Ok, ok, so I guess I'll waste a little time and tell the story. Bobcat, I wish I had an LE tag! I surely wouldn't have killed this buck if I had one.
Well the story starts out well before daylight, no were birds chirping yet, I could hear the creek flowing briskly in the draw below. The area I was hunting was steep, with a lot of open hill sides and pockets of thick cedars and oak. All of my hunting buddies backed out at the last minute on me, so I was on my own. As I worked my way finally to the crest of the ridge, the sun was starting to come up. I looked over on to the next ridge I could see a few deer moving into the trees. I thought one of them was a decent buck but he never came out where I could get a good look at him. There were several smaller bucks that were still out feeding, nothing that really got my attention. I knew that there was one really good buck that stayed in that canyon and he was the one I was after. I had found him while pre season scouting. This buck was a monster. He was a 8X9, and I gueesed to be around 33" wide. I had acctually missed him on the muzz hunt a month earlier. And I had a debt to repay! That's a whole different story in it's self. The canyon the buck was staying in was exteremly steep and thick. I knew that if I didn't catch him out early and in the open I knew the only way I get a chance at him was to make a drive. But, there was no way I would be able to do it alone. I worked my way across the ridge tops to see if I might be able to get a better look at the buck I saw go into the trees. As I was sitting there glassing into the draw another hunter walked up behind me. We talked for a minute about what we had been seeing. I told him that I wanted to try a drive up through the trees to try to get the buck out. He agreed and said that his buddy was just over the hill and he would also be willing to help out. I told Craig that he could stay at the head and me and his buddy would drop off almost to the bottom and push back up. As we made our way to the bottom, I kept thinking we would bump some deer, hoping that the big boy would be with them. No luck, no deer at all! So we circled around and started to push up. I crossed over to the ridge that I saw the deer go into earlier that morning. I was nearing the edge of the trees, and hadn't bumped a single deer! I couldn't believe it. When I just happened to look up and saw a buck moving across the open face just below where Craig was sitting on a large rock out cropping. I couldn't tell exactlly how big he was, I just knew he was decent. He was still a long way off. I kept waiting for Craig to shoot. It semed like it took forever. Finally, boom,.......boom, and the deer disappeared over the ridge. I made my way up to Craig, and he said that he had missed him! He said that the buck was a 4X4 that was about 25-26" wide. We searched the area for blood, nothing. It was getting later in the day, and I had to be back for work. I was getting ready to call it quits, when Craig decided that he was going to push a small draw just on the other side of the ridge. I was too tired after the climb I had just made so I positioned myself about 300 yards away where I could see all sides of the draw. Craig hadn't been gone 5 minutes when I heard boom! And then I could hear the deer crashing through the rocks and trees. He came out moving broadside across the hillside. I thought the deer was long gone, and there was no way Craig was going to jump him, so I didn't even have a bullet in the chamber, and I still had my scope covers on. I made a mad dash to get everything in order, pulled up and fired. WHOP! No question about that shot, but he kept going. I shot two more times. Missed the first, the last shot was at about 400 yards. I held steady and fired again. That time I thought I saw him stumble and go down, he disappeared out of sight over the ridge top. I stayed where I was and hollard at Craig and told him what path the buck took and to check for blood. Criag said that he had missed him when he had shot because his gun had jammed. Criag made it to where I hit the deer the first time and found blood. I made my way over to him and tracked it to where I thought I saw him go down. We found a large blood stain in the grass where he had fell but no deer. We tracked the blood for about an hour before we finally jumped him again. We could tell he had been hit hard the first shot, and that's when I found out why he went down on the last. I had hit him just below the front shoulder and all but taken off his leg. Just a couple inches higher and it would have been all over. One last shot finished the job. Even though he wasn't the big boy, I was pretty happy with him. He ended up being 25 1/2" wide, with a 4X3 mainframe and a 2" kicker off his left side. Just a side note to this story, my brother went back out to the same area that night and found the big buck that I was after. He shot him and was tracking him to get another shot. The deer unltimately ended up getting it taken (stolen) from him by another, unethical, hunter. I posted the story here on MM not long after it happend. I wasn't pretty. The deer ended up being an 8X9 34" wide. The buck had a similar main frame 4X3 as mine with several kickers. That was a bad deal! Told you guys I'd take up your day!
Later,
Elkster
