My Turn

[BuglinDrew]

My hunting season started almost three full months ago now and last Friday was my first day actually carrying any sort of weapon into the field. A lot of things have had to go just perfectly wrong (and right) for me to get to this point. First, I failed to draw an antelope tag in Wyoming as a resident - which up until this year, I did not think was possible. Second, after getting lucky and taking a pretty good bull elk with my bow a couple of seasons ago, I have been demoted to caller and camera guy during elk season until my hunting partners are able to kill their first bulls with archery equipment (one down this season, one to go). I was very fortunate to hunt about 27 days this September, but not once did I bring my bow along. Finally, my gig as a hunting guide and my desire for a little extra cash in the year of Covid-19 resulted in the entire month of October being dedicated to guiding. Plenty of days in the field, but no tags punched out of my pocket.

So, here I am in November, with a tag in my pocket, 51 days until my season closes, and a few free days within that time frame to try and fulfill my goal of taking my first mule deer buck with my bow. Mule deer have been on my mind since moving out west. I have bought a deer tag or two every year, and have ate said tags every single year. This is a result of quickly becoming obsessed with chasing elk in September and guiding during the month of October. I am happy to have found an opportunity somewhat nearby that I can take advantage of.



Day 1 was more of a scouting trip than a hunting trip, but it felt good to pull my bow out of the case and walk around the woods with it. I only had a half day before I had to get back, so I drove out to my trailhead, crashed in the parking lot, and started hiking in at first light the next morning. I hiked around some familiar country, glassed from a few locations, noted some sign and got eyes on a couple of bucks. My main goal is to take a mule deer, but there are whitetail around and I most likely will not hesitate to go after one if the opportunity presents itself. It's good to have options.

With everyone around me being on their post-hunting season "take care of all the things you've neglected for the past three months" mode, this is going to be a rare solo hunt for me. I am not usually much of a solo hunter, I prefer to have someone with me that I am on the same page as to act as an extra set of eyes, ears and legs. I must say though, I am really looking forward to being 100% responsible for every decision, and not worrying about anything other than finding and killing a decent muley buck. Day 2 starts on Thursday the 12th, I will be heading back for two more days of hunting before I have to get back to work again. Looking forward to some cooler weather, and hopefully some rut activity!







Days 2 & 3 coming up!

 

[BuglinDrew]

I've been doing a lot of running around the past couple weeks, but managed to sneak back to my hunt zone for another day and a half outing. It's looking like my next trip won't come until some friends meet us out there to hunt the muzzleloader season. It appears my window for a rut hunt has come and gone, but it will be nice to get out and have five or six consecutive days to hunt the area.

My recent trip was unsuccessful, but hardly disappointing. I decided to cover a bit more ground than I normally would on a solo hunt, as I wanted to explore some of the far-off corners of this hunting area that I never made it to in my past three trips during muzzleloader. I got about six miles from the trailhead, periodically stopping and glassing for 30-45 minutes at a time. Once I reached the six mile point, I figured that would be a good spot to start working my way back - and that was exactly where I stumbled upon a group of deer.



I didn't glass these deer up, and I decided that I never would have been able to anyway based on where I came upon them. I crested a ridge and saw a doe feeding away from me at about 150 yards, I slowly snuck into a prone position and started creeping over the edge. Anything with antlers was going to be a shooter buck for me, but I was pleasantly surprised with the two bucks in this group. One buck was the clear shooter, and I watched them for a while as I tried to figure out any possible plan of attack.



Eventually they moved over the ridge and as I moved to watch, they seemed to become aware of me and trotted over the next ridge. I waited for a while and snuck up to the next vantage point, carefully crawling over to take a look. I found the same group feeding once again, seemingly not to riled up by becoming aware of my presence in the area. They appeared to be feeding down the draw, and I thought I had a good spot to cut them off at the bottom of the ridge.



I started to slowly work my way down to the planned cut-off point. I got there and hung out for a bit, and realized the bottom of this cut was probably much too steep for them to feed all the way down to. After sneaking around the corner a bit more, I found they had bedded down in a pretty good position. I immediately started a big, wide berth around them to work my way to a crest I thought I could pop over and have a shot opportunity. I completed about 75% of the stalk when I saw the does working their way back up the hill that I was headed down to ambush the buck. I guess the nature of hunting the rut is that you don't have a captive audience for very long. I froze and got myself behind a small rise, nocked an arrow and waited. All I could do was hope they would work their way through the cut I was sitting on top of, but, the wind swirled right towards them and my shot opportunity would never come.

I decided to back out as they had now become aware of me twice and I didn't want to push the issue with plenty of days left to hunt. It seemed like a good time to back off and start my six mile trek out, glassing along the way.

I didn't locate any more bucks from any of my other glassing points that afternoon or the following morning. I left with rifle season starting the next day, and haven't been back since. I'm curious to get back in there and see if maybe some more deer have been pushed in following the pressure from rifle season - muzzleloader season will be on, but so far we haven't had much competition with that. But, who knows - 2020 is a completely different animal.

Next up, a full week of hunting with some good friends from back east. I'll be toting my bow around from Dec 13 - 19 hoping my buddies can get it done with the muzzleloader and hoping I can achieve my goal of taking my first muley with my bow.

 

[sdkhunter]

Nice write up, loved the pics! Some beautiful country for sure! Good luck if you make it out late season!