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.

 

[RaggedHunter]

Opening morning.

I enlisted the help of my sister and her boyfriend to help me spot. I figured I could use all the sets of eyes possible to help locate him. And I knew if I had to move on him that I would want someone to be able to stay behind and keep tabs on the deer.

We saw a handful of deer and elk that morning, but had not turned up cold case. At one point pretty early in the morning, my sisters boyfriend told me that he saw a deer butt got through a small patch of quakies just below the oak bowl where I had seen cold case bed earlier in August. This was the only glimpse any of us had got, we were not able to confirm what this deer was.

About an hour into light we watched two hunters walk right up to the edge of the little oak bowl that the big buck had bedded in the first day, they were glassing right into where I saw him bed in August. My heart sank. I figured these guys must know about this buck too. But they glassed into that area for about 15 minutes, then kept working right on by.

By about 10 am everything was bedded and it was starting to get warm. We had seen several deer and had confirmed each one was not him.. Except the one deer but that was going out of the quakies going toward his bedding area. I was pretty certain this spot was the bucks home, he had to be in there somewhere. What if that was his butt Joe saw early this morning.

I took my 15s off my tripod and put my spotter on. I zoomed in to the point where I could fit this entire oak bowl in my field of view, I locked my tripod head in place and began attempting to burn a hole through all the thick oak brush. I did not touch my spotting scope for the next 20 minutes, just kept staring into this thick bowl of oaks.

Suddenly, I saw the tops of an oak start shaking side to side. The shaking continued, and got more violent. but the brush was too thick, I could not see what what doing the shaking. I figured either a bear had moved in and was getting after some acorns, or this was the buck. We all locked on and watched this spot for the next half hour, the mirage was getting bad, and it was making it hard to see detail. Finally it stepped out of the oaks into a small opening, it was a deer. I got a glimpse of his antlers, and I was about 90% sure it was cold case. I never saw his left side to verify he had the cheater, but it looked like a big bodied, big frame deer. He had rubbed his velvet now, so it was hard to tell for certain without seeing the cheater. But I didn't figure there was another mature buck living in this small of an area. He was the only mature deer I had seen in this entire area scouting, I thought it had to be him. We watched him go into a thick shady clump of oaks and did not see him come back out.

I decided I had better make a move and get into position for when he got out of his bed. I left my sister and her boyfriend on the glassing knob locked onto his location. I began the trek around to get into position. It took me about 3 hours to get into position. The country was extremely thick, I was wondering how I was ever going to get a shot through this stuff. I finally found a small area with a couple of shooting lanes about 130 yards from the clump of oaks where we watched the buck bed. I set up and got comfortable, it was about 1:30 and I knew I may possibly be sitting here until dark. I reached in my pack to grab a drink of water, and realized my water bottle had fallen out somewhere along my journey to get here... This was going to make for a long sit.

My thirst and cotton mouth was giving me PTSD flashbacks to my High School wrestling days when I would cut weight. I sat there until dark, never saw a thing. My sister and her boyfriend never saw a thing either.. that buck either stayed bedded until after dark, or he had slipped out of that clump of oaks and we all just missed him.

I stopped by another hunters camp on my way out that evening and they were kind enough to share a couple bottles of water. Did not catch their names, but if by some chance you guys see this, thank you. I owe you gentlemen a beer.

 

[RaggedHunter]

Day 2:

Watched a herd of elk walk straight through the bucks little hidey hole. Saw several deer this morning, overall animal activity was really good because there was a storm moving in. But never saw cold case.

Glassed until about 10am, then the rain set in, it fogged in and rained the rest of the day. It was back to work now for me.

Day 3 of hunting: Day 7 of season.

I wrapped up my work project by mid day Friday and decided the hurry and get an evening hunt in. I enlisted the help of my neighbor and good buddy for the evening. With how long it took me to get from the glassing knob to the deer, I figured there was no play on the deer on an evening hunt unless I was already in striking distance. I sent him up to the glassing knob, and I went in the bottom. I worked my way around this country looking for some sort of a vantage point within about a thousand yards that would allow me to look into the deer's hidey hole. But this country was just too thick and flat. I could not find a spot that let me see what I really needed to without being up on the glassing knob. My buddy glassed the whole area until dark, saw a few does and 1 small forky, but no sign of the big buck.

Looking ahead, there was another big storm moving in. I knew I would have Saturday morning to hunt but that Saturday evening and Sunday morning were probably going to be less than ideal with the weather. Saturday morning was going to be my last good chance to make something happen.