Quick Mule Deer Tip

[nksmfamjp]

A couple days ago, in central MT, I had a small herd of Mule deer upwind 650 yds from the truck. I try not to be a road hunter, but sometimes they are just near the road! We hid the truck and tried to close the distance. I’m not ready to shoot 650 yds off my tripod.

So I snuck up this hill with my hunting buddy….we get there, 565yds ahhh. We then saw the truck that they were looking at. We snuck back down the hill and discussed how to maybe get within 500 yards. We snuck up a coulee until we could see them and held there. The they started walking at us. i checked my ballistic calculator for a 400yd shot knowing I could adjust from there if closer or a bit further. Adjusted the scope to get 400 yd parallax, elevation I decided would be hold over, confirmed 0 windage and cranked the magnification to about 6-8x. The were coming at us. I got a position and rapidly ripped out my tripod as they were getting a full view of me.g I hit the small buck at about 300 yds as it stopped.

The tip is always stay upwind, head in the game and stay hidden neck down as much as possible. I think if I would have panicked as they came closer, I would have moved instead of getting my tripod out and just shooting methodically.

I learned I need a dedicated tripod holder pack.

 

[Bljc34]

Thanks for the tip! Congrats on the success!

 

[Fitzwho]

I saw somewhere a tripod hip carrier/sling sort of thing that I thought looked handy.

I think you could make or modify a Kifaru gun bearer to hold a tripod pretty easily.

The Cotton Carrier system could work as well.

 

[Dos Perros]

When rifle hunting I always have my rifle in the Kifaru Gunbearer and then the tripod with a v-yoke on the pan-head in my hand. I can quickly deploy the tripod and rifle. It's easy to fold out the legs and set it on the ground if you just want to stop and double hand your binos.

 

[nksmfamjp]

Probably would have been faster!

 

[AZ_Hunter_2000]

My tripod is always in the left side pocket on my Kuiu pack. Very easy to take the pack off and pull the tripod out.

Do recommend practicing where you get the tripod out and setup for glassing/shooting as quickly and quietly as possible. The seconds saved can make the difference in getting a shot off or not.

 

[chutinlead]

Does anyone make a scabbard or something similar. Would be cool to not have to take the pack off. I'm thinking maybe the super tall side pockets of the K3 4800 pack could work