2nd Rifle, Public Land DIY Success!!

alinrut · Oct 23, 2012

My friend Nate put the hammer down on this buck early in the morning. We had seen a buttload of deer and he stayed strong and patient..he knew what he wanted and wasn't gonna settle for "any" buck!!

The 2nd day of our hunt, we stumbled on a deer that had been shot and was struggling. We hadn't heard a shot in the last 8 hours!!! We thought our season was done given what we had heard about DOW. We called the local office anyway, and the Game Warden came out...the only question was if we wanted to tag the 2x3 and we said "Hell No", we gutted it for him and he took it to donate to a local family. He also gave us some local information about what was "big" in this area and the next day we found "The One"

Good luck to ya'll and I hope everyone had a good season thus far!!

oilcan · Oct 23, 2012

Great looking Buck congrats

DUKFVR · Oct 23, 2012

Congrats on a Nice deer!

Shadows · Oct 23, 2012

Great buck, pumpkin frames score well!

elks96 · Oct 23, 2012

Great buck... Funny how we all "hear" things about the DOW. In all honesty they tend to be pretty honest/fair guys if given the chance. For example, a few years back I had a buck tag that was really a meat tag(left over tag in a heavily hunted unit), but I always look for a good buck before settling for a 2 point. At any rate a good 4 point had walked in front of me and I put the hammer down. Long story short the animal had been sick and as a result it had no body weight at all. I tagged the animal as I had legally killed it, and drug it to the truck. I was able to load the deer in the truck without even dropping the tail gate. We headed to the local DOW office. I had no intention of feeding the sick buck to my family. When we arrived I explained the situation to the officer.

It was the second to last day of the season and I had already hunted hard. At any rate, the officer asked asked if I was only concerned about getting meat to my family and I responded yes. He offered me 3 options, 1 get a reprint buck tag and hunt the last day in hopes of getting another buck, 2. Issue me a doe tag for the unit in the next season or option 3. Take a spike elk that had been accidentally shot earlier that morning. Well it was an easy decision. We used the tractor to load up the spike elk that was already gutted and skinned. I honestly had went there with the expectation that I would hand them the dead buck and leave empty handed. Not very often you can trade a sick mule deer buck for a tasty spike elk.

Congrats on the hunt.

ColoradoOak · Oct 23, 2012

Classic looking buck.

hunt4130 · Oct 23, 2012

nice buck!

alinrut · Oct 23, 2012

Thanks guys, I really want to make sure ya'll understand it isn't my deer, I was just part of the team that helped out...

Elk 96, your absolutely right about most of the Game Wardens being down to earth. It just depends on the situation and facts. I know a Game Warden in Idaho and he's a pretty down to earth guy, he honestly doesn't want to be put in a position to be the #####.

You got a good deal on the spike elk...that's a no brainer!!

Again, thanks everyone...it was a nice animal..the biggest I've ever been involved in harvesting and I just wanted to share the story!!! My wife get's tired of hearing it over and over!!!

al

"I'll see ya on the mountain sometime, and if I do it's my own damn fault for not getting far enough away from the road!!"