Saturday morning 6 am, first day of the hunt. We woke up late due to a rancher that was supposed to meet us to see if we cound hunt in his land. He stated the night before to meet him at the gate at 8 am Saturday morning which ment I really couldn't hunt due to meeting him. I was alread bummed cause half the morning whould be gone, but what can you due if you might hunt on choice land. 845 rolled around and still no rancher, so we decided to hit up some land that I already knew that had some deer but not a lot and it was a good hike. We saw 2 trucks come out of the area that I was heading to. I was like o well lets hunt it anyway what do we have to lose, half the morning is shot anyway and I really didn't want to drive 30 miles back to camp.
So we drive to the last canyon and get out and start walking South into the canyon. Within 15 minutes we see one doe on the other side of the canyon. I told my buddy if there is 1 there has to be more. So we stashed out in some trees and started glassing and come to find out 4 more doe came out and were grazing. I again told my buddies there has to me more or a small buck with them. We were thinking of our next move. We decided to walk a little more South to get a different view. The deer were about 800 yards away. It was cool and windy. We walked 100 yards I spotted them again and we sat and glassed. After glassing for 15 minutes we spotted a white deer yes white "albino" deer and my buddy said it has a rack. I threw off my backpack and told them I'm gonna try to get him. It was a steap climb and windy, the wind was going to help cover my walking but don't know if my scent was going to be thrown around. I started across the canyon. Within 10 minutes I was where I planned to walk due to where they were last spotted. Then I was wondering what to do. I knew they were close but you know the terrain changes from the bottom to where your actually at. I decided to stay put and something should walk by. Well 1 minute passed and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was big and gray I knew it was a deer but didn't know it was legal due to it being 200 yards away. I set my bypod up just in case, got in the prone position and put the power on my scope to 14 to get a better look. I looked thru the scope and saw he was legal and made the decision I was going to take this deer not knowing he was a 11 point buck yet. But at that time I only saw 2 points due to him being up hill and his head was canted cause he was eating some acorns off of a tree. Also this was not the albino buck I saw earlier. This buck didn't even know I was there, I took the shot and he dropped where he was. A perfect 200 yard shot ended my hunt. I saw that he was down and didn't see him move from where I was. "This all happened within 15 seconds from me seeing him". Also when I shot about 15 to 20 other deer started running from the canyon to the North of me and were running South past him the whole mountain started moving. I walked up to where he was and what a surprise he was and 11 point what a beautiful buck, I thanked God cause I've been skunked in unit 21 two other times in muzzy season. I yelled from on top of the hill to my friends and they started up to where I was. My hunt was literally 1 hr.
My buddies helped me drag him down and the rest was history. I wanna thank my 2 buddies for joining me for this hunt and helping me drag him down. A little extra help never hurts.
