Ahiuranch
FNG
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2022
- Messages
- 32
This past season (2021) was to be my first out west. I had put in for every tag available to me and had drawn a general season any legal weapon mule deer. Now at this point I had been hunting out west once and that was for a bear in another state with my compound. I may or may not have watched way to many gritty and husin videos, I thought I would move out west go on grand adventures and stack my walls with 400 inch bulls and 200 inch muleys. Well after eating my archery elk tag, then muzzle loader elk tag and finally my rifle elk tag I had come to the realization that maybe just maybe I couldn’t kill animals I couldn’t find. In the middle of archery season I had decided to move to a trad bow(this time due to watching to much of Aron Snyders Instagram) Dave at Kalamazoo bow works was gracious enough to set me up. The first day I shot it at 20 yards I filled a paper plate. What I hadn’t known till talking to Dave later that day was a paper plate on your first day is a great start. Then and there I made up my mind to shoot my tag with my recurve or eat another tag(don’t tell my wife,she hates the taste of paper) just kidding I brought my gun just in case because it’s any legal weapon and I like meat but if it presents it self I’ll shoot my trad. So off into late October we go I had been finding deer on my elk trips but something happen the weekend before my tag came in….SNOW, now I had never hunted in snow and didn’t understand animal movements in snow but I did understand that when I went out to re find the deer I had seen in September they weren’t there anymore. So opening weekend came and went, the only thing killed on those cold days and nights were my dreams of big bucks. I go back to work for the week and the last weekend of my 10 day tag comes around. Friday night I go on google maps and pick a random trail head. At 3 am my alarm blaring I get dressed,crank the Cummins and head for the trail head. Well the little 20 mile drive takes me 1.5 hours due to the winding roads and off roading that is not very conducive with a 8 inch lifted Dually. I pull into the trail head and get out, to my horror three dogs and two guys come walking up past me in skinny jeans and combat boots, they are heading up to “catch the beautiful sun rise on camera” mind you it’s 20 degrees and they are wearing actual skinny JEANS. They go off up the trail that I was to take and the dogs won’t stop barking. I sit in my truck and go back to sleep hoping that these guys get up far enough that when I start at sun rise the deer will pass through between us on the trail. As I start the accent I see deer tracks with dog tracks in them and quickly realize the dogs had chased every deer out of here but on I must go because I have no other plan. About 3 miles in I run into the guys and the dogs. They are cold and are on the way back down, it’s 9 am. I push up to where they had turned around and as luck would have it no others tracks in the snow. Yes I am the first up here for the day I think and press on. About .5 miles later at a bend I hear a weird scraping sound. Me thinking it’s a mountain lion or bear trying to take my precious life I knock an arrow and round the corner. Holy moly there is a 500 inch world record mule deer rubbing a tree not 30 yards in front of me. As I go to draw back he see’s me move and bounds up the hill but slightly towards me. As he’s going I am coming to full draw because I remember a south cox film where the deer jumps because a missed shot then stopped and looked back. He stops broadside and looks at me, with ice in my vein’s and meat on my mind I let her rip. The arrow flight is beautiful my mind drifts to my wife cheering me as I bring home the meat like a king of sorts. Smack my arrow hits but something is wrong the arrow hit back around the lung/liver not where I had ment for it to hit, you know because I had been shooting a trad bow for like 25 days and in my mind I had basically become the brown version of Fred bear. As I fumbled for another arrow the buck goes up and beds on a cliff face of sorts. I go up and around him and I have no shot due to angle I can’t draw my bow I go below and can’t see him. Then I remember my pack with my gun in it. Like the smart fella I am I had dropped it very quickly when I heard the scraping noise just in case I had to run for my life. So I go back to grab the gatt and set up to take a shot, in my mind I’ll shoot him he’ll stand fall off the rock and I’ll eat him. I drop my crosshairs on him and boom, huh that’s odd my shot hit 2 feet in front of his face but maybe I am breathing hard because the running around like an idiot thing. So I slow my breath and take another and same out come. So I do some Swag ( scientific wild ass guess) and aim for his butt, bang I miss again but the buck stands and slips off the ledge and I let him expire in the rocks below. I am happy but still confused about my shooting, so I look at my scope and realize I had dropped my pack on my scope and dropped my scope on the rocks. I think o well live and learn, threw the gun in the pack and headed to the deer. Once again I am amazed I mean it’s not often you see a 500 inch deer on your first trip right? I pull my cleaning kit out and get to work. I get him packed up and take off down the mountain. Now obviously he’s not 500 inches but this is still the biggest mule deer I have seen alive in my life. Granted I have only a few to go off but I digress. I slip and fall half way to the truck and my phone rings( I hadn’t had service all morning) my friend asks if I had talked to my wife because she was worried and trying to make sure I was alive. So I take off even faster down the hill so I can get to the truck drive to the canyon mouth and call her. Well as I turn out of the canyon I see her suv pulled over on the side. I pull up behind her and get out,she gets out in her hiking pants,jacket and boots… I ask her what up and she said my phone was giving her a weird message that I was out of signal range and she thought I had fallen off a cliff or something. I tell her the goings on and show her my buck. She then tells me how she had made it to the trail head and started hiking in, her watch said she had gone 2 miles but she realized she couldnt pack me out if I was hurt,so she was going to the mouth of the canyon to call my friend for help (he’s a delta I used to work with) we kiss and I head out to drop my deer at the processor. Just another day out west I suppose.
-Kai
-Kai
