just aimed poorly!!!!
Second was on Thousand Lake Mt. cannonball and I found a 160 acre patch of private ground that was part of the general muzzleloader unit, clear on top the mountain. I was carrying my kentucky long rifle flint lock (built by none other than the cannonball he's self), all decked out in beads and hair-pipe, feeling all fat and sassy. cannonball circled a quakie grove one way, I went the other. One of the prettiest buck you can image walk up to the edge of the quakies, and stops, broad, at about 50 yards. Perfect 4 by 4, main beams are 5 inches past this alert ears. Heavy chocolate antlers, 4 inch eye guards (give or take.) A chip shot, even with the flinter. I straighten right up, right foot slightly forward, I'm a lefty. Focused. Raise that 50 inch octagon barrel. Solid, like a bench rest. Breathe out, squeeze slow. Pan flashes, I'm a marble statue, holding, holding, holding, powder ignites, right on que. Ball leaves barrel, hits dirt, 2 feet in front of his left shoulder. Buck turns, wanders back into quakies. I'm left, holding my gun! cannonball..........well, he can be an SOB at times.
Third and the largest buck I've ever had a shot at. Tusher Mountains, low country south of I-70. Long day. First year of the early muzzleloader season. Two of us, hot and tired, 30 minutes of light left. Coming off the mountain on the Quads. Yep, road hunting!!!! Big buck, big, big buck, bottom of a deep canyon, off to the right of the road. We tenderly shut them down, 100 yards down the road. We angle back, down the canyon, thick J-P for cover. My buddy is waiting for my like one pig waits for another. I'm fat, he's fast. I slip out of the cedars when I think I'm about right to be straight across from Mr. Big. I step around the last cedar and say to myself, "I'll be damned, we didn't boo him, he's still right where he was". Straight across the canyon, 130 yards +/-. I can see my bud, 20 yards below me, and he's already in a shooting frame of mind. I think, "carp, dead deer"! This guy don't miss when he pulls the trigger. But I get ready, just the same. He shots, dirt flies, deer wheels and heads right straight up the canyon wall. I've got one shot. Muzzleloader, you know how that works. I'm thinking,"he just might stop when hits the top". Then I do something abnormal for me, I wait. Mr. Big gets 20 yards from the top and hits the skids and looks back over his shoulder as my buddy. I figure, hot damn, I got a 18 inch wide by 4 foot long target, even at 150/200 yards, I can spine shoot him regardless of how far this maxie ball drops. I'm shooting up hill at 50 to 60 degrees. I'm now down in the canyon and he's at the top. I remember that Parker Mt buck I'd missed 20 years before so I thinking, "I'm holding on hair this time folks". I level the Austin Hallack (I'd borrowed it from my son.) right at the base of his gorgeous head. I crack the cap. I can hear my skinny buddy, screaming. and when I can finally see through the smoke, Mr. Big is starting to slide down the canyon wall, then he starts to tumble, and then he's literally cartwheeling, azz over tea kettle down to the canyon floor where he comes to an abrupt stop, 100 across and below me. The fall should have killed him. This was one of those old hog bucks, antlers well past his ears, we guessed 32" to 34" wide. Massive main beams, through binoculars they looked like scrub oak stumps. No eye guards but gnarly stuff that started at his skull went clear out to where his front forks started. He had 8 inch front forks +/-, that carried their mass clear out to the tips. His backs were thinner, by comparison, and the forks were short, maybe 5 or 6 inches. (His back forks made me think his teeth were poor and he'd started to regress.) I've seen a few dandies over the years, my buddy has seen more. This was the biggest buck I'd ever pulled down on, by far.
So.........here's the rest of the story. Even though, I had a giant laying in a heap, a 100 yards away, things went in the crapper right after I pulled the trigger. Austin Hallack's have an issue that I learned about the hard way. They have a bolt action that opens to allow you to slide a percussion cap on the nipple and when you close it, it cocks the trigger. Well.............I can get a little excited, at times like these. Calm as hell usually. (Well, some might question that.) Anyway, being a seasoned old mountainman from back in the 70's, I know the first thing you do after firing your piece, "load up another, real quick like". Now, I have killed a few deer with a muzzleloader over the years, so I kind of have an idea how all this works. With my buddy screaming, "you broke his back, you broke his back, you broke his back, I can't believe you hit him, I can't believe it, you broke his back". As I watch Mr. Big cartwheel down the canyon, my adrenalin is up a titch, and I reach up and grab that bolt and jerk the action open with a significant degree of force. Like all the force a 250 pounder can muster in a moment of high anxiety. Next thing I know, I've got a bolt in my left hand and an Austin Hallack in my right.
Without looking down, I'm trying to put the bolt back into the actin as I stumble my way down to where my buddy is screaming. I come to breathless slide next to him and he's hopping around like a ten year old on a trampoline. The way that buck came down that canyon wall and piled up at the bottom we were both certain I'd spin shot him. We were celebrating and bragging and boasting about what a beast he was and how he was going to look on the wall, what a hell of a shot I'd made, and what great hunters were, etc., etc. After a few minutes of a pure and unadulterated testosterone induced war dancing my buddy decides I aught to just get on over there and claim my prize. I was at that time that I showed him my hands, A bolt in one and a muzzleloader in the other. His response, "will put the damn thing back in". I explained to him my inability to do that. His response, "give it to me". He soon discovered, that he to wasn't all that smart either. The bolt was not going back in that gun until my son put it there. He say's, "well take mine, I'll stay here until you get over there so I can direct you to him through that willow patch. (The bottom of the canyon was full of thick patch of willows.) He cant go any where, his back's broke". Well, I agreed and I can see blood running out his nose, but been as I'd already screwed up getting two other really big bucks in my life, I'm a little edgy and I say, "maybe I should put another shot into him. just to make sure". My wise and ever so thoughtful buddy, whom I trust with my wife, say's, " the hell you will, you'll hit an antler, your not going to shot at him from this distance, he can't go anywhere, just get over there and finish him off at point blank". I'm thinking, "ya, your always way head of me, I probably will shot a beam off", so off I go. Down into the willows and out the other side. Just as I come out of the willow patch, I see Mr. Gig, at twenty yards, and he sees me. Up he staggers. "What the hell!" I throw up my buddies rifle. "What the hell", again. "A peep sight!" "On a muzzleloader!" "Son of a bit_h!" (I haven't shot a peep site in 30 years.) Mr. Big is staggering, stumbling, wobbling, weaving, walking, running, then bounding, through the cedars. 2lumpy is cursing, wobbling, and waving that peep site around trying to find a front sight and Mr. Big, who's "broken back" is looking pretty damned healthy at the moment. He hits the cedars, I never pull the trigger. Gone, finished, done. Here one second, gone the next.
Never saw him again, tracked blood for 300/400 yards. Ran out of day light. Picked up my sons and two other friends and made circles on the mountain for two miles over the next two days. Went back ever three days for a month to see if any crows/magpies showed up, nothing. Never found him, never heard of anyone ever seeing him again. Course, anyone could have shot him on the rifle hunt but as big as he was I was hopeful someone might show him off if they'd kill him.
I've lived that experience a million times over the years and tried to figure out where happened. My best guess is this. I was shooting at sharp uphill angle, I held on the the back of his head, because on the angle of the canyon wall his head and front shoulder where three feet higher than his butt. He was straight across and straight up. With the angle of the hill, even at 150/200 yard or what ever it was, the maxie ball was still climbing and gravity wasn't dragging it down like it would have had I been taking a flatter shot. Therefore, rather than hitting him in the spine, like we figured, I had shot slightly to the left and where as the bullet didn't drop much, it hit him in the face somewhere, (right where I held) that was why he was bleeding out his nose. Of course a 400 grain piece of lead to the face would tend to make one a little tipsy and with the angle of the canyon wall, when he went down, he start to slide then tumble and he was literally fling head over back-side down the mountain, and he hit with a resounding thump. Me and my bud (my bud and I, if your keeping score here) were so proud of ourselves we stood there and admire him for 5 minutes, while he's gathering his senses. When I came out the other side of these willows, right next to him, he got energy and struggled to his feet and after 20 or 30 yards he was back on a dead run, while I'm waving the peep sight around, trying to find him in the site. My guess is, he lived and may have died of old age, I'd rather think that than I'd shot his jaw to pieces and he starved to death, but I'll never know.
I've learned some good lessons over the years. Wouldn't trade the memories for anybody else's.
Regarding, the number of deer I've killed, I really have no idea, a fair number I guess, more than some, less than others. The truth is, I think I have let far more deer go that I've ever killed. For some of us, after we've killed a bunch, killing a deer isn't as important as it once was. Until 2005 I never stopped hunting deer in Utah but by enlarge I stopped killing deer quite a few years before I stopped buying a tag. There is nothing I would like to do more than carry a rifle on the deer hunt again, but for me, I can't bring myself to do it until things get better for this great animal. Got absolutely no quarrel with the my good friends that kill deer every year. We all have our perspectives and our outlooks, to each his own, and for those of you that are hunting mule deer in Utah this year, I hope it the best experience you've ever had.
Now, why would I set here and write all this, when I know that most folks won't bother to wade through it. Here's way. I got grandkids that love the outdoors. They love the life style we've taught them. Someday they'll have kids and more kids will have kids. After I post these diatribes on MM, I cut and paste them into my personal history, someday, a hundred years from now or longer, some of my posterity might have some interest in what us old boys did in the our lives. These stories, opinions and discussion are mostly for them. I just use these posts on MM as a motivator and a stimulator to get the stuff on paper. If it's of any interest to anyone else, I'm glad, if not, no skin off, me I've got what I wanted out of your ideas and your stories and opinions and I put my experiences together for my grandkids.
If that seems of interest to you, you aught to dredge up all of your pass posts and copy them into your word processor and print them out. Even if it's just the nonsense stuff that you might have put out on the Campfire threads. Everything you say and do gives someone in the future a window into who you are, what you are, and what made you tick. I've got to think that will be of value to your family in the future. I wish to hell my father and grandfathers had left me more history on their lives, they were great men and I know so very little about them.
HuntMaster, thanks for your question, it's given me another chapter in my book of life.
DC