Well, I’m getting over my pity party not hunting the last week due to poor judgment. I had been all over this day, pretty much walking from 6am until I shot just after 4pm
I started by going straight up the road system just shy of 8 miles and it was terrible weather, blowing super hard and dumping rain… no glassing to be done and hard to even look into the weather… felt somewhat pointless but I know that time of year, weather doesn’t stop bucks from moving, but I wasn’t seeing anything.
Around noon or 1 the wind let up and I was able to glass up a doe, she had no company and she fed out of sight
I came back down and crossed to the next road system to the north and hunted that whole road system with no fresh sign or deer, but it was getting pretty foggy so visibility was limited
I walked down the face of a cut to get out of there and when I was getting out of that zone I cut a big buck track crossing and going up the next canyon, I knew this track well but hadn’t put eyes on the buck, I was tired and wet but there was no walking by that track knowing it was fresh and knowing he was going to be somewhere in the big cut across the creek
I fought my way through the bottom, it was all brush and blowdown, but finally got into the bottom of the cut, and planned on working my way up the ridge on the east side, and getting up to the landing and hunting around the top to keep my wind good… I knew the buck was in there and just hoped I could spot him before he saw me with the fog.
I get 3/4 to the landing and his track goes down into the draw, and shortly after, I spot him bedded 175yds across… he has no idea I exist
I find a place to get set up and take my tripod off my pack and get it set up, mount my binos and try to figure out exactly what he is… it’s a big deer, short muzzle, big double throat patch, gray face, but I can’t make out what he has for head gear… dark antlers, dark background and fog and that soaking misty rain… I can see little flashes of his antlers but can’t tell what they are as they blend in with the slash behind him, and now my binos are full of water
I decide he has to be a pretty good buck, and I’m going to shoot him. Get my gun setup on my pack, feel steady, put crosshairs on his neck and start applying pressure… boom whop! Work the bolt but there was no need, I saw the underside of his face go up and fall back down.
I cross this nasty draw and get over to him and my heart sinks… ugh. Well, he has a lot of meat is the only positive thought I can think. I was bummed out that I just gave up a week of hunting, but you can’t unshoot them… I would have been completely stoked with this buck on the last day or two, but I was not planning on letting my tag go on anything but a good buck until the last couple days… very few people I know well had a tag left, so that really put the brakes on my hunting. I thought for sure this buck was going to be a much bigger antlered buck, he was the big track in the area, and historically there is always a dandy in this area… if there was this year, he had little feet
Lesson learned, I have never had that happen before, and there were a couple other bucks I was really wanting to look at, but they are both still alive, and will be a step ahead next year. Only got 3 less packages of meat out of this one than my wife’s dandy, which made me happy… I prefer deer meat over elk and we did good in that regard… it’s bittersweet for me even when it’s a big buck if there is some season left, but it stung a little more this year killing the smallest antlered buck I remember with 8 days of November left to hunt
It certainly beats not filling the tag, and if it wasn’t such a mess to get out of there I would have loved to save the cape for a later use, he had an awesome cape, but I was in a hurry not wanting to navigate the bottom of this canyon in the dark
