RaiderRich's 2021 Comedy of Mishaps Nevada Rifle Mule Deer Hunt and New York Whitetail Hunt

[RaiderRich]

So, as there is some sick humor in it. I figured I would post updates on my hunting season as it goes along. Keep in mind I am solo hunting so things I don't do are bring two rifles as I am paranoid as all get out and assume a backup rifle kept even in a locked gun case will get stolen and not risk getting stranded because of potential vehicle issues. Will post lessons learned after each day. I am starting on day 3 so first 3 days are in original post.

Day 1 Tuesday, October 5th.
Got a late start so figured I could set camp and glass a bit before dark. On the drive up my tire pressure light came on. Luckily I was smart enough to pull over fairly promptly. Got out of the truck and drivers side tires were fine as was the front passenger. Rear passenger was pretty soft looking. Checked the cell phone, nope no signal. Looked back at the tire again and it was now totally flat. My truck a 2015 Nissan Frontier has been solid and tires are tires and Nevada dirt roads are well Nevada's dirt roads BigFin knows this too, yes I have Fresh Tracks+ and watched his tire fun. My thought was hey look my season is starting like Randy's! Now after taking some time to figure out how to drop the spare, I got the tire changed, but honestly a 7 year old spare that I have never bothered to think about was not my idea of trusting in the tires ability to hold together, remember how I said not risking getting stranded, back to town I went. It would be the 7th before I could get a chance to get out again. Lessons learned - maybe going forward I will keep a couple extra wheels with mounted tires available for solo hunts.

Day 3 Thursday, October 7th as Day 2 was waiting for my tire to get replaced, yes the puncture was that bad. On the drive in I had a deer cross the road in front of me, I took that as a good sign. I get to where I park the truck and get everything together and trek out. It is an overcast morning which I have always preferred to sunny and the wind was not blowing hard, a real rarity in the Nevada mountains. I hiked in a bit and stopped to drink some water and thought it was a nice spot to glass a little. I had seen some fresh deer tracks as well as quite a few horse tracks, it is Nevada after all. After glassing a bit and relaxing enjoying the morning air I decided to shoulder the rifle and spot check it, low and behold somehow on the hike in the scope rail had somehow become loose, I am not talking oh just torque the screws, two of the screws were not even attached. Remember I am paranoid so no back up in the truck and first of the days lessons learned, carry tools to fix such things. Needless to say back to the truck and back to town. A little history on the rifle, it is a savage 110 (6.5 Manbun) that came with the scope rail. Now Savage has lost me as a future customer, I will never buy another of their products, first off the 110 along with both my Axis 2s have the issue with wimpy ejector springs. That in and of itself is not a deal breaker as I simply get the mod kit and replace the spring and ejector with parts that actually work. I have to believe Savage did not correctly torque the rail screws at the factory and while they don't need to, it might have been nice to see some thread lock on the screws. The rifle has been fixed on my bench but will give the Loctite the 24 hour cure time it needs and then Sunday take it to the range a sight it in once again. Lessons learned, 1 the already mentioned carry tools, 2 never trust Savage quality control and 3 buy a Randy Newburg 2 Howa in 6.5 PRC and put a Leupold (will contact schmalts when I am ready to buy the scope) on it. Luckily while I did not have it in the truck my 308 Ruger American with the Magpul Hunter stock is good to go. The only downside is I have it zeroed at 100 yards for my NY whitetail hunt so will have to keep that in mind when using the BDC (Nikon scope). In hindsight it may have been a blessing I did not see any shooters. I hate to think that not catching the issue and pulling the trigger on something could have results in a wounded but running for miles deer. Hopefully Day 4 actually results in a whole day in the mountains and seeing some game. Hopefully my Day 4 report will be posted not on Day 4 but later in the weekend when I am back in town for football Sunday...Go Raiders!

 

[Wallydeuce]

Kinda sounds like my archery hunt this year. Tires. Ugh
Following. Keep it coming. Rooting for you. And our Las Vegas Raiders!

 

[LuckyTom]

Following. Thanks for sharing lessons learned!

 

[RaiderRich]

Day 4 and Day 5 October 8th and 9th. Friday was pretty miserable, rain/thunderstorms/wind. I did a bit of mobile exploring and the little Nissan Frontier handles the mud perfectly. I did see deer on Friday, 4 doe and a spike buck. It was refreshing to at least see deer. Lessons learned for Day 4, remember to mark on your map app where you saw something you want to revisit. I have been good about that and just forgot to do it and trying to e-scout where I was to add it and can only get to a general location. Also I went in thinking camp out but honestly I think my solo camping days are over and hotels were all booked so commuting was on the agenda. Not too bad as from Vegas to where I am hunting it is between 2 and 3 hour drive. Gas prices are the biggest DOH! there. So lesson learned, book hotel early. Luckily I did book one for the last weekend of the season. Day 5 was short as I did get out of the house for only an afternoon hunt. I am pretty used to first Saturday hunting in NY but was surprised by the number of vehicles I saw. I went to the spot where I was for Day 3 and this time had a well mounted scope sitting on my 308. It was breezy and sunny. While I did not glass anything I did let myself enjoy the sunshine and relaxed for a few hours. It surprises me just how beautiful the desert mountains can be. I packed out at dusk feeling good about the remainder of the season. If there is any lesson for Day 5 to share it is simply let yourself enjoy the time outdoors.

My remainder of my NV season will be as follows: Day 6 will be October 16th and Days 7 and 8 will be October 30th and 31st. My son is in Vegas the weekend of the 23rd so will not get out that weekend, it will be the first time in 2 years that I have seen him in person, thank you COVID-19 hindering travel. NY Whitetail will start November 20th. On another note I finally get my new phone October 15th (supposedly). I went with an iPhone 13 Pro Max. My current iPhone 6+ is on its last legs and have not tried to film/photo much with it lately. If I am sporting the new phone on Day 6 will try to get some photos/video.

 

[RaiderRich]

Day 6 October 16th. Had a coworker/friend join me on Saturday. I am always good to add extra eyes. We did a ton of scouting and glassing during the day in new areas in the unit that he was familiar with but I had not ventured to. We pretty much concluded that the migrating deer have not begun their journey into Nevada from Utah in that part of the state. We decided to set up for an evening hunt on BLM land that bordered private land where we knew deer were heading to feed in the evening. We cut ourselves a little short on time and hastily set up. We did manage to see 4 antlerless deer but the wind was not in our favor as they moved past and instead of hurrying to the feeding area they turned around and headed back for cover. We began trekking back to the truck and walked up on 5 deer including two smaller bucks. While we were still on BLM, the light was low and I had not the time to check my phone for the time. I did have one of the small bucks in my crosshairs at 50 yards but decided to let him go. We did use an access road to walk out that cuts through the private, rifle unloaded of course. The deer must be used to ranch hands walking that road as while they gave us a wide berth they did not run. My new phone had not arrived and that is another story for a tech site forum, needless to say won't have the phone for a few more weeks.

Lessons learned, more like a lesson reinforced, hunting with a friend is always better than hunting alone. At least it is in my book.

I won't be hunting next until October 30th and 31st.

Thanks for reading!

 

[RaiderRich]

Day 7 October 30th. Last day hunting in NV. Work made me a little later in the morning getting out than I wanted and someone beat me to my morning spot. Scouted during the day and returned to the morning spot in the afternoon and had the area all to myself. A bit windy and deer were not moving. Saw doe and a small buck but nothing that I was willing to shoot. On a side note, it amazes me how large the wild horse population is. I saw more wild horses than any other animal.

Lessons learned. I am still getting used to Western vs Eastern hunting. My biggest takeaway is you really need to plan for a week off work to maximize your potential success out west. This year I knew I could not do that as I scheduled a vast majority of my PTO for my trip to NY in a few weeks as seeing the kids and grandkids > deer hunting. That aside I did enjoy my time out this time and will be actively looking for hunting partners in the future. Solo hunting has it's rewards but I guess the comradery is more important to me than even filling a tag. NV 241-245 is not a bad area but when it comes to NV there are better areas. I had only chosen this as I knew I would only have weekends/Saturdays and picked something closer to where I live here in Vegas. I actually had not planned to draw a buck tag but was still fun. Next year I will be targeting the areas and I now have enough elk points built up where a resident tag could happen. Via my coworker who is a born and raised Nevadan, I also have a very clear strategy for Desert Big Horn applications going forward. That will be a secret until I finally draw that tag

Next up is NY Whitetail deer hunting. Will update you when the time comes. That will be a fun one as my better half will be hunting as well and hoping to see her tag her first animal ever.

 

[duckhunt]

Good luck

 

[Wallydeuce]

Good story, thanks for sharing
Good luck on your whitetail hunt.

There are a lot of nice deer on both sides of Alamo. They love the alfalfa. Fyi

 

[RaiderRich]

Good story, thanks for sharing
Good luck on your whitetail hunt.

There are a lot of nice deer on both sides of Alamo. They love the alfalfa. Fyi

I thought about hunting there on the last weekend but decided to try some other more off the beaten path areas that also surround agricultural areas.

 

[SilverDollars]

Howdy.. I'm hoping your PU truck doesn't wig out now!

 

[RaiderRich]

Howdy.. I'm hoping your PU truck doesn't wig out now!

Only issue with the truck was a tire. PickUp was great for hitting the mountain roads. Needs a good cleaning now though

 

[RaiderRich]

A quick update, we leave NV and start heading to NY later today for our whitetail hunt. I am driving across the country. Weather looks to be pretty much a non-issue for most of the trip. We begin hunting on Saturday.

Updates to follow.

 

[Crossbowguy]

A quick update, we leave NV and start heading to NY later today for our whitetail hunt. I am driving across the country. Weather looks to be pretty much a non-issue for most of the trip. We begin hunting on Saturday.

Updates to follow.

You should be just about perfect! cold weather this week and the deer are in full blown rut!

 

[Beignet]

I’ve been seeing some nice ones coming from my friends in NY this year. Acorns seemed to be especially plentiful when I was over there a few weeks ago.

 

[RaiderRich]

Sorry for the delay in posting but here it is.

NY Day 1, Saturday, November 20th. The better half and I arrived in NY Thursday November 18th in the evening. On Friday, we went to scout out where we planned on hunting, it was on private land, and we set up a blind and left for the day. On Saturday we arrived well before sunrise. Comical error number 1 for the NY hunt, I fat fingered setting the waypoint and could not find our blind in the dark. We decided to sit until light and see if we could get our bearings straight. After the sun came up I found the blind only 50 yards from where we sat for a bit. We moved to it and sat for a bit. Comical error number 2, we had both sat in the blind before but with only one of us actually hunting. With both of us trying to hunt we found the blind was a bit cramped. I decided to sit outside the blind on the north facing side as direct to the north was a residence a few hundred yards away and that was obviously a no shot zone so the better half would have all directions covered as far as safe shooting lanes went. During the morning I thought I kept seeing deer move up by the house. At around 10:30 my better half, who does suffer from some nerve and ankle issues said that she would only be able to make it through the morning. At 11:30 we headed to the truck and on the drive out we saw 2 nice sized does in the yard of the house to our blind's north. I dropped off my better half and returned to the woods and instead of heading back to the blind I headed to a tree stand that the land owner said I could use. I settled in at around 1:15 and figured it would be around 3:30 or so before deer would start moving. I was wrong. 20 minutes after I settled in a decent little buck came running down the hill and presented a nice broadside shot. My setup for this hunt was my Ruger American .308 with a Magpul Hunter stock and a Sig Sauer Buckmasters 3x9 40. I was shooting inexpensive Federal Powershock 150s. I put the crosshairs on the kill zone and squeezed the trigger. The deer took off running in a path that brought him a little closer to the tree stand. I reloaded and once the new round was chambered the deer spun in his tracks and he went down. He had only managed maybe 40 yards. I waited until 3:00 before getting out of the tree and taking a look at him. I guessed him to be a very healthy 1.5 year old buck or maybe an average 2.5 year old buck.

The better half and I did not get out again and I plan on retrieving our blind tomorrow (Thanksgiving day). If a doe presents a shot while I am collecting the blind I may take her, I do have a legal tag to shoot a doe, but for all intent purposes hunting season is over for us and the rest of our stay will be enjoying time with family. I told my better half my NV hunt was to learn more about mule deer hunting and maybe fill a tag but the NY hunt was to put venison in the freezer. While it was a crazy season with flat tires, equipment malfunctions and fat fingers, it was a successful and fun season. Next year I hope to draw a cow elk tag with my better half.

 

[Crossbowguy]

Nice NY buck sir congratulations!