never_catch
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 4,668
My 09 archery hunt started back on September 6th 2008, 4 hours after killing his best friend, when The Admiral stepped out at less than 50 yards...right then I decided it was him or bust this year period!! I spent damn near the entire spring and summer up there trying to pattern this buck and was only able to locate him on 3 occassions prior to the opener and 5 times during the hunt. He put on 20" or more of antler this year (mostly in mass and G2/G3's) pushing him over 200"...a straight 4x4 with no eye guards. Here's a couple pics of him and the buck I slammed last year. I haven't been able to get a camera on him yet this year...even with 5 trail cams rolling at all times!! If I do I'll surely post them up because he's as eye candy as it gets for a typical muley...his front are in-frickin-credible!!
I hunted 24 of the 28 days this regular season in hopes of getting a shot on this buck...with no luck :-(
My level of frustration rose higher and higher with each day that passed, and with each shot opportunity I passed up on a few other nice bucks which could have easily been my biggest kills to date. I didn't want those bucks though, I wanted The Admiral and I wanted him in the velvet!! After week 1 I had the best conversation regarding mature muleys I've ever had with my monster muley mentor and began glassing from sun up til sun down in attempts to "outlast" him and catch him moving at some point during the day...after a couple days I had him located at 7pm but with nothing I could do because of his position, the wind, the thickness of the terrain, and the amount of daylight left. Over the next 2 weeks I found him 3 more times within a few hundred yards bedded in the thick oak brush again with nothing I could do for the same reasons. The last time I saw him was when I figured I had to get more aggressive, I was making my way thru that oak brush very slowly and quietly when a bull moose came crashing over the ridge running down about 100 yards in front of me...guess who happened to be bedded pretty close?? Yup there he went with velvet hanging off his rack, game over as I ran out of hunting days and time expired. I had several shot opportunities at a couple other 4x4's and another nice 160's 4x5 that I had patterned and repatterned several times during the hunt but I decided not to shoot hoping they'd make it thru the rest of this years hunts and get bigger next year. Most of the deer up there probably don't make it past 2-3 years old...so someone has to pass em if they want to hunt big bucks. My dads muzz hunt starts next week though, maybe he'll smoke The Admiral?? Or maybe this buck named Will I...
or this wide 3x4...
or this one
Anyways looks like I'll be hunting the Wasatch Front during the rut so I'll post that story when it goes down...my Alphamax is getting blood thirsty and I'll be way less picky with no velvet on the racks
but that's how my regular season went down...
~Z~
I hunted 24 of the 28 days this regular season in hopes of getting a shot on this buck...with no luck :-(
My level of frustration rose higher and higher with each day that passed, and with each shot opportunity I passed up on a few other nice bucks which could have easily been my biggest kills to date. I didn't want those bucks though, I wanted The Admiral and I wanted him in the velvet!! After week 1 I had the best conversation regarding mature muleys I've ever had with my monster muley mentor and began glassing from sun up til sun down in attempts to "outlast" him and catch him moving at some point during the day...after a couple days I had him located at 7pm but with nothing I could do because of his position, the wind, the thickness of the terrain, and the amount of daylight left. Over the next 2 weeks I found him 3 more times within a few hundred yards bedded in the thick oak brush again with nothing I could do for the same reasons. The last time I saw him was when I figured I had to get more aggressive, I was making my way thru that oak brush very slowly and quietly when a bull moose came crashing over the ridge running down about 100 yards in front of me...guess who happened to be bedded pretty close?? Yup there he went with velvet hanging off his rack, game over as I ran out of hunting days and time expired. I had several shot opportunities at a couple other 4x4's and another nice 160's 4x5 that I had patterned and repatterned several times during the hunt but I decided not to shoot hoping they'd make it thru the rest of this years hunts and get bigger next year. Most of the deer up there probably don't make it past 2-3 years old...so someone has to pass em if they want to hunt big bucks. My dads muzz hunt starts next week though, maybe he'll smoke The Admiral?? Or maybe this buck named Will I...
Anyways looks like I'll be hunting the Wasatch Front during the rut so I'll post that story when it goes down...my Alphamax is getting blood thirsty and I'll be way less picky with no velvet on the racks
but that's how my regular season went down...~Z~
