A ND Badlands Bowhunt.......911, What's Your Emergency

Lige

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Joined
Jan 18, 2019
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240
Location
North Dakota
Had a buddy from WI and his cousin pull ND any deer bow tags, so we headed out last week for a 5 day bow hunt. Pulled in late Sunday afternoon, got camp set up and headed out to drive the area and see where it looked like the hunting pressure was (rifle youth deer, antelope bow, elk, and upland season going on as well). Looked like my A spot was a couple of other guys A spot as well, so Monday morning would find us in my second choice spot.

Day 1 - Monday morning 4 am, pop out of bed get the water boiling for coffee. My buddy’s cousin comes back from the bathroom saying he feels a little dizzy and things are spinning. Within a minute he is on his knees, vomiting violently. The guy is 67 and in great health; looking and listening to him it doesn’t sound like the flu. After going back and forth about driving in or calling 911, we decide to call 911. Dispatcher is great and a first responder, sheriff, and ambulance are all there within 15 minutes. First thoughts are vertigo. The hospital confirms this after running tests for stroke, tumor, bleeding on the brain, etc. Day one over – exciting, just not the kind we were expecting.

Day 2 – My buddy’s cousin was admitted to the hospital Monday and insisted we get back out and hunt since he’s in good hands. Tuesday morning finds my buddy and me in our second choice spot, we’ll hunt the morning and then run back into the hospital. With only a few days to hunt and this the only chance to hunt ND, my buddy is looking for any buck 3x3 or better. Shortly after sunrise a smaller 3x3 and 3x4 feed out in front of our vantage point. He opts to watch and hope to put them to bed, no such luck they eventually feed out of sight without bedding. A good first morning with about 20 deer counted. Back to the hospital to check up on things – he’s feeling better and his wife is flying in to take care of him once he is discharged and eventually drive back to WI. Get out to the parking lot and luckily we see a piece of metal in one of the truck tires sitting in the groove between a tread. To Goodyear we go to get the tire plugged. We get back, throw on the camo, Option C is too far with the time we have left so we hoof it in a mile to a pretty good looking spot and get settled in for what turns out to be an uneventful night of glassing.
P1050741-Scenic.jpg P1050743 Spotter.jpg

Day 3 – Wednesday morning finds us in option C. Lots of does and one small buck a long ways off. We spend about 2.5 hours in the area and decide to work our way out and check a drainage to the south of us. We find a good vantage point and have a buck spotted in the first five minutes, feeding on the edge of a little creek cut. Good enough for my buddy, so we start putting together a game plan for a sneak if he beds down. Movement to the right! 2 decent bucks coming in below (we’re about 100 yards above the draw) followed a few minutes later by another decent buck. They all drop into the shallow wooded draw. After watching for an hour and not seeing them move out we think they will bed in the area for the day. Scrap the sneak on the smaller buck; we will drop down and swing around and move in later in the day and try to make a play when they get up to feed. Fast forward to late afternoon – we hope to get within a hundred yards of where we last saw them and set up and wait. We work our way in, wind in our face, but sun in our face. We are within 20 yards of where we want to set up, when we see movement. We drop down behind a juniper. Looking into the sun just about cost us, but luckily the buck is feeding with his head away from us. Putting up the binocs we see 3 bucks – the one feeding, one bedded in the open shade thrown by a little ridge and the other in the shade of a tree. 3 hours of shooting light left and we are pinned with all three now bedded, nothing but 70 yds of open space between our skinny tree and the deer. Pretty good chance we’ll get a crack if we are patient. Left foot asleep, right foot asleep, butt asleep, I’m gonna pee my pants, can I buy a cloud. Almost sunset...finally, two of the bucks are on the move – wrong direction! Buck 3 is lacking motivation, he’s still relaxing. At last, with about 20 minutes of shooting light left he’s on his feet. Head down feeding away, working the direction of the other deer. My buddy makes his move, he just needs to cut the distance by 20 yards…….BUSTED!
20190918_090303 Buck Bed.jpg 20190920_083740 Muley Buck.jpg

Day 4 – My buddy gets a sneak in the morning, loses track of the buck and gets too far upwind, game over. Another sneak for him that evening on a feeding buck, buck went from slow feed to “on a mission” and my buddy couldn’t sneak fast enough. Found a cool petrified tree trunk – hard to imagine the Badlands with trees that big at one time. The highlight of the day was almost getting run over by a rutting antelope buck. He came by chasing a doe while we were glassing, could have stuck my leg out and tripped him.
P1050766 Petrified.jpg P1050759-Antelope.jpg

Day 5 – Our last day finds us back in the spot we were in on the afternoon of day 3. I’ll go high to glass and spot and my buddy is going all in – right back to the spot where the bucks seem to come through on their way to their bedding area. I remind him that they’re not whitetails and you can’t pattern them that “easy”. He says he wishes he brought his tree saddle, I just shake my head. It’s getting light enough to see. Here a doe, there a doe, forky, whoa…..700 yards out in the brush – 4 decent bucks. They look pretty content and feed in the same area for quite some time. A couple peel off in different directions, but the 2 left are slowly working their way towards my buddy. Are you kidding me?! An hour and 600 yards later; if they continue on their path they are going to walk right to my buddy. Hmm, the lead buck looks like he spooked a little, doesn’t look like he’s too shook up though. Come to find out the reason the front buck quick stepped was because my buddy missed. He shoots a single pin sight (whitetail tree stand hunter). He ranged where he thought the buck was coming through (35 yds) but the buck veered enough where he had to estimate the distance and shot under him (50 yds). On the hike out, we had a fun friendly debate on multi-pin moveable sights vs single pin. Our last night we picked a new spot and what a spot it turned out to be, I wish we had a couple more days to hunt it. Critters popping out everywhere. Unfortunately nothing in a position for an evening sneak. My buddy looks at me and says, “Sometimes it’s not always about shooting something”. I looked at him and replied “Yeah, that’s what I say too when I miss”. ;)
20190920_072959 Muley Bucks.jpg
20190920_175953 Elk.jpg
 
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