elkfanatic
Active Member
- Messages
- 154
Well after 7 hunts, 5 archery 2 rifle, I finally got a buck on the ground. I had a tough time with this hunt. My bow was somehow off for the first 5 days of the hunt and I missed a few shots. I went back last friday with the intent of hunting saturday and sunday. We started out saturday morning and did not see a deer until 8:30. Granted I have never seen a truly big buck, the buck with this group was probably 25" wide and 150" as a 3x2. They took us up the biggest mountain possible and we lost them. About a half an hour later we spotted a small fork horn buck heading to the waterhole. We followed him as he was on a mission heading somewhere. We came around a ridge and saw a herd of about 10 deer with 4 legal bucks. The big 3x2 and another 4x3 were the target bucks. As we backed out to get above the deer we spotted a 24" wide forkhorn heading to the water tank. He went in and drank and then came towards us and bedded down in an arroyo. We were loving having a back up plan and attempted to go for the other deer. When we got over the ridge we knew we were just too far away to make it there without getting spotted, so we attempted a stalk on the other buck. About halfway back down the mountain he started coming towards us. When he raked his antlers I slowly moved down the mountain. He moved even closer and ended up bedding under a tree at 122 yards. I slowly picked my way down the mountain and made it to an acceptable position. I decided to shoot him out of his bed. I drew and stood and he stayed put even though he was staring at me. I let the shot go and heard a kind off swoosh sound. I knew I had missed and watched the buck as he bounded off. I went down and found my arrow about 2 feet in front of the bucks bed as it hit the top of the opening in the tree. I was really angry and I turned to watch my buddy scramble down the mountain. When I turned back this buck came out of nowhere about 130 yards away walking as if he was chasing the other buck off. I nocked an arrow and just decided to parallel the buck as he didn't notice me. I got into range and got a shot at a hard quartering angle. I hit a little farther back than I wanted but I hit the femeral artery and caught his liver and the back of one lung. He ran about 150 yards and dropped about a mile from a vehicle but only 300 yards from a road.
