Just a couple blocks from Surplus Herbies...
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I don't know how, but I forgot to post that one weekend, me and my brother went out on a Bananarama for bighorns early October.
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We did find some sheep. Seen 2 ewes with collars on them.
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Spotted a 4pack of rams waaaaaay off. I think we had to cover 10 km just to have a better look. The top one was stockier and darker than the others. But upon further inspection, it was easy to tell he wasn't legal.
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Also found this... ? ? ?
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November 22nd, B-Rad came down from Q-Town. Ol' Tranquilizer came to town with his whife. So I had B-Rad, Tranquilizer couple and my brother over for dinner. Then Saturday morning myself and my brother were going to take B-Rad down to my little spot for mule deer. Tranquilizer was wanting to come, but his chores hadn't gotten done.
But served up some bear neck cheese steaks to everyone. Figured it was a pretty fool proof way of over cooking bear meat and still being able to serve it. Tranquilizers wife finally tried bear meat for the first time. She liked it quite a bit. So I think I can take Tranquilizer bear hunting again.
November 23rd... well 3 am came early after a dinner party. B-Rad is usually pretty on the ball when it comes time to getting up early and going hunting. I made up some bacon and eggs, quick stop for gatorade at the gas station and we were off. We were a little later than what I wanted and as busy as I expected it to be. My brother took off up one side of the valley, B-Rad and myself headed off another direction.
I wanted to start off up behind our parking spot, but I seen headlamps on the ridge already. So I decided to head down valley to option number 2. There was a truck parked there, but buddy was still getting his gear together. I kind of pulled a dick move. I went walking about 30 yards or so past the guy as if I was going somewhere else and headed up the mountain in the dark without my headlamp on so buddy wouldn't know we were close. Got to the top of the mountain. B-Rad was wheezing a little, but we were on top now and it was legal shooting light.
It was a little windy out. So we worked the timber near a big opening. We weren't seeing much, just as I expected. I decided we would cut across the top and head down the back side. Did bump into buddy cutting across the top hunting a ridge line. We headed straight down the backside into the thick stuff. Wind was good and the ground was quiet... but B-rad still found the dry crunch vegetation to step on.
In a very short time dropping off the back, I spotted our first deer of the day. Sure enough in the thick stuff, spotted a doe. I slipped away and I was a little puzzled why it was alone. We started making our way through a ravine with some good timber in it. B-rad caught some movement and said "deer!" The deer was working it's way up to an opening. The doe had 2 others in tow with her. They were making their way up single file... I told B-Rad to be ready, there may be a buck right behind them.
Sure enough not far behind the girls, here's a porch buck trailing them. I have my binos up, "He's 4". Expecting to hear a gunshot, I look at B-Rad and his rifle is still slung over his shoulder. It was a bit of a mixed blessing. It was still early, and I know there's better deer around. But this could possibly be the day myself and B-Rad could get skunked.
We carried on down the back side of the mountain, bumping little pockets of does, but no bucks? I lead the way around a little knoll and seen a really good buck right away. Just staring right at us, but we had the wind. I froze, his antlers were an inch past his ears.
Me "Brad there's a good buck"
Brad *looks at me*
Me "I can not see 4 but he's big, get ready"
Brad *gets rifle in ready position*
Me "Line up on him and if you see 4 shoot him"
Brad *stands there*
Me "Grab that tree and get ready to shoot"
Brad *Lines up on the deer*
Me "Take 1 step and use that tree as a rest"
Brad *Finally gets into shooting position*
Me "If you're 100% sure he's four... take him"
Brad "Is he four?"
Me "I'm waiting for his head to turn"
This should be good^^^^^
Atleast it was Nov 23rd, so it wasn't me "getting ready" that you pulled tha move on.
Don't feel bad, as where I go I used to have all to myself for years but slowly people have followed my tracks in (when there was snow!),
and now I am never alone and also "skirted" another hunter who I suspect was just sitting there waiting for deer to move and then saw me
pull in with my truck and then acted like he was going up.
I just cut across and up I went ….hell, it's "my spot"!:mrgreen:....go get your own!!
Just how it is.....others have done it to me, but it does mean you have to hunt the areas most wont go!
Sounds like that's exactly what you did by going down the backside!
Also sounds awfully familiar to where I hunt...????(big opening etc in the vicinity)
Anyways, also have to admit I am jealous about how much time you find to get out there!!
(oh how I wish my back yard was also my hunting playground....)
Keep going....want to hear this!
Looks like fun!
Great thread..amazing pics and story. Nice rifles..what brand?
Seemed like the longest staring contest I've ever been in. The deer finally turned his head. I count off... one, two, three... what? That's not right.
B-Rad "Is he four?"
Me "I can count 3... do you see four?"
I count again in my head. "one, two, three... there's gotta be a kicker or double brow tine or some piece of garbage somewhere"
Me "you got four?"
B-Rad "I only can cont three"
Me " It's a clean 3 isn't it?"
B-Rad "I'm not sure"
The deer slowly wandered down the hill with a couple ladies in tow. We worked our way around. Maybe a different angle would reveal something we couldn't otherwise see. Looking down the hill, we got a clear 360 of his headgear. He was a big clean three all day long. We didn't want to push him, but he was headed to the bottom, we also wanted to head to the bottom as I think everyone was up top.
B-Rad rethinking his life choices
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When we got to the bottom, there was some sign, but we didn't see a whole lot for life forms, other than a couple ravens. So we decided to slowly pick our way back up.
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We got up top and I finally allowed B-Rad to have a sit down. Actually I was starving so I wanted one too. We hunkered in behind a big boulder near a draw. Protected be wind and a good view, didn't seem like a bad spot to take a breather. We caught 2 does moving across the top, no other deer followed. But looking back down at the bottom. 2 does ran from the timber below us across some open country and into a draw. I could see them walking around in there, when they emerge from the back end into some more open country, they hauled ass again for cover.
Not sure which rifles you're looking at.
B-Rad was toting my Parker Hale 11000 chambered in 6.5x55 tossing 140 grain accubonds
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Here C-Man was packing his Savage 110 chambered in 30_06 chucking Barnes 165? grain TSXs
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Here C-man has hi brand new X-bolt chambered in 270wsm and my brother has my Weatherby Vanguard 300 win mag
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Which is the same rifle B-Rad got his moose with
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For my dad's goat he was packing a Parker Hale that was built into a 7mm_08 and then after we decided to climb to the snow line, he started packing my Weatherby Vanguard 30_06. My brother also had a custom built 25_06 on a K29 action. B-rad also packed a Savage model 10 308
We didn't have a whole lot of daylight left. I still kind of wanted to show B-Rad more of the area so we wouldn't have to walk shoulder to shoulder the next time we came down. We kind of hunted one ledge that overlooked some good country, but didn't come across anything.
I seen some flagging tape hanging in a tree along a ledge. Hmmm... we had to go that way anyway. As we got closer, there was a couple of guys taking a break. They had a couple quarters and were waiting on the rest of their party. Guess they had got a deer near the bottom the day before and that day was pack day. Burned some daylight with them a bit and the rest of their crew made it up. Had a pretty decent deer. Took some group photos for them and we had to bail. I wanted to power hunt a spot before it got dark. Spotted a couple more does in a ravine and glassed the bottom a little. B-Rad didn't glass the bottom too hard. I don't think he wanted to head back down.
This point B-rad piped up "If we gotta get up and give'r, just go, I don't think I'll be able to keep up"
So I stayed up higher so we could kind of see down in the draws, and if anyone spooked something, it'd probably come up near us. Cutting across another open patch for some reason I felt I needed to glass the timber. Sure enough there was a lone doe feeding. From what we had seen, where's there's one deer, there's more. So we moved ahead slightly, as there was a little hollow in the terrain to give us some cover in the open country.
We sat there glassing thinking "there's gotta be more deer close by" The doe started moving to our left. We were pushing right. All of a sudden there was the other two does we knew should be around .They came out of the timber and headed towards the area we just left. With the does headed the opposite direction we needed to go... we started to push on.
Then I catch some movement in the timber. That just looks different.
Me "B-Rad.. Buck!"