2008 NM buck

C

Calif. Hunter

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Joined
Dec 13, 2000
Messages
5,193
Location
Apple Valley, CA, USA
More later - but I bagged a really nice 4x4 muley on Sunday. What do you guess he went? He was scored SCI-style by the scorer for the NM "Big Buck" contest...

2008buck2.jpg




2008_buck1.jpg


My camera batteries were dead when we got to him, so my friend, Cody, has some on his cell phone to send me....
 
He was a big-bodied deer - weighed 179 gutted and feet/legs off. (We did the feet before realizing we hadn't weighed him yet..) Like me, too , getting grey and already potbellied... ;)

We had scouted the day before by glassing the hills. We had spotted a big, tall and very massive buck in that area. So Sunday morning, we got up early, and in the darkness, walked on in. I'd like to say it was more, but it was only about a half mile in from where we left the jeep. We were glassing the far hill, while occasionally looking behind us on the hillside where we had seen the big boy the day before. We'd move from one tree to the next, to keep hidden. We'd come to a pretty open space between trees, so we started moving low and slow. Just then, Cody glanced over his shoulder and whispered, "Big buck!" He flipped over the handle of the tripod for his binos to make a rest for me, as I had only sitting/kneeling shooting sticks with me. I looked at the buck, saw that he was at least as wide as his ears and......

promptly shot over him. He was up a hillside at about a 60 degree angle, and I was sighted in at 3 inches high at 100. He was only about 125 yards away.

I said, "Shit! He didn't move!" Cody, always being supportive and understanding, answered that "If you hit him, he'll move." ;)

I shot again, taking my time and carefully aiming for the opposite shoulder, and dropped the buck right there. My camera batteries were dead, so Cody took a couple of cell phone pictures at the kill site.

There was a two-track road about 100 yards down hill, so we dragged that big boy down to it and went back for the jeep. He was so heavy that we had a real tough time getting him up on top of the spare tire rack of that jacked up jeep that we were using.

I ended up shooting him about 50 yards from where we had seen the other big buck the day before, but about an hout earlier in the morning.

We decided to drive him into Joel's shop - the taxidermist who measured the bucks for
the NM Big Buck Contest - as he has a hoist and scale - and it was only a few miles away. That is where the pictures were taken after I replaced the batteries in my camera. Besides, I was gong to leave the carcass there in Joel's cooler while waiting for Jorge and Moe to tag out. They ended up with smaller deer: 166 and 147, respectively, but really nice bucks. Jorge's was a 4x5 and Moe's a very symetrical 4x4.

I have hunted mule deer a long time and never gotten a deer this nice. I may not ever get one bigger than this bad boy. His neck was swollen up, but there was still velvet on the base of his antlers and up the main beams about 6 inches. ???
Moe's buck had some velvet on it, too.
 
Awesome buck Cali! Congrats. Makes me look forward to being a NM resident in a few months.
 
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