OYOA films Eastern Montana Mule Deer

[Horn Seeker]

"What good would that buck be to me if everytime I looked at him I thought " I cheated""

That is Exactly what I tell myself... i've had many an occasion to "get away with it"... but it would eat my guts out in short order!!

Great writing Randy! Thanks MUCH!

 

[Oak]

Nice job, Lawnboy. Never underestimate the productivity of the 11th hour.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Well done for all parties.

 

[T Bone]

A fine hunt and story. Good decisions all around.

 

[Muley1]

Thanks for the great story of your successful hard hunt and congrats on the nice muley. Can't wait to watch.

 

[Bwana]

That was a great hunt, thanks for taking us along.

 

[Big Fin]

Would you shoot this buck?

Sorry Lawnboy. Moral of the story - Trust the GPS, screw the fencelines.

 

[elk_hunter]

Dang, very nice!!! Shooters in my book!

 

[Buschy]

Uff da! That is a pig. Go get him next year Lawnboy.

 

[Oak]

Dang, good thing you didn't show me that video before our whitetail hunt, Fin. I may have been inclined to head over to your mule deer spot instead!

 

[noharleyyet]

What would you muley officianados bracket his score?

 

[Oak]

I'm no expert, but I'd put his main frame at around 170. Although difficult to see, Fin told me he has 4 extras, so maybe 180 gross.

 

[fowladdict]

Leaving that the buck after that encounter Randy asked me the same question. I'm about 100% sure that we would of just been fine and not caught. The footage shows me looking down at him at 125 yds on the fenceline. Nobody around to say boo too us. Randy said something to the effect that "ethics are measured by what you do when nobody is around" What good would that buck be to me if everytime I looked at him I thought " I cheated"

I'm sleeping fine and have great memories of being so close to such an awesome looking buck. It's the kill at all costs guys that end up poaching and then ruin it for the rest of us.

Baerman and I found a 6x5 that was about 100 yards into the colorado side while on our New Mexico hunt. Funny thing was each day we looked he was in the exact same spot and never made the 100 yards or so trek into New Mexico. If it weren't for our hand held GPS I'm not sure we would have know he was in Colorado since we didn't see a fence line in the area he was in. We chalked it up as and awesome buck to see on the hoof and moved on.

 

[Horn Seeker]

Oh man... that was a tough lesson learned!! What a nice buck!

 

[The Hedgehog]

That's a beautiful buck! Bummer on the boundary confusion.

 

[----]

Man that's gotta be frustrating to look back on now. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

 

[Lawnboy]

I just about threw up after I saw the aerial photo with the property fences overlaid on the terrain. In reality I had a good 400 yards to the right to shoot him or his buddy. This shot is around 125 yards . I had him dead with the cross hairs for quite a while as you could see. It's really frustrating when your trying to do the right thing and find out that the rancher isn't being required to keep fences on line. What are the odds that any of us would get yelled at or shot even if we knew that were on public having crossed the fence. Pretty high. From now on I'm trusting the gps and forgeting about fencelines. I've got a couple ridges around Turner's place that I know fit this scenario. I guess that is part of scouting and figuring an area out. When your hunting a new area and filming especially, you hardly have time to check the animals out. You've got to be ready and hope that your cameraman is even more ready.
Oh well I didn't want to finally have a buck that Greenhorn might of shot hanging on my wall. Got to love those raghorns and 150 class muleys in my garage.

Thanks for the nightmare reminder Finn. I'm sure I'll sleep great tonight having watched that clip.

 

[sweetnectar]

Narrow and TALLLLL Bang!

 

[smalls]

That'll put a lump in your throat.

I bought a micro-SD card from a guy this year that not only identifies all public land but actually displays the owner of every parcel of land in MT. It is like having the entire state cadastral in a hand held gps. Simply plug it in and go.

It's made me pretty angry at times, though, to find how poor an indicator fencelines are for property boundaries... and how many landowners are using corners of state/BLM as their personal dump sites for trash/old equipment/dead cattle/rusted barb wire, etc.

 

[1_pointer]

... and how many landowners are using corners of state/BLM as their personal dump sites for trash/old equipment/dead cattle/rusted barb wire, etc.

A call to the Field Office/Station with some GPS coordinates should be able to get that problem fixed up pretty quick!!! Just hope nothing there is older than 50years possibly making it an Arch site...