ida homer
Well-known member
It's been a great year so far. Our group has been helping friends and family fill first buck tags, doe tags, first deer tags etc. Finally we have been able to get out for ourselves. We have been hunting quite a bit trying to track down some worthy bucks to hang a couple tags on.
My buddy works trails for the USFS in the Sawtooths all summer and just takes the Fall's off to hunt. I let him take his dad (who guided me to my first deer when I was 12) up to my spot in a general unit. My best deer spot burned down from wildfires 2 summers ago. I stumbled into this area with a shot in the dark scouting trip the week before the opener last year and got lucky, finding some nice bucks and took a cool goofy 4x2 in the middle of the season. No horn was broken, it just grew down and out.
A couple days after the opener Nick sent me a picture of this guy, whom his dad had killed a couple days before I was to head up and meet them. It got me pretty pumped (jealous).
Finally I found time and headed up there to get some hunting in for myself. Nick spotted this deer at about 2pm. The weather was hot and dry, everything was bedded just after first light.
We didn't think we were going to shoot him because he wasn't real wide. Maybe 18 or 19" at best. We watched him for 30 minutes until he finally turned sideways in the sun and we saw he had some extra stickers and trash. I think I'm developing a fetish for trash bucks.
We made the short stalk 100 yards straight down the mountain below us so we could get to 400 yards and shoot straight across the canyon. I got setup, had plenty of time, practiced my breathing and took some dry fires. The rest was rock solid.
I took the shot and Nick told me that I hit him hard, but maybe high as he lurched pretty good from the shot. He ran up and about 60 yards to the right of where he was standing when I first shot. Spine shot deer don't run, and if it was lungs he should be expiring soon. I shot again, with a low clean miss, as I forget to re-range and re-dial since he was now close to 475. We glassed and glassed and didn't see any deer run out. The old burn timber was fairly open, but still enough cover for a wounded deer to hide easily.
We waited 30 minutes and Nick walked over to where he was when I first shot. He started marking blood and bone fragments with orange flagging and on the GPS while I waited with my rifle ready to shoot if he busted out of the timber somewhere. We tracked him slowly and methodically for 2 hours. It was now close to 6 and I was getting worried. With the full moon we would have tracked all night.
I called my buddy Michael over the radio to come help us start tracking, as he was hunting 2 miles to our west on the other side of the canyon. None of us are very good at tracking, as only Michael has killed something archery hunting.
The tracks and pin sized blood drops started heading uphill slightly. Not good. We crested the bench that is above and to the right of the buck from the shot setup picture, basically behind the tree branches in that picture. Michael spotted a bedded deer 20 yards in front of us with his head down, when we hollered to Nick telling him we found it the buck got up and started to run like he wasn't even hit. I shot him through the lungs at 20 yards and he went down for good.
Please excuse the blood.
I couldn't have found him without good hunting buddies.
When we quartered him we couldn't find any bullet holes except the finisher in the lungs. Nick swore to me that I hit him with my original shot, and that he saw that tuft of hair move when he was watching through the spotter. Turns out I hit him in that dead zone that archery guys talk about. I was slightly relieved in that my shot ended up 2 inches below the spine but 2 inches above the lungs, just a couple inches higher than where I was aiming. We inspected the hole and the bullet did nothing. It only damaged the bottom front part of the back straps where it comes down and almost connects with the front quarter meat. No blood, no arteries, no broken spine, no holes in the lungs, nothing. Eventually we realized that the blood we were able to track came from my second shot that him low in the brisket, since I forgot to re-dial my scope.
If not for my buddies I wouldn't have been able to find that deer, and he would have survived, at least until winter. It was a good learning experience. I was using a 7mm with 160 grain accubonds that I have had very good luck with in the past. The bullet still mushroomed perfectly, I just got unlucky with where the bullet landed. My fault. It makes me wonder, had I been using a Berger VLD, would the outcome have been different?
Michael ended up tagging this buck yesterday in the same draw while I was back at work.
Oh well. We are so lucky to be able to do these kinds of hunts every year with OTC tags that we buy at Wal Mart on our way to deer camp. Poor flatlanders. I love Idaho.
My buddy works trails for the USFS in the Sawtooths all summer and just takes the Fall's off to hunt. I let him take his dad (who guided me to my first deer when I was 12) up to my spot in a general unit. My best deer spot burned down from wildfires 2 summers ago. I stumbled into this area with a shot in the dark scouting trip the week before the opener last year and got lucky, finding some nice bucks and took a cool goofy 4x2 in the middle of the season. No horn was broken, it just grew down and out.
A couple days after the opener Nick sent me a picture of this guy, whom his dad had killed a couple days before I was to head up and meet them. It got me pretty pumped (jealous).
Finally I found time and headed up there to get some hunting in for myself. Nick spotted this deer at about 2pm. The weather was hot and dry, everything was bedded just after first light.
We didn't think we were going to shoot him because he wasn't real wide. Maybe 18 or 19" at best. We watched him for 30 minutes until he finally turned sideways in the sun and we saw he had some extra stickers and trash. I think I'm developing a fetish for trash bucks.
We made the short stalk 100 yards straight down the mountain below us so we could get to 400 yards and shoot straight across the canyon. I got setup, had plenty of time, practiced my breathing and took some dry fires. The rest was rock solid.
I took the shot and Nick told me that I hit him hard, but maybe high as he lurched pretty good from the shot. He ran up and about 60 yards to the right of where he was standing when I first shot. Spine shot deer don't run, and if it was lungs he should be expiring soon. I shot again, with a low clean miss, as I forget to re-range and re-dial since he was now close to 475. We glassed and glassed and didn't see any deer run out. The old burn timber was fairly open, but still enough cover for a wounded deer to hide easily.
We waited 30 minutes and Nick walked over to where he was when I first shot. He started marking blood and bone fragments with orange flagging and on the GPS while I waited with my rifle ready to shoot if he busted out of the timber somewhere. We tracked him slowly and methodically for 2 hours. It was now close to 6 and I was getting worried. With the full moon we would have tracked all night.
I called my buddy Michael over the radio to come help us start tracking, as he was hunting 2 miles to our west on the other side of the canyon. None of us are very good at tracking, as only Michael has killed something archery hunting.
The tracks and pin sized blood drops started heading uphill slightly. Not good. We crested the bench that is above and to the right of the buck from the shot setup picture, basically behind the tree branches in that picture. Michael spotted a bedded deer 20 yards in front of us with his head down, when we hollered to Nick telling him we found it the buck got up and started to run like he wasn't even hit. I shot him through the lungs at 20 yards and he went down for good.
Please excuse the blood.
I couldn't have found him without good hunting buddies.
When we quartered him we couldn't find any bullet holes except the finisher in the lungs. Nick swore to me that I hit him with my original shot, and that he saw that tuft of hair move when he was watching through the spotter. Turns out I hit him in that dead zone that archery guys talk about. I was slightly relieved in that my shot ended up 2 inches below the spine but 2 inches above the lungs, just a couple inches higher than where I was aiming. We inspected the hole and the bullet did nothing. It only damaged the bottom front part of the back straps where it comes down and almost connects with the front quarter meat. No blood, no arteries, no broken spine, no holes in the lungs, nothing. Eventually we realized that the blood we were able to track came from my second shot that him low in the brisket, since I forgot to re-dial my scope.
If not for my buddies I wouldn't have been able to find that deer, and he would have survived, at least until winter. It was a good learning experience. I was using a 7mm with 160 grain accubonds that I have had very good luck with in the past. The bullet still mushroomed perfectly, I just got unlucky with where the bullet landed. My fault. It makes me wonder, had I been using a Berger VLD, would the outcome have been different?
Michael ended up tagging this buck yesterday in the same draw while I was back at work.
Oh well. We are so lucky to be able to do these kinds of hunts every year with OTC tags that we buy at Wal Mart on our way to deer camp. Poor flatlanders. I love Idaho.
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