Nevada Mule Deer Hunt 2013

[RosinBag]

I will tell the story when I get back on the 19th or 20th. But day two I filled my tag. More to follow....

 

[PhillyB]

Congrats... looking forward to the story

 

[Travis Bertrand]

Congrats again doug! Way to represent Rokslide and show what Nevada has to offer.

 

[Rizzy]

Thats a beauty!

 

[RosinBag]

Got good service, some battery and mid day, so here is how things went.

Brent Miller, Ed Fanchin and I met up in Elko on the 8th, had a good dinner and got plenty of rest.

Friday got packed up and had a 3 1/2 horse ride into base camp. Once at base camp, we packed our packs up for five days of spike camps.

A short steep hour climb and we were at our first spike camp. We got everything set up and this is how my first spike camp looked.

 

[RosinBag]

So the night before the opener we glassed our first basin. We saw about 20 bucks, but really no shooter. There was a 25"+ 3x2 that could be interesting the last couple of days.

Opening morning came and we were back to glassing. We turned up the same bucks and 8 other hunters trying to hunt them from below.

By noon, we decided to go further back to avoid the other hunters.

We packed up again and headed another hour down the ridge. Spike camp #2. That afternoon we glassed another basin and turned up 12 bedded bucks. Again no real good shooters, but no hunters.

 

[RosinBag]

Morning of day two, we split up, I went into one basin and Brent and Ed into another.

I turned up 16 bucks with one potential buck similar to what I shot last year, so he would be on standby.

I met up with Brent and Ed and they had seen a dozen or so bucks, with a potential shooter for me.

I am quicker to loose an arrow than they are.

Ed wanted to check out an area we could see a long way off.

We hiked over there and about an hour and half later we were glassing again.

 

[Tag stew]

Congrats!

 

[HUNT]

What a great buck! Congrats!!

 

[RosinBag]

We had Ben glassing about an hour so and the wind was blowing 30 plus. It had actually been that way since we got here on Friday.

Instantly Brent says grab your bow, 150 buck a hundred yards away. I said are you sure you don't want it and he said grab your bow.

Brent ranged it and it was 80 yards away downhill in extreme winds. I wanted half that distance in this wind.

The buck was with a smaller buck and they were feeding downhill away from us.

Brent rolled video and off I went. It didn't take long to close the distance as the wind covered up any noise. I got within 25 yards of the smaller buck, but the bigger one popped up at 42 yards. The slope of the mountain made it possible to see his vitals but not his legs.

I pulled back, tried settling my pin and checked my bubble level. Just about that time, the wind died a little and the arrow was away.

I heard it hit home, the bucked jumped up and ran about ten yards and looked back at me. I could see a hole in his chest that was center 12 ring. I ranged him again and it looked like he was going to roll over, but he took off over the ridge about five yards away.

I walked back up the hill and Brent said it was a perfect shot and that deer was dead. I am never so optimistic until I lay my hands on them.

Brent told me he had the entire sequence on video and congrats from Brent and Ed were abundant.

We waited about 15 minutes and we went after him. I went to where he was when I shot him and they stayed above in case he was sneaking our.

I found plenty of blood and once I tracked him to the ridge, I looked over and he was piled up face first about 50 yards away.

I got down to him and was shocked. I didn't get much chance to look at him during stalk, just took Brent's word he was a shooter. He was lying, a quick look and I thought he was around 150".

 

[RosinBag]

Brent and Ed met up with me and were also pretty surprised. It was certainly 150" and it was dead at our feet.

Punching out my tag, pictures, video congrats were going on. Ed made the buck look 180" in the pictures, but either way it was the biggest mulie I had shot with my bow.

Brent made a pretty amazing and unselfish snap decision to let me go after this buck and I thank him for that. That is what good hunting partners do and Brent and Ed are that.

The Ulmer Edge was a huge success, complete pass thru, huge blood trail and quick kill.

The caping, deboning and work was ahead. Again, Brent and Ed split the packing out and it was two hours back our spike camp. We were gladded to be there.

 

[Nick Muche]

Congrats, great looking buck!

 

[RosinBag]

A good night sleep and the third morning arrived. Brent and Ed went out hunting and I became a mule.

I packed the meat, cape and horns back to our base camp. I took care of the meat and submerged it in the creek. I salted the hide up well and hung it out to dry.

I grabbed the remainder of the food for all of us for the remainder of the trip and headed back up the mountain. Just before leaving water, I filtered about 400 ounces before I broke the handle on the pump.

With plenty if water and food to get us through I packed my way back to spike camp.

 

[Slim Jim]

Congrats Doug! Gotta love the Rubys

 

[RosinBag]

Day 3 for Brent and Ed turned up some promising bucks in the head of the same basin I killed my buck. They were optimistic for day 4.

Day 4 had us back glassing the basin with promise. We turned up over 30 bucks and 3 were shooters. As we were planning the day, a couple cowboys, a couple of dogs and cattle herding was going on below.

This chaos had the deer nervous and eventually over the tip and out of the basin.

As we were hiking back to camp, I thought it would be better to move camp down to water and closer to this basin we were hunting instead of climbing out of the 1100' hole we had been doing. After much debate it was decided we would.

 

[RosinBag]

Day 5 starts with Brent and Ed breaking down their camps and leaving it behind as they set out for the basin.

I packed up all of our camp gear and packed it down to spike camp #3. I didn't set anything up, but dumped it and headed off to meet up with them.

As expected, the basin was loaded, but two of the shooter bucks were missing. Glassing all morning, we turned up a new shooter buck, that may hAve been a buck we jumped nearby on day 4.

We watched as some bedded in spots that were not approachable and some feed up and out of the basin.

At noon we decided we would walk around and try and glass up the bucks that fed up and out.

And here we are as that is where I am typing from, great 4g LTE service and we found 6 of the bucks. It looks like none of them are any of the shooters.

So the story is caught up, hopefully plenty more to go. Two tags and 3 1/2 days to go.

Stand by...,

 

[RosinBag]

Misc pics of some goats they say are dying out...





Spike Camp # 2

 

[bowuntr]

Congrats Doug... one helluva buck. I wish I was there... oh wait, I am... 3 more days... Ed F

 

[Mckinnon]

Thanks for sharing Rosin! Good luck bowuntr

 

[Brock A]

Sweet story so far! Look forward to the rest.