T Bone
Well-known member
Today was the opener for rifle on the west side of SD. My 11 year old son and I slept in the truck and woke early and hiked into the rolling sage hills with hopes of big mulies. I left the camera on the bumper of the truck when I tightened up my boot laces, and forgot about it until we were already a mile away....The inky black morning got worse when I had extremely poor execution on my morning boul movement. Wet wipes to the rescue. Anyhoo...I digress.
We arrived at a high nob about 3 miles in just as it was starting to get light....
We sat and glassed....deer, antelope, coyotes all over the place. We sat for a couple hours and looked over quite a few deer but none really turned me on. To my surprise there were a lot of whitetail rutting in the sage draws. I saw two mature muley bucks both solo and no sign of the rut with them.
I was dumbfounded by the numbers of the trucks constantly patrolling the roads in the distance...and so few hunters were seen in our area. All public access mind you.
We watched in awe through the spotter when two hunters bumped head on to a nice whitetail buck and the deer laid down right in front of them as they walked within 50 yards of him. After they passed by the unseen deer in the sage, the buck got up with his head low and tail clamped down and scooted out of there fast. He came right to us as if we reeled him in.
He presented himself nicely and the conditions were too good....We couldn't resist letting him walk. The 270 cracked and down he went. No giant, but a handsome 4x4 whitetail. We quartered him and got him loaded up into the pack and started out. Nathainiel played a major part of all aspects of the hunt.
Here we are, having just returned to the truck.
And here is my sidekick with the trophy. This shows the country. Not exactly what I've thought of as whitetail country.
We arrived at a high nob about 3 miles in just as it was starting to get light....
We sat and glassed....deer, antelope, coyotes all over the place. We sat for a couple hours and looked over quite a few deer but none really turned me on. To my surprise there were a lot of whitetail rutting in the sage draws. I saw two mature muley bucks both solo and no sign of the rut with them.
I was dumbfounded by the numbers of the trucks constantly patrolling the roads in the distance...and so few hunters were seen in our area. All public access mind you.
We watched in awe through the spotter when two hunters bumped head on to a nice whitetail buck and the deer laid down right in front of them as they walked within 50 yards of him. After they passed by the unseen deer in the sage, the buck got up with his head low and tail clamped down and scooted out of there fast. He came right to us as if we reeled him in.
He presented himself nicely and the conditions were too good....We couldn't resist letting him walk. The 270 cracked and down he went. No giant, but a handsome 4x4 whitetail. We quartered him and got him loaded up into the pack and started out. Nathainiel played a major part of all aspects of the hunt.
Here we are, having just returned to the truck.
And here is my sidekick with the trophy. This shows the country. Not exactly what I've thought of as whitetail country.
