A perfect storm for a bow hunt

[CouesKelly]

My 2023 OTC archery deer season started off in January. I had a OTC deer tag and an archery javelina tag in my pocket. @Wallydeuce was planning on coming out for a week to chase coues with a bow as well. We had scouted out some great water holes to sit prior to the season and of course it had been dumping rain leading up to the hunt. After coming out of a pretty heavy drought the prior year, rain played a big role in my season. I promise that this is a deer story. It just begins with a javelina detour

New years day opening day of season. I headed out solo to an area I had scouted in December for Javelina. I had reliably located a squadron of pigs a few times in this area so I figured it would be my best bet. Rain in the forecast, but it was overcast and dry as the sun came up. I hiked in about a 1/4 mile to glass a hillside I had seen them on a week ago. Sat a glass for a while with no sign of any piggies. The hillside goes up to a flat mesa top so I hiked up it and still hunted through the mesa. After about 30 min I heard flipping rocks and pigs huffing and grunting. I followed the noises and spotted across a drainage to the south. There were about 5-6 javelina feeding on the south facing slope of the drainage almost on top where it flattens out again into another mesa. Checking the wind I was able to plan a stalk down through the drainage and up the slope they were on upswing of them. As I slowly climbed up the slope (it was very loose and I was rolling rocks down the slope as I went ) They crested the hill and worked their way up onto the mesa and out of sight. I kept working toward where they disappeared. As I crept along the ridge I heard them feeding before I saw them. I got to about 20 yards and spotted one in the brush ahead. Still feeding, the wind in my favor, I decided to stay still and allow them to feed until one cleared the brush for a shot.


As I stood still, eventually 3 pigs fed out toward me. One presented a quartering shot, I slowly drew my bow, settled my pin mid body behind the collar and released my arrow for a 15 yard shot. The arrow found its mark with the telltale thud. The javelina bounded off to my right and out of sight. The rest of the group fled as well.
I found my arrow with good blood on it and started looking around for a blood trail.

I found some small drops about 15-20 yards away. Drop.. drop....puddle.... dead pig. He hadn't ran far and had expired quickly. The clouds were coming in a lightning and thunder were threatening a pretty serious deluge. I snapped a quick photo and went to work.

I hung the javelina in a tree and was able to skin and quarter off the ground. 4 quarters, backstraps and tenderloins all fit nicely in 1 deer sized quarter game bag. I was sweating now from working quickly to break him down and it started to rain. Straped everything into my load shelf on my pack and got moving. It was about a mile back to the jeep but one trip. As I hiked it started coming down in big fat drops. I was pretty soaked once I made it back to the Jeep. Got it all in the cooler and headed home. I was pretty glad to have filled the Javelina tag on the first morning. It rained pretty good for the next few days and I heard reports that most hunters were having trouble locating pigs due to them hunkering down from the rain. Javelina was checked off the list and now I could concentrate on deer only once Wally arrived the following week.

 

[Caseknife]

Way to go, now go get your buck.

 

[Beignet]

Nice write up! Are Javelina pretty skittish about scent and such? I haven’t been to AZ since I was a kid and have never actually seen one in person. But, I think my girlfriend and I might apply for rifle tags and make a little February trip out of it if we draw. She doesn’t bow hunt or I’d be all in on chasing them with archery tackle.

 

[CouesKelly]

AZ OTC archery tags run for the calendar year. So my objective on deer in January was to target big bucks only. Wally could shoot whatever pleased him, but I was going to hold out. It was a bug buck or nothing since I would have the subsequent August/September/December to fill this tag if I couldn't get it done during the rut in Jan.
I had mostly planned on doing a mix of spot and stalk and sitting water, but the recent storms had made sitting water feel like less of a slam dunk. The morning Wally arrived, he went to go set up his blind on a water he had scouted that looked like it could be good. I went to a hill to glass the side of a mountain I like and started glassing. I turned up a small buck and few does about 7-800 yards away on the mountain as well as a group of 3 does way off in the distance. As I was glassing, I had a doe appear about 30 yards away on a hill across the road I had pulled off from. As she moved across the road, she worked her way down below me. Following her with his head right up her tail was the ugliest coues buck I had ever seen! His mainbeam was broken off on one side and he was maybe a 3 point on the other? broken tips from fighting and looked pretty beat up on his neck too. I wish I had snapped a photo. He was within bow range but was not a deer I was interested in so I let the two carry on with their business as they walked away. I just had to laugh since it would have been a perfect opportunity for Wally if he had liked that buck. He met me at the glassing point about 30 min later after he had set his blind. I told him the story of the ugly buck and showed him the buck and does that were up on the mountain. He was able to see for the first time how small they are and how difficult they can be to pick up in the glass. As were are standing there chatting, another buck (a forky) starts cruising along the same path as the Ugly buck and doe. Head down and clearly following the scent. Wally and I are caught totally off guard. The buck walks over the hill and I ask Wally if he wants to go after it. We scrambled to grab his bow and get ready. We quietly stalked over the hill where the buck had disappeared, but the was no visual sign of him. The wind had started swirling once we got to the top of the hill and we could not tell if he had cross the road and followed the ugly buck/doe or if he had escaped into a drainage on the other side due to winding us. A exciting start to the day!
We glassed for a while longer but really didn't turn anything else up that morning.

 

[CouesKelly]

Nice write up! Are Javelina pretty skittish about scent and such? I haven’t been to AZ since I was a kid and have never actually seen one in person. But, I think my girlfriend and I might apply for rifle tags and make a little February trip out of it if we draw. She doesn’t bow hunt or I’d be all in on chasing them with archery tackle.

Scent is their primary defense. They don't see really well, so if they wind you they will get skittish and run. They will tolerate noise that sounds like another javelina pretty well since they are usually in groups. Play the wind and get within range and you can do pretty well with a rifle. I think the hardest part about hunting them with a rifle is finding them. They get pushed around a bit with the archery, HAM, and youth season prior to rifle. Draw is open now for this spring.

 

[CouesKelly]

I can't remember if we spent the next day at the same spot or not. I know we spent more time there and it was not very productive. We spotted some deer there but it seemed they would just move through and we couldn't keep track of them long enough to see them bed down.

I had a spot that I liked for glassing that was bit a further away in the same unit that I wanted to check out next. Nice spot where you can pull off the main road and glass into a canyon from a point. You can see both the north facing, south facing, and the brush bottom pretty well from the glassing point. The canyon has another drainage to the north and a flat top mesa with 2 cattle tanks on top to the south. The deer would be on the south facing slope in the mornings feeding and then would cross the bottom and bed in the shad of the trees of the north facing slope oil they afternoon.

The first morning here I spotted two groups of does. I watched them for a while and eventually located a buck following a single doe. They were about 800 yards away and on the move. This was a pretty decent buck. 3x3 tall narrower frame, but seemed to have good mass. I locked onto the buck and watched them all morning. I wanted to wait until they were bedded and then make a play. All morning I watched him follow her all over. At one point they got spooked by a group of coyotes and ran even further away. Around noon they worked into the brushy bottom and I could only pick them up a few times in there. I lost them eventually and did not have a good idea of where they bedded down. No stalk to be made. I was able to snap a few photos of the buck. I was definitely coming back to this spot tomorrow.

 

[CouesKelly]

The next morning we get into the same spot at sunup and get to glassing. I spotted quite a few does this morning and a small forky buck chasing a doe. After a while I picked up the big buck from the previous day. Chasing a doe again. She would feed and move, feed and move, bed down for a while, feed and move. He kept within 50 yards or so at all times occasionally bedding as well. I pretty much had my sights set on this buck now as he was the biggest one I had found yet. I just needed to keep track of him until he offered an opportunity at a stalk. At about midday the pair moved out of the canyon I was glassing to the next smaller but narrower canyon to the north. I assumed they were moving to bed on the shady side of the north facing slope of that canyon. I let Wally know I was going to make a move and try to relocate them over in the next canyon and attempt a stalk. I took the jeep north up the road past the canyon and parked on a hill that I could drop down along the ridge and ave good wind and a vantage point where I could potentially find them again. I hiked down to a spot where I thought I might be able to glass them up bedded on the north sloe and set up my tripod and binos. I gridded the heck out of that slope and nothing. I continued to hike down toward the point where the two crossed over from the adjacent canyon and started scanning the south facing side. It was hot and there was not much vegetation on that slope, nothing there. Then I caught some movement along the bottom. A group of 3 does was traveling along the bottom. I figured I lost the buck and does, might as well watch this group to see if a buck follows. They ended up bedding down in the brush at the bottom. No sign of a buck, but I figured why not creep closer and stay uphill from them within range. The afternoon thermal was blowing up pretty consistently and bucks will typically still travel around midday to check on does during the rut. The move downhill was pretty painful. I underestimated timed the amount of catclaw and spiky brushy vegetation that was between me and the does. During the slow decent, I took one step, then unhooked whatever plant had attached to me, then another step and repeat. I had committed though and I was going to get down there!

I got to about 30 yards from the bushes I knew the does were behind. I was so concentrated on trying to step lightly and detangling myself quietly from all the brush, and keeping an eye on the spot the does were, that I never really looked up or across the canyon from me. As soon as I reached a spot that I thought might be a good spot to stop and wait, one of the does blew out of there. Did they smell me? Did they hear me? Maybe.... but then I looked up and directly across from me on the opposing slope was the big buck working his way in to check on the does. He was a little higher up than me but about 50 yards across. I looked up and spotted him and he seemed to look right at me at the same time, both of us in shock to see each other. I tried to draw back but of course it all happened too fast and he ran straight up the hill and out of there. Hot and sweaty and ready to haul my but up and out of the bottom of that canyon, I get a text from Wally and he has a buck budded and headed on a stalk.

It took me a while to get out of the canyon- I went a longer way out to avoid the spikey hell I had just gone through. Once I got back to the glassing spot Wally seem to still be on his stalk. I went and looked through his spotter and it was locked down on a buck bedded in the shade of a tree on the North facing hill we had originally thought would be and excellent bedding spot. No sign of Wally yet but since the buck was still bedded, I knew he was on the stalk. I got myself an ice cold gatorade from the cooler and settled in to watch the stalk unfold. I texted him that the buck was still bedded and he told me he was below the buck but couldn't see him yet. I tried to give him a good reference of where the buck was in relation to a fence that was on the same hill. Wally got pretty close but didn't have a visual before the buck blew out. No shot opportunity, but he did get some stalking action. 2 stalks that morning so it was a productive day.


Some photos of a doe an a forky chasing a doe. The forky chasing a doe is actually a video and is pretty cool watching him dog her, head down sniffing.


A couple scenery shots:

 

[CouesKelly]

This seemed to be a great spot so we returned the next day again. After glassing most of the morning it seems to have slowed down a bit. Spotted lots of does but no bucks and the big buck had not returned to the canyon.

We glassed until midday and then shifted our attention to the shady hill Wally had stalked a buck on the day before. I spotted a few does bedded but no bucks. It was pretty funny... I spotted one group of them by just legs. The tree they were tucked had such a canopy that their bodies were covered by branches and leaves as they were standing and just their legs were poking out. I usually spot heads, antlers and ears first.... but this time just legs! Turned out to be a doe and 2 fawns with no bucks. Eventually Wally spotted a spike that was bedded in a good spot. Wally decided to put the stalk on him and this time I would be able to help lead him I with some signals. We devised a system of placing a white game bag on the side of me that he needed to move to get over the buck. The plan was that he would swing around behind the Buch and drop down from the mesa that was above the slope he was bedded on. As Wally moved in he took it nice and slow and I sent him the best signals I could to lead him in. Eventually he was right above the tree the buck was bedded under but did not have a visual. After a little while the buck got up, stretched and started walking toward an opening that wally could see him. Wally got to full draw on him but there was brush blocking his vitals. either the wind swirled or the buck stopped him and spooked a little. He ran a few more yards away but then stopped again to look back at Wally. He may have been out of range at this point, but Wally face him a few mews from a call and it did peak his interest. He hung around for a little bit curious but then got suspicious enough that he ran off. No clear shot for Wally, but a good stalk and fun nonetheless. After that Wally hunted another day and glassed a few other spots, but I had to go back to work. No success for either of us in January but it was a fun hunt and we saw a lot of deer. I was looking forward to the August season.

 

[CouesKelly]

Fast forward to the AZ August season. I had taken a week of work earlier in the month to go chase Antelope in Colorado. I had a lot going on a work and had also committed to helping instruct a basic pistol course the day of the opener. The storms had been moderate through the monsoon and the desert has really greened up over the past month or two. I had created a plan to hunt a different unit than we hunted earlier in January. I planned to hunt in an area I have known for years and gotten a lot of rain. There had been a prescribed burn in the area during the spring to clear all the dead grass and brush. I visited it throughout the summer to shed hunt and check up on the water sources and to refresh a salt I have kept up down there for the past 5 years or so. With the burn and all the rain it was shaping up to have a lot of new growth and great feed. I have sat this salt multiple times in the past and it is usually slower than sitting water. I have sat days on this salt with no action at all. I have also sat it were it had decent deer traffic and seen a few small bucks on it in the early season. Never seen anything on it I wanted to shoot over the years. There had been plenty of rain though and all the small water holes and springs were full of water. No telling where deer were drinking in there.
My husband had been itching to get out for the archery season as he hadn't shot a buck for a few years. He was running a project at work during the January season and couldn't get out even one day with us to hunt. With all the rain, I thought it might be worth a shot to set up a blind on the salt. I set up the blind about a week before season to let it soak and he headed out on opening day to sit it. He said he was mostly looking to just shoot a buck and wasn't going to hold out for anything huge. He sat all morning with no deer traffic on the salt. It was starting to get hot around midday and he was thinking about heading in when a doe and a small spike came it. He decided he really didn't want to shoot the spike and waited. Next a forky came in and decided to let him have it. He got a heart shot on him and he fell about 20 yards away. The next day we were busy processing his buck so I decided to wait until the following weekend to try my hand on the salt.

 

[CouesKelly]

Enter hurricane/tropical storm Hillary. The storm had been downgraded a lot by the time it hit southern AZ but we sure had a lot of rain over the course of a few days. The unit had gotten pounded with rain and thunderstorms. The major part of the storm blew through in time for the weekend though and I headed out on the first dry day after the storm Saturday morning. I got into the blind just as the sun was coming up. It is a bit of a hike into this spot that I have the salt set up and the terrain makes it so you can't easily glass it from the surrounding points. I sat until about 7:45a until the action started. First just a small doe and then a small group of bucks came in. Then it turned into a literal parade of deer! I have never had this many deer come into this salt anytime I have sat on it. Even the weekend before when my husband sat it- not even close to the action on it this day. Deer after deer came in. They would stay and lick the salt until another group literally kicked them off it. There were some pretty decent bucks in the mix but nothing I was getting excited about yet. Here are some photos of the highlights. Sorry for the fuzzy photos. Getting good pics through the blind mesh is tough!


Finally they slowed down long enough for me to make enough noise to open my can of coffee and to eat some fruit snacks! What a burden... I know!

 

[CouesKelly]

There was about an hour where nothing came in at all until a small little button buck. He licked for a few minutes and then a group of 3 other bucks started coming in. No bucks had really peaked my interest until now. The biggest buck in this group was a mature 3x3. All I saw was his long tines and I knew I wanted to shoot this buck. I waited for a bit since he was standing at a strong quartering toward for a while. He kept inching more and more broadside and when I felt he had turned enough I drew back, took a half breath out, settled my pin and shot him a little behind the shoulder on his left side. I heard a good hit and he ran up a hill, stopped and then walked over the crest of the hill to the other side out of sight. He looked hurt as he walked off and I was sure of a good hit.

I waited about 30 min and then went to go peek over the hill. No sign of him after a quick look. I went back to the spot I shot him and found my arrow. The blood looked kind of reddish brown. Looked like liver blood. So I slowed down and waited a while longer. I spent time trying to find blood. Nothing. Not a drop. I found some tracks but they got lost in a sea of other tracks. I went back over the hill to where he walked over to start looking again and I bumped him. He had bedded down at the bottom of the other side of the hill feeling sick but hadn't died. He jumped up and ran. I wasn't quick enough to draw back before he was off.
I went to go look where I bumped him from hoping to find some blood there. Nothing. I saw the entry wound on his left side a few inches behind the shoulder and knew it was him. It didn't look like it was pouring any blood, but it was a quick look.

I slowed down a lot a this point. Knowing he was still alive but hurt, I didn't want to accidentally bump him again. After an hour of looking and still hunting around the area I pretty much was at a point where I thought I was never going to find him. I had no trail, just a general direction.

By the grace of God, I finally spotted him in some trees about 50 yards away. He was standing with his head behind a tree. I knew it was him though because his left side was facing me again and I could see the wound pretty clearly. It was a few inches back behind the shoulder mid-body. How was this buck still alive?
I sat down and waited just watching and trying to figure out a way to get closer and get a second arrow in him. I was really scared that I was going to bump him again and lose him for good. He kept lying down and then standing up and walking a little further uphill and then laying down again. I basically crawled toward him slowly every time his head was behind a tree. There was too much brush and no clear shot. He eventually got up and walked over the hill out of sight. I very slowly went up to the top where I thought I would be able to see him, but he had disappeared again!

I spent some time looking in the wrong direction before I started looking down the adjacent drainage. Two does actually started walking down the drainage and then spooked out. I thought maybe my scent had blown over there and that is what had spooked them but it could have also been the buck. I went down there though and found the buck dead. He must have died shortly after walking over the hill out of sight from me as I was crawling up toward him.
I finally saw his other side with the exit hole. A lot further back so it means I really didn't wait long enough for him to be truly broadside. He was quartering hard enough that I got a liver hit and no lungs. I didn't get pics before I caped and quarter him (solo and after a long stalk I forgot) but remembered to get a photo back at the jeep. The good news was he died closer to the jeep than where I first shot him! I got him caped and quartered out and took 2 short trips packing out to the jeep.

 

[Fire_9]

Great job sticking with it and congrats on a great buck!

 

[seeth07]

Good stuff, thanks for taking along on your year journey of filling your tag!