Elkwhisper
Well-known member
After tagging out pretty quickly this year during archery season on antelope and elk, I had the rest of the season to dedicate to finding a good mule deer buck. Normally it takes me most of the archery season to close the deal on my antelope and elk, and I end up chasing deer with my rifle during the rut. But with some time to burn on deer this year, I made up my mind to do what I could to get one with my bow. I had some great evenings chasing a group of bucks, with a couple no brainer shooters in it, toward the end of archery season. Once gun season started, the bachelor herd of bucks I had been working on broke up and started mingling with the does, and they became far less predictable. Opening week of rifle season, I was finally able to get into archery range on a really good buck and let an arrow fly. Everything seemed good.... It looked like a good hit, but the deer spun so fast and ran away I could tell for sure where it hit him, If anything it might have been a little high, but I was shooting at a very steep downward angle. I watched him run across the hay field and somersault into a creek bottom and not come out. I backed out and gave him and hour and went and got some help for pictures and loading. When we got to where I watched him go down, we immediately found lots of bright red blood..... but no bubbles. We got on the trail and were able to follow it for a couple of hundred yards pretty easily. We lost the trail is some pretty thick grass, but picked it up again a couple hundred yards further down the creek bottom. It was kind of a strange blood trail, as at times I would be on hands and knees hoping to find a speck, and at other times when he would brush against some sage or a tree there would be TONS of blood. I full expected to walk up on this deer at any time..... but it didn't happen. I ended up trailing him about a half mile to where he had crossed a county road. I decided that I would back off and pick up the trail the next morning, because I had to get permission from the landowner across the road. The next morning was really frosty and I was able to pick up the trail again where the deer crossed the road. I followed a pretty sparse dripping blood trail for another 500 yards or so, where I came across a bed with no frost and some blood in it. At that point it appeared as if the deer had made it through the night and was still going. I was able to stay on blood for maybe another 100 yards before it dried up. At that point I did a grid search of the surrounding area and came up empty. I spent the next three days in the area, carrying my rifle, hoping to get eyes on that buck again, and finish the job, always keeping an eye out for birds, coyotes or other scavenges. No luck......... While searching for this buck I actually ended up passing up shots on several REALLY good bucks along the way. I know the landowners on both sides of the road really well, so I had them on the look out for a wounded buck the next few weeks, but he never turned back up. I am still not sure what went wrong, but I felt pretty bad about it and put the bow up for the rest of the season. Knowing I wounded a deer, I thought about ending my season, but I decided to post up on that hay field as much as I could for the rest of the season to see if he ever showed back up..... he didn't. If I had to guess, I would say that he made it, as there really wasn't a ton of blood and it appeared to be muscular with no signs of an organ hit. To say I was bummed is an understatement, but while looking for this deer I got to see some really great rutting action, that reached a peak one night when I had 15 bucks darting between 3 groups of does. I watched SEVERAL knock down, drag out fights, that night, as well as some "adult" activity. As the season wore on, I ended up passing on well over a dozen bucks that normally I would call shooters, but never really saw anything that would go much over 170".
Well I had this week set aside as my vacation, and I hunted every single day. I covered a lot of new ground, saw lots of new bucks, but never found one that would move me to pull the trigger. As the week wore on, it became more and more apparent that for my families sake, I better find a buck I would be happy with and put an end to my season. I decided on Wednesday to head back to the original field I had been hunting during archery season, and take the first good buck that gave me the opportunity. What should have been a sure thing, turned into the last three days of not really seeing much at all. Hunting pressure around this area went way up the last week for some reason ,and the deer were making themselves pretty scarce. So after not turning up a shooter buck in the field this morning, I decided to cover some ground started checking out some of my backup spots. The deer were moving really well this morning and I saw probably a dozen different bucks tending does on different BLM and Block Management areas, but nothing I would really have been very happy with. On a whim I decided to check on one more spot before calling it a morning. This particular spot is a 1/4 section of state land with access from a county road. Most people would drive past this spot without giving it a second look, but I knew from past experience that this was the preferred bedding area for deer that feed in a nearby hay field. Tracks in the 2 day old snow showed me that while there wasn't a ton of deer using the area, there were a few. So I decided to walk in and check out a big draw that can't be seen from the road. On the way in I saw a lone doe come over the ridge from the hay field and I followed her quietly to see where she went. As I came up over a small ridge, I ended up bumping the doe, and as she ran across the draw, up came a buck and 2 more does. Now a 1/4 section isn't very big, and this buck was on the move. I had about 1 second to drop the bipod and get on him. He was headed straight away from me, and as mule deer will do, he looked pretty good from the back. I guessed him for 300 yards, and did my best (pitiful) doe bleat to try and stop him.... it didn't work. He did slow a little though as he tried to climb a steep grade, and I let the trigger break. Bang, flop..... game over! It couldn't have been more than 5 seconds from when the buck jumped up, until I laid him back down. It felt pretty strange to have it happen that fast, after having looked over countless bucks this season and passing on some really good ones because they were missing a fork, or their fronts were crabby, or they just weren't heavy enough. But this morning was the morning...... my week of vacation was up, and this buck was coming home with me. He definitely isn't the size of buck I had hoped to tag this season, but I am more that satisfied with him. Even though I may have passed up on some better bucks, none of them were so big that I regret anything. I did learn a lot this season though, and am looking forward into renewing my quest for Mr. Big next season.
Now..... where did I put my shotgun and waders? It is high time me and my Labrador start spending some quality time together !
Well I had this week set aside as my vacation, and I hunted every single day. I covered a lot of new ground, saw lots of new bucks, but never found one that would move me to pull the trigger. As the week wore on, it became more and more apparent that for my families sake, I better find a buck I would be happy with and put an end to my season. I decided on Wednesday to head back to the original field I had been hunting during archery season, and take the first good buck that gave me the opportunity. What should have been a sure thing, turned into the last three days of not really seeing much at all. Hunting pressure around this area went way up the last week for some reason ,and the deer were making themselves pretty scarce. So after not turning up a shooter buck in the field this morning, I decided to cover some ground started checking out some of my backup spots. The deer were moving really well this morning and I saw probably a dozen different bucks tending does on different BLM and Block Management areas, but nothing I would really have been very happy with. On a whim I decided to check on one more spot before calling it a morning. This particular spot is a 1/4 section of state land with access from a county road. Most people would drive past this spot without giving it a second look, but I knew from past experience that this was the preferred bedding area for deer that feed in a nearby hay field. Tracks in the 2 day old snow showed me that while there wasn't a ton of deer using the area, there were a few. So I decided to walk in and check out a big draw that can't be seen from the road. On the way in I saw a lone doe come over the ridge from the hay field and I followed her quietly to see where she went. As I came up over a small ridge, I ended up bumping the doe, and as she ran across the draw, up came a buck and 2 more does. Now a 1/4 section isn't very big, and this buck was on the move. I had about 1 second to drop the bipod and get on him. He was headed straight away from me, and as mule deer will do, he looked pretty good from the back. I guessed him for 300 yards, and did my best (pitiful) doe bleat to try and stop him.... it didn't work. He did slow a little though as he tried to climb a steep grade, and I let the trigger break. Bang, flop..... game over! It couldn't have been more than 5 seconds from when the buck jumped up, until I laid him back down. It felt pretty strange to have it happen that fast, after having looked over countless bucks this season and passing on some really good ones because they were missing a fork, or their fronts were crabby, or they just weren't heavy enough. But this morning was the morning...... my week of vacation was up, and this buck was coming home with me. He definitely isn't the size of buck I had hoped to tag this season, but I am more that satisfied with him. Even though I may have passed up on some better bucks, none of them were so big that I regret anything. I did learn a lot this season though, and am looking forward into renewing my quest for Mr. Big next season.
Now..... where did I put my shotgun and waders? It is high time me and my Labrador start spending some quality time together !
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