Yeti GOBOX Collection

Wife's Idaho Muley

ERSS

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
1,501
Location
Eastern Idaho
When my wife drew this tag last summer, she was no where near as excited as I was. As the year wore on, she came around to my way of thinking. We planned to wait it out for the last couple of weeks of Nov and hope to have some snow, migration and peak of the rut on our side. A few trips out earlier this month turned up some really nice deer. As it played out, circumstances put us in a situation where we really just had the last weekend to hunt. Luckily the units are close to home.

Friday we headed out, glassing and hiking the sage. Several hours and miles of chasing deer in 6+ foot tall sage gave us some glimpses, but nothing she was willing to pull the trigger on. Late afternoon, we moved to another area in the unit we had seen a lot of deer in previously, and glassed up a few smaller bucks with a group of 6-7 does. Lots of places in the broken country for deer to hide, so we made the hike and got in to just under 500 yards. Out of a crevice in the lava rock, this deer showed, head down chasing does and running off other bucks. Through binoculars and then the spotter, Rachel decided he was the one. Her confidence running high after some good days shooting off a bench at 400 yards, she started getting ready for the shot. There was nothing between us and the deer but a patch of open flat sage and we were down to 20-30 min of good, legal light. I convinced her that the shot was not realistic, and we had no choice but to try to close the distance across the open ground. Crouched and at times crawling through the cactus and sage, we got it down to 293 without being detected. Set up the shooting tripod, and after a few minutes he presented a quartering away shot. Rach fired, and down he went. The 140 grain accubond, did its job and so did she with a clean shot, hitting low in the front shoulder and penetrating on through.

Been a tough month, my father had a stroke in late October, and Rachel's dad passed away two weeks ago, with the funeral last weekend. He was an amazing man, and spent a lot of days hunting with Rachel and myself. Can't help but think he was somewhere on Friday eve, looking down and smiling....Proud of his daughter.
 

Attachments

  • phpHkffV9AM.jpg
    phpHkffV9AM.jpg
    68.8 KB · Views: 784
  • php6l9OQVAM.jpg
    php6l9OQVAM.jpg
    68.9 KB · Views: 790
Good job young lady! Sorry to hear of her loss, and your family struggles. A day in the field always seems to lighten the burdens of life. Glad you two could share this time together.
 
I love mule deer and mule deer country. Congrats on a nice looking buck!

We lost my FIL this past summer and hunting has been bittersweet, but incredibly healing as well. Hopefully getting out provided some comfort.
 
Sorry about the issues with your fathers, I'm sure just being out there and hunting together has been very therapeutic. Congrats to Rachel on that buck!
 
Sorry to hear of your guys' rough fall, that's a hard couple weeks to process.

I assume that time afield together was good for your guys' souls. That's a beautiful buck she was able to take.
 
GOHUNT Insider

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
110,805
Messages
1,935,061
Members
34,883
Latest member
clamwc
Back
Top