I was the lucky recipient of the 2005 WA Raffle Tag. I live in Tri-Cities, WA and have been visiting this web-site for a couple years. As a result I've gotten some good information from the site, helped some others out on their hunts and met some great people. I wanted to thank Sam Kolb for sharing his insight from last years raffle tag experience. His advice to not "chase rainbows" all over the state was right on the money! It seems that many people have seen or know where there is a potential 200" class buck and you can spend the entire four months chasing those rainbows. Although I do have to admit that I couldn't help chasing down a few of those leads (38" buck behind Wenatchee Wall-Mart, 32" non-typical in the Desert Unit, 31 point Cactus buck in the Desert Unit...just to name a few) only to be disappointed. The end result was spending considerable time on the phone and in the field and concentrating my efforts in the later part of December in the Entiat Unit.
O.K. - here is the story, I'll try to keep it short. On my third trip to the Entiat Unit I arrived on December 15th and ran into the Governors tag holder and another gentleman who was helping him out. Not sure of their arrangement, but both seemed to be great guys. They said that they had been there for 11 days, doubled up on a snowmobile in the low temps! They hadn't seen a buck that would go in the 180's and were looking for something in the 190's. Their experience in the unit seemed to hold true to what I had been seeing during my previous trips to the unit and what several friends had experienced during bow season. I also spoke with a WF&G Biologist and he stated that they had just flown the unit on Dec. 9th in a helicopter for 6 hours, assessed approximately 2000 deer and thought that there might be one buck that would go in the 190's. And no, he didn't tell me where that buck was.
During the 5 days of hunting prior to shooting my buck I had three different friends with me, Brett Gorrel being the one with me when we spotted the buck. I was not guided by any outfitter and it was a total DIY hunt.
Late in the evening of the 19th, the weather was changing and there was freezing rain. The truck had chains on and the roads we getting pretty dangerous with ice. I had hunted for 5 full (sun up to sun down) days and only seen two other bucks that would go in the 170's. We spotted this buck on a ridgeline with several does and 2 other small bucks. We glassed him, did a quick field judge, ranged him, remembered the comment from Sam (I was never able to find the big bucks twice), and took the shot. After the shot, I heard it connect with the buck and he started slowly walking towards the top of the ridge. I took another shot that hit just under his chest and he went to running up and over the ridge.
We hiked up the ridge and found a great blood trail blowing out both sides of the buck onto the snow, down into what is said to be the nastiest canyon in the unit. We tracked the buck down the hill in thigh deep snow for about 100 yards and decided to return in the morning when we had some packs, daylight and necessities necessary for survival if we had to spend the night. We came off the hill, talked to a couple of locals that we had met earlier on the trip and they advised us not to try to walk out of the canyon trough the bottom since it was pretty much sheer cliffs in some areas. The buck had to be packed back out the top of the canyon. One of the locals (Frank) volunteered to come to the ridgeline the next morning to see where we were going in and to advise us where we should come out. After a sleepless night, Brett and I picked Frank up at daybreak and all three of us decided to track the buck down the mountain. We lost the blood trail about 3/4 of the way down the canyon, but were able to pick it up again after we split up and walked down another 200 yards. We spent about an hour and a half locating the buck and after pictures, capeing and boneing out the meat; we spent the next four plus hours climbing back to the top of the ridge.
As Sam eluded to in a previous post on this thread, there is a considerable amount of pressure that comes with the tag....weather conditions (fog, white outs, etc), dangerous roads, vacation time, expense, family obligations, stress of the "once in a lifetime opportunity" and the belief by many that because your hunting the Winter Range there will be several 190-200" class bucks to sort through in every canyon. It's just not the case. PLEASE, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining by any means!! What a tag!!!
I know it is hard to tell from the pictures, but the buck is a 5x5 (not counting eyeguards) and will make an exceptional mount with its winter hide. It was great experience and one that I will always have great memories to share with old acquaintances and newly acquired friends. I wanted to thank all of you who contributed to the success of this experience....you know who you are.
Drue