Well its been an interesting season for deer with the weather (warm then snow), the moon (full early Nov) and you know, deer being deer and not looking at the calendar. I hunted hard in the early season for moose and saw a load of moose but hunting with a unicorn tag made things the usual fun. Hunted October up high in the alpine but the deer weren't moving much, saw bucks still grouped up, didn't see any of the target bucks I was lookin for so focused my time on birds with the dog and put the hammer on them. The snow hit hard above 1100m and forced me out early November and the full moon, clear calm nights in early November made the deer movement in the day pretty minimal. That brings us to now, Ive hunted the big timber and hills hard below the deep snow and seen one buck and his tracks many times and him once or twice, every night he came down hill on one path, checked out the ladies all night then headed back to his thick bedding area that had very little access without him knowing. It wasn't a huge buck but thats the game, a 4x is a 4x in November for me. I hadnt seen much day light rut action so decided to pack up the camping gear, loaded the truck up and was ready to go away for a few days, hunt some low areas by ashcroft, cover some ground and see what happened out there. I planned on leaving in the am after a few errands, got busy and by 230pm I made the decision to head out the next AM but why waste an evening right? Drove ten minutes from home below the snow and still hunted some timber in the rain. Parked, still hunted 1 km over an hour and a bit and saw some does, then a big body, binos up, its a 4x, the 9.3 barked and at 75yds he dropped. Now hes not by biggest by antler size, but dayum is this boy chunky. Body was thick, fat all around, and the neck of a line backer and all around big. I pulled some serious neck meat off this guy , under the wind pipe on both sides thats double the size of his tenderloins. Front shoulder and flank were thick as well, lots of good meat to grind up form there. 9.3x62, hornady 286gr interlock entered the neck from head on blew out the spine, down the centre, bust his pelvis and I found a good mushroom under the skin of his A-hole as I cut around it field dressing. All around Im happy with this guy, still have two WT tags and might head to the island depending on CV for some blacktail action, lots of time left and the rut is going strong so get out there.
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