Graduate school kept me from hunting as much as I wanted this year. I finished my thesis research in September, defended it in October, and spent most of November trying to publish a journal paper. Besides a weekend trip for antelope, Thanksgiving break was the first time I could dedicate to hunting this year.
I decided to go back to an old hunting spot that I hadn't been to in five years. It's an old burn area, and what used to be a forest of burnt snags is now a forest of 6-foot tall saplings. I began the morning creeping down a logging road. I had an entire basin to glass, and I failed to turn up a single animal. The logging road ended three miles in, and I started to bushwack. I began to wonder how far I was willing to pack an animal out. I crested a small ridge, and the next parallel ridge came into view. A deep-chested buck was raking a tree directly across from me on the top of the next ridge. He stood perpendicular to me, facing uphill. I knew this buck was big before I even looked at him with binoculars. I dropped to my stomach, took off my pack, chambered a round, and ranged the ridge he was on. 275 yards.
I raised up to my knees and found him again with my binos. I saw a muscular neck, a blunt roman nose, and he was staring at me. I pulled down my bipods, set up for a kneeling shot, and flicked off the safety. He turned and started moving downhill. He moved at a pace somewhere between a walk and a jog, more like a scamper. I think the downed trees and rough terrain slowed him down. I kept my crosshairs on his shoulder and squeezed off a shot. The rifle cracked, I heard an impact, and he bucked. I knew I made a good shot. He sprinted to the far side of the ridge, out of sight.
Just to make things interesting, I decided to make at least one mistake on this hunt. Between where I took the shot and the deer, I got completely disoriented in a thick grove of saplings, and I looked for the deer in the wrong area for a whole hour before I found the blood trail. I was even second-guessing my shot before I decided to grid search the entire draw. I located the blood trail over 100 yards from where I had been searching, and I found the buck 50 yards further.
This buck was a tank. Its body had the shape of a draft horse, and by its teeth, I saw that it was at least a 5-year old. They say only about 2% of bucks make it to 5 years old in hunted populations, and I feel fortunate to have crossed paths with one, especially because I had such little time to hunt this year. I butchered the buck, loaded him on my back, and started hiking back to the truck, 50 steps, and 10 deep breaths at a time.
