Cold Case: Muzzleloader Buck Hunt Recap

[RaggedHunter]

I wanted to do a recap of my 2024 Muzzleloader buck. I learned a ton hunting this buck and figured some of you big buck guys might enjoy this story.

Cold Case:
I'm not normally one to name the animals I'm hunting. That seems like more of a whitetail thing to me, but the name just seemed fitting for this deer given how it all came together.

In 2018 a good friend of mine who did not grow up hunting was wanting to get into it. I helped him setup a bow and we shot in the evenings after work. He picked up a cow elk tag. I went out with him the first few weekends of the hunt, had some encounters but ultimately hadn't got anything.

One weekend I was not able to go hunting with him. He went on his own. He picked a spot in a new area. This was an area I was somewhat familiar with, but not the main spot we had been hunting. After the weekend I asked him how it went. He informed me that he did not get an elk, but he did tell me about a big buck he jumped out of his bed, he said it was a big wide buck with a big cheater. He sent me a point to show me where it was at. I thought this would be a great spot to check if I end up with either a muzzleloader or archery tag for the unit in the coming years.

Fast forward to 2024, I have not had a tag for this unit in the 6 years since my buddy jumped the big deer. In August I was able to pick up a leftover muzzleloader tag for the unit. I decided what the hell, that spot is probably worth a look, it obviously had all the right ingredients to grow a big deer.

The problem was, those special ingredients critical to growing a big deer made this country not at all condusive to locating deer. It was a huge flat with thick scrub oak covering the majority of it. Walking around the country blindly would have been futile. There were no real good vantage points to glass all the country from if I went into the area from the way I would have to access it to hunt it.

After looking over the maps and google earth, I decided that my best bet was to go in from a completely different area, and long range glass the entire area from 2+ miles away. This would at least give me an idea on if there was anything I wanted to chase in the area and where I needed to focus in on. So I set out for my first morning of scouting.

 

[RaggedHunter]

One Saturday morning in mid August, I set out to scout the area. I hiked into the vantage point I wanted to be at well before light.

I sat up my tripod and 15's and as light began to break I was busy scanning all the country I could see. I located a couple of does, and a good number of elk. I even saw a really nice (Especially for this OTC unit) ~315 class bull that already had ~40 cows and was bugling his brains out. I had been glassing for about an hour and had only seen a couple of does.

I glassed into an opening I had looked at several times already. and this time I saw a small group of cow and calf elk entering from the far side. I noticed a couple of the elk started running around, kicking and playing... I then saw a small group of deer move across the opening away from the elk. I could tell it was a bachelor group of bucks, but from 2+ miles away I couldn't tell what any of them were with my 15's. As I watched I noticed 1 of the deer, the one with the biggest body did not like all this commotion, he peeled off from the group and bee-lined it for the nearest patch of thick oaks. My big buck radar went off. While the rest of the group fed off about 75 yards from the elk and continued feeding, this one had put his head down and headed straight for the thick oaks. As soon as he got into the thick oaks he bedded down and watched his back trail.

I got my spotting scope setup to try and see exactly what he was. It was hard to tell exactly what he was from that distance with the mirage and all the other factors that come with long range glassing. But I could tell he had a big frame and a cheater off his left side. I got a couple crappy videos of him through my spotter, and after slowing the videos down I figure he had close to a 30" frame and had to be pushing 190". He was the best deer I had seen in this area in a number of years, and I decided that I was going to spend as much time as I possibly could going after him. I was either going to hang my hag on him, or eat it.

This is the part that still blows my mind and where I came up with the name Cold Case.

I marked the bucks location on OnX and headed home. When I got home, I started wondering where this bed was in proximity to where my buddy had jumped the big buck in 2018. I was using a different app back in 2018, so after a while of digging around old apps I found the old point, I transferred it into OnX, and I'll be damned if the 2 points weren't within 50 yards of each other...

 

[RaggedHunter]

I made a couple more scouting trips between mid August and the start of season. But I did not lay eyes on him again. I did not see any of his buddies in this location again either. Cattle had moved into the area, I figured this my have stirred things up a bit.

One morning glassing I spotted a bachelor group of small bucks about a mile from where I saw Cold Case. I began wondering if this was the group he had been running with, I hadn't spend enough time looking at these deer the first day to be able to identify any of them. Was this the same group? Had they just relocated? Was he still with the group? I didnt get the feeling he was really hanging with this group of bucks, as much as I think they just happened to be feeding in the same area, but I just I wasn't sure. I knew he had to still be in there somewhere.

I planned on taking the whole season off. My plan was to sit on that glassing knob ever day until I re-located him.

The week prior to season that plan went in the dumpster. A big project of mine at work got pushed right into the week of muzzleloader. I had guys coming in from other countries, they were not able to re arrange their schedules. So now I was down to only having the 2 weekends to hunt. I was a bit upset, of course the year I finally find a big buck worthy of putting all my effort into, and I have timing commitment issues. But I got over my pity party and decided, I'm just going to spend every minute I do have looking for this deer.

I took the Friday before season opener off and went to my glassing knob. I did not turn him up that day either.