Lessons Learned & Eating a Tag

[rtraverdavis]

I grew up hunting mule deer with my dad, but it never really resonated with me in a real way until my first success a couple years ago. That year, I shot an immature buck, and a fire was set in me. It's been hard to think of anything besides hunting (family is the only thing that fills a larger space in my heart) ever since.

The following year (last year) after becoming a serious and obsessed student of the game I went back to the same area of Oregon I had shot my buck the previous year, and patterned and killed a better buck, but still an immature three point. After that, I felt I was really getting things down. I just might be a badass. Hubris at it's finest.

This year, filled with confidence and wearing a few thousand dollars worth of success-driven gear on my back, I returned to the same area with the goal of finding and killing a mature buck. But my wife and I have a 16 month old and another on the way, (they need me at home) and I can only take so much time off of work, (I'm going to Colorado for 9 days later this month for another hunt) so I had one full day of scouting and three days of hunting to get this done. I know the area pretty well now, and felt I had numerous likely places a big old buck would live. Being so early in the year, I knew the bucks would mostly be nocturnal so I would be trying to locate them in their beds. My plan was to cover lots of different areas and scour likely bedding areas with good binoculars on a tripod.

The morning of scouting day turned up nothing but does. I moved to a different area, and, later that afternoon while crossing a canyon spotted movement up above me. I put the binos up and saw him--a tall four point with eye guards and a spread that cleared his ears. The kind of buck I've been dreaming about. He was out at midday, and was with five does, which I thought was interesting for a buck of his stature in late September. I ranged him at 532 yards and we looked at each other for a long time. I had my game plan for opening morning--be up high across the canyon, locate him, and make a play.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Morning of opening day the wind was ripping. I got out to my glassing spot about 45 minutes before the first shread of light broke. As soon as it was light enough to see my hands without the red light on my head lamp I had my binoculars on the tripod, scanning the open areas across the canyon for movement. Soon I saw a single large body moving down the hillside. I never took my eyes off of it, but it just seemed to vanish. Just sort of melted away, even though there didn't appear to be any cover or gradient in the topography for an animal to disappear into. I kept looking, but as daylight came on more strong and details emerged more clearly, I never could locate where the hell that thing (I was sure it was my deer) went to.

After a couple hours, I decided to move on and scan a nearby draw. I found a few small bucks bedded and strongly considered shooting the largest one of them. (My freezer is empty and my daughter likes venison as much as I do.) But that big boy had a sort of gravitational pull on me and I decided to take another look across that canyon from a different vantage point.

I hiked out to the end of a finger ridge about a quarter mile down from where I had glassed from earlier, and within an honest thirty seconds spotted yellow antlers peaking out from behind some sage, midway up the canyon wall below some rim rock. It was him. I'll be honest, I still feel new to this, and I started shaking in that moment.

I analyzed the situation and devised a plan. I looked carefully for other deer bedded nearby that could alert the buck to my presence and saw none. The wind was blowing across the canyon in my direction. I mapped out a route to get over there, and a route to get up to where I thought I could get a comfortable shot without being detected. I set off down a draw slowly and carefully, stopping to check if the buck noticed me every thirty seconds or so.

I got to the bottom of the canyon undetected, but immediately noticed that the wind was different down there. It was blowing down-canyon, rather than to the east like it was up top. Everything still seemed okay. Once I was down there, I couldn't see the deer anymore, but I could now see that the route I had planned to take to get into shooting position wouldn't work--there was too much scree which would create a bunch of noise. So I decided to take another route, which was up-canyon from the cut the buck was bedded in, but with the wind blowing so straight down the canyon I didn't think my scent would cross him if I stayed well below him. I crept along up the side of the canyon, taking a few careful steps then scanning the hillside above me. I wanted to get within 250 yards because the wind was so strong.

After climbing a couple hundred feet, and needing only to get up about thirty more to a rock outcropping that would give me a shooting lane to the buck, the wind kicked up a massive swirl, blowing straight uphill. I figured what was coming, so ran to the rock outcropping above me. As I threw off my pack for a rest I looked up. The buck was running, bounding, absolutely sprinting across the canyon side away from me. No stop-and-look-back. Nothing. Gone. I stood there for a long time.

I never did find that buck again--not surprisingly. I actually never saw another deer with antlers for the whole rest of the trip. But I learned some important lessons: old bucks don't act like young bucks. I've read plenty about it, but I'm the kind of thick skulled type that doesn't REALLY learn something except by his own experience. Mature bucks don't mess around when they smell you. They don't stand around (at least this guy didn't) and wonder about danger like my buck last year did, they know danger when they sense it and get the hell out of town.

In retrospect I think I rushed things and was over-eager. I forgot all about swirling thermals in canyons when the day starts to heat up. I rushed my new plan for a route to a shooting lane when my original didn't work out. That buck had a prefect place to bed, and I just didn't take my time.

I'm grateful for the lessons learned, which I hope to put to good use in a few weeks in Colorado, even though it still stings like hell.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Eastern Oregon sunrise:



The ubiquitous party balloon. I found three of these out there in as many days.

 

[fishing4sanity]

... wearing a few thousand dollars worth of success-driven gear on my back

Had to laugh at that one, as I resemble it as well. Good luck in Colorado!

 

[Alabama]

We live and we learn. I promise it won't be the last time that you are kicking yourself. If you're like the rest of us then you'll make a lot of other mistakes before you're done.

 

[TRS_Montana]

You’re on the fast road to not enjoying hunting if you feel like it HAS to work out every time. I really think hunting is about 85% things that are in my control (fitness, gear, scouting, etc) and 15% things that are not in my control (weather, luck, swirling wind, etc). I think there’s always something to learn, but no matter how good you get, it will never work out every single time.

 

[rtraverdavis]

You’re on the fast road to not enjoying hunting if you feel like it HAS to work out every time. I really think hunting is about 85% things that are in my control (fitness, gear, scouting, etc) and 15% things that are not in my control (weather, luck, swirling wind, etc). I think there’s always something to learn, but no matter how good you get, it will never work out every single time.

No doubt. Just more fuel in the fire is my point. I'm sure I've got another thousand experiences with blowing it ahead of me. But I'm paying attention.