My First Buck - Southern Utah Muzzloader

tapehoser

Active Member
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Here's the pic:
IM001171.jpg


Area we hunted: West Mountain between Fillmore and Richfield, Utah, near the Devil's Armchair.

And the story:
The first day we found ourselves in what we called 'The Booby Hole', because only a booby would have dragged a buck out of that place. It was steep and nasty. But we'd seen 4 bucks all together and I had all of them in my sights at one point or another, but an ethical shot just wasn't possible. The smallest of those bucks was a 3x3. The largest was a LARGE 4x4.

The canyon around the corner from the Booby Hole was even larger, but not as steep. The rim of this canyon was horseshoe shaped but on one side, another piece of the rim dropped about a thousand feet right into the center of the horseshoe. So, if you followed the rim from the top southeast corner down to the northwest side, you would eventually end up in the bottom center of the horseshoe. So it was sort of a spiral.

Anyhoo, every time we went to this canyon, we could see deer milling about and eating right on the field near the bottom of the hole, but never took advantage of it. It just looked too deep and steep and nasty.

The first evening and the next morning we saw nothing. NOTHING. So the afternoon of the 2nd day we proceeded back to the Booby Hole where we had seen those first bucks. I called and called and grunted for 2 hours...to no avail. With about 1.5 hours of shooting light left, I decided to go around the corner from the Booby Hole into the LARGE canyon and see if I couldn't get the big 3x3 that liked to hang out in the bottom. There were a few does feeding, but no bucks. I got to within 175 yards before they heard me and took off up over the top. With the deer out of the way, I hurried towards the stand of quakies where they fed and cut the distance to 60 yards from where they fed. I stood in the quakies for a good 15 minutes before I saw the does and a 2x2 return. They were still leary and almost left again then I grunted twice. They stopped in their tracks. Then they went to leave again and I gave a big buck grunt. They wanted to leave again, but a 3rd group of grunts and fawn calls convinced them that the 'Big Daddy' was in the area and all was well. I picked a spot through the trees for a solid shooting lane. We were near the bottom of the hole, so we were all on level shooting ground. A doe passed through the lane and I knew the 2x2 was right behind her. I raised my .50 caliber Connecticut Valley Arms Buckhorn Magnum rifle and placed it on the shoulder of the doe. She passed. Then, as the 2x2 came through the iron sights, I put a 250 grain yellow-tipped bullet through the top of his left shoulder. It was a 'bang-flop'. The shot was about 60 yards and the bullet passed through both lungs and literally liquified his heart. The shot was taken with about 20 minutes of shooting light left. I gutted him and then Kurt and I dragged him 3/5ths a mile back to the 4-wheelers (we used the rangefinders to estimate the distance....it was just over 900 yards). It took 2 hours, because most of the drag was at a 60 degree angle. That was HARD.

But worth it.

We got back to our trailer at 10:15 P.M.
 
Congrats on your deer.

Next time screw the dragging bit and quarter the deer up. They come off the mountain a lot easier in the backpack I promise:)

It took me a lot of years to figure this out:(

Thanks for the story and pic!
 
Im with Prism, cut that bugger up!! I too drug my share of Deer along ways before seeing the light......Congrats on your first, you'll always remember it, I promise!!
 

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