Behlftball
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2020
- Messages
- 151
This last week I had the pleasure of my first dedicated mule deer hunt. I had hunted mule deer 3 times on a MT combo license. First year, fork, second year 3x4 and last year a nice solid 4x4, but nothing big.
I drew one of the easier to draw units in Northeast NM in the mountains (nonresident). I got there about midday before the opener and spotted a pretty nice 4x4 from my sxs. The next morning I saw 0 deer. It's thick and it seemed like nearly everyone was road hunting. The night of the opener I passed a couple forks that were together. The following morning I saw 0 deer again. I ended up moving to a different part of the unit. Conversing with many locals, most more or less stated they were shooting the first legal buck they could find (which is great, their tag, not mine). This other part of the unit was more open, but still not great for glassing. After moving locations I saw lots of does, but 0 bucks. I hiked off road over ridges, glassed, etc and by the evening of day 4 I hadn't seen any more bucks since the forks day 1. I was glassing up every deer for fork antlers and was going to shoot the first legal deer I could. I headed up over a little ridge and saw a buck with antlers (evening day 4). He was close (50 yards) and quartering away. I put one in him behind the front shoulder and he dropped instantly. I thought he was a 3x3 or 4x4 and really didn't study him, just trying to get a good shot quickly. I believe it went right through his heart.
Upon walking up to him I realized I shot what will likely be the buck of a lifetime for me. I taped him out just over 190" gross. Im not experienced in this, didn't know exactly where to put the tape on the forks, etc and will have him officially taped after the drying period. Maybe he's only 180 gross, doesn't really matter. But wow, what a change of events! (I'm also 6'5" 250 lbs in reference for the pic haha)
I drew one of the easier to draw units in Northeast NM in the mountains (nonresident). I got there about midday before the opener and spotted a pretty nice 4x4 from my sxs. The next morning I saw 0 deer. It's thick and it seemed like nearly everyone was road hunting. The night of the opener I passed a couple forks that were together. The following morning I saw 0 deer again. I ended up moving to a different part of the unit. Conversing with many locals, most more or less stated they were shooting the first legal buck they could find (which is great, their tag, not mine). This other part of the unit was more open, but still not great for glassing. After moving locations I saw lots of does, but 0 bucks. I hiked off road over ridges, glassed, etc and by the evening of day 4 I hadn't seen any more bucks since the forks day 1. I was glassing up every deer for fork antlers and was going to shoot the first legal deer I could. I headed up over a little ridge and saw a buck with antlers (evening day 4). He was close (50 yards) and quartering away. I put one in him behind the front shoulder and he dropped instantly. I thought he was a 3x3 or 4x4 and really didn't study him, just trying to get a good shot quickly. I believe it went right through his heart.
Upon walking up to him I realized I shot what will likely be the buck of a lifetime for me. I taped him out just over 190" gross. Im not experienced in this, didn't know exactly where to put the tape on the forks, etc and will have him officially taped after the drying period. Maybe he's only 180 gross, doesn't really matter. But wow, what a change of events! (I'm also 6'5" 250 lbs in reference for the pic haha)
