Aram Von Benedikt

[CorbLand]

 

[grog24]

 

[MountainTracker]

Can we please have some respect for the deer? The missing leg and shot placement memes are brutal

Sorry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ddd-shooter]

From FB here is what he posted (pulled this from monster muleys because I'm looking into it as well). And yes it is Aram and not Joseph.

HERE ARE THE FACTS (Deer Hunt 2023)

Friday (day before the deer opener) my son and my hunting buddy and I backpacked into a desert area to hunt mule deer. Both my buddy and I had dedicated hunter permits. We set up camp and then went scouting. We planned to hunt a canyon face in the morning (opening day).

As we hiked back toward camp we ran into Easton and Rachelle. We were all friendly, visited briefly, and we informed them that we planned to hunt the canyon face in the morning. We parted.

At dawn we spotted three bucks, but they moved behind a screen of trees and I wasn’t able to shoot. I was prone and ready, just needed them to step clear for a shot. Then Rachelle began shooting. The deer we were watching didn’t move, so we thought they were shooting a different buck. Her first two shots sounded like misses (which they later corroborated). Her third shot sounded like a hit. She shot once more for a total of four shots. There was no sound of a hit from the last shot. She was shooting roughly 630 yards.

The three bucks we were watching came running out from behind the trees and none of them showed signs of injury. I said to my son “she must have killed a different deer”. The biggest buck was trotting sideways to me, then he stopped, quartered away, and I shot. I should have taken the time to range him, but I didn’t. My shot went low due to the additional distance and struck him in the right front leg. The impact was obvious and as he ran now his leg was not working. I was frustrated by making a bad hit. The range was 730 yards. I hadn’t realized he was moving away as well as sideways, and failed to dial for the additional range.

We encountered the other couple casting around in the oaks. They were talking loudly and Easton told me he’d lost sight of their buck at the fourth shot, and never could find him again. They figured he was dead right in that area. I told him I’d also shot a buck, but that he had made off, and showed them exactly where he had traveled. They asked if the buck was wearing a collar and my son and I both answered that we had not seen a collar, but didn’t know. We NEVER said he didn’t have a collar. Just that we hadn’t seen one.

Rachelle found blood and it followed the exact route I had pointed out my buck had traveled. I figured it was the buck I shot, they figured it was the buck she shot. We took up the trail, and they hurried to get ahead of us. I trotted to catch up with them and asked them to work together. I told Easton I was not going to steal his wife’s deer – that when we recovered it we would look at the facts and determine who the buck belonged to. I was hoping their buck was still lying dead back in the oak brush like they’d originally thought.

I do feel badly that Rachelle felt like I was pushy. I do get intense when I’m trying to recover a wounded animal, and in this case I knew that we needed to push the buck to keep it bleeding. If the buck was allowed to bed up and his wound coagulated he would be nearly impossible to track down and recover. I did suggest to Rachelle that she carry her rifle ready for action in case the buck got up in front of us and she had a chance to finish it.

We finally jumped the buck and got him running again, and bleeding. The trail was easy from there on, and shortly we caught up with the buck in the bottom of a small canyon. I shot him, he took off down the wash, and I ran and shot him again. Easton and my son were with me.

We then took time to try to enjoy the harvest, and take photos. It was not like she portrayed – we all took photos, and I was happy for them to take photos. In fact I took a number of photos of them myself. Just goes to show you how a person can skew information.

When I first saw the buck in the canyon bottom I saw the collar and realized for sure that we’d been shooting at the same buck. Now, had I known before I shot the first time that she had hit it, I never would have shot at it. But the buck showed no sign of injury when it was trotting prior to my shot, and I believed Rachelle must have shot a different buck.

Now we had a problem. Contrary to the atmosphere she portrayed in her post, the scene was very cordial. There were no raised voices, no profanity, no meanness. I suggested we perform an autopsy to determine exactly how many shots had hit the buck. We found four:
1) Her shot, which had entered the skin just above the bottom line and just behind the belly button, then entered the abdominal cavity, then passed underneath the guts (it’s the first abdominal hit I’ve ever seen that I don’t believe would have been lethal), then exited the abdominal lining and the skin, leaving about a 3/4 inch hole, which was plugged tight with caul fat (the webbed-looking fat that surrounds the stomach). But for a small spot of wet hair around the entrance there was no blood or fluid draining from either entrance or exit hole.
2) My first shot was in the right front leg, which almost completely severed the knee. I’m not proud of that shot, but it’s what provided a blood trail and enabled us to trail the buck. We know with certainty that I made this wound because we watched it happen.
3) A close-range pass-through shot low through the chest, likely through heart.
4) A second close-range pass-through shot, center chest, likely through lungs and top of heart.

That was all folks. There were no more holes in the deer. Easton insisted that they’d hit the buck twice, but there were no more holes, and he hadn’t actually seen the second impact. I expressed my opinion – and yes, I used that word – that they were mistaken and had not connected other than the one shot that clipped the buck’s belly. I NEVER called either of them a liar, as she said in her post.

So there you have it.

I can’t describe how sad I feel as I write this. I had hoped that we could be friends, or at least remain honest and forthright. But it seems bitterness has corrupted that possibility.

In the end, Rachelle first and then Easton agreed to let me have the deer, and I assured them I would get a reproduction made for them at my cost. Everyone’s hearts were heavy. It was a really unfortunate ordeal for everyone.

And yes, I tagged the deer once it was decided who would take it home, before leaving the site. I have photos to prove it.

In her post Rachelle misrepresented what happened in so many ways. I never did change my story. I wish I had recorded the entire episode so you all could listen to exactly what happened.

Memories have a way of becoming twisted when bitterness reigns.

I NEVER told her that she didn’t deserve a deer that big! What I did say was that I felt like peoples first deer shouldn’t be monsters. I do believe that. But the conversation had been about a buck Easton lost to another hunter on a different occasion.

I feel like she really threw me under the bus with her statement about my wanting to be in all the pictures. That was low. I remember all parties being quite cordial and friendly, and I sure as heck didn’t try to resist them getting photos with the buck. In fact, I was happy to take some of them. Why didn’t she mention that in her post? And the way that she threw dirt on my desire to give thanks for the harvest is sad too – they supported the idea and thanked me afterward. Seems pretty low down to use a person’s faith against them.

I do feel truly bad that Rachelle felt disrespected. I never, never intended to make her feel that way. She didn’t appear to feel that way at the time. I tried hard to use logic and a scientific approach to determine who had killed the deer. Once we established that we each hit the deer, and then I finished it off, it is my honest opinion that I killed the deer., and that my expertise was the reason we were able to recover the deer.

It is my opinion that they would not have recovered the buck. Her wound was not quickly lethal, if ever, and was leaving zero blood to trail. Without my hit leaving a blood trail we (they) never would have found that buck. (Unless they had access to the tracking data from the bucks collar. Did they? Is that how they knew where to hunt?)

In her post Rachelle called me out for not wearing orange on my head – and she was right. I wear a hat, and I’ve lost my orange band that I usually wear on it. I need to rectify that.
I will mention that there was a seriously illegal act performed during the follow up (not by my group), but I prefer to not make a statement that might get anyone in trouble.

Fact is, folks, I thought that we worked through the entire unpleasant episode in well-mannered fashion. I had hoped to remain friends with them. And I’m very disappointed that they decided to distort the truth and throw me under the proverbial bus. I hope that someday you guys will come to believe that I honestly did my best to determine what was right, that day in the canyon.

Those are the facts folks. And I have witnesses.

 

[3forks]

 

[JPeters218]

Damn post creep is getting me with this thread. Pages are getting added as fast as I can read them

 

[MuleyFever]

 

[Dos Perros]

 

[Dos Perros]

 

[Dos Perros]

 

[Dos Perros]

 

[UncleBone]

 

[rclouse79]

Post creep is getting me with this thread. Pages are getting added as fast as I can read them

I got to page 20 last night before I was inspired to contribute my own meme. I have kept up today, but I have a gap between page 20 and page 38. Something for later.

Edit: I am taking my son hunting this weekend. Based on the current rate of new posts I estimate there will be 245 pages by then if it doesn't get shut down. At that point catching up will be insurmountable.

 

[Drenalin]

 

[Drenalin]

 

[Drenalin]

 

[UncleBone]

 

[Scottyboy]

A quick congratulations to you all for having Rokslide be the first thing to show up on google, just after his personal accounts (IG and FB). Keep it going and this page will be #1

 

[KenLee]

It was already ruined, you are correct but getting in a pissing match on the side of the mountain would not have fixed any of it and only made it worse.

Knowing when to escalate a situation is equally as important as knowing when to walk away.

I don't know when I'd have been more dangerous to Aram. Young and stupid, or now too dang old to care about consequences. Either age, it wouldn't have been pretty. Glad he apparently thought of his small kids. I've never cared very much about trophies, but wife or kids deer would be different.

 

[mike.adams.467]