So...…………..…..
My hunting buddy and his 82 YO dad (also my hunting buddy too) set out from Coquitlam at around 3pm Wednesday.
The next morning was the last day before any buck. The area we were in contained some smaller bucks so we decided to leave it alone until "any buck" opened the next day (Oct 1).
We did a morning walk through an area adjacent ,with no bucks spotted by 10 we decided to move elsewhere.... We drove the area between barrier and the mclure ferry seeing most of the 20 or so deer closer to barrier. the area was loaded with pipeline workers so we tried to find a road further away from them...we found a couple of nice side roads and went for walks...We didn't see any deer while walking those roads and we didn't see any 4 points on the drive...of the 20 or so we saw only 2 were forkys.
We got back to camp near dark but the energy was high anticipating the next days hunt ......I had the alarm set for 5 and I think I was crashed out by 10:30 pm...heheheh.
We got up at shortly after 5 had some toasted apple struddles and coffee before heading out in the dark. as we were getting into position it started to get a bit light but a thick fog was also coming in in waves....super foggy then a break then super foggy again. Barely after it was light enough to shoot I heard a shot...I was close enough to one buddy to know it wasn't him so i was sure it was other buddy......but it was now prime time so no heading over to help him
I carried on slowly moving through a treed area ...I was sneaking up on deer but so far every one I scoped out was a flat top. 6 out of every 8 does had twins....I did my best to back out every time and try a different path through the woods to keep the ladies calm....
I took this pic (sorry had to delete the pic) when i was surrounded by 6 does and fawns ...it is super hard to tell how close these two deer were but I was less than 50 feet away. When i found myself in the middle of 6 deer all staring at me i tried a trick i read somewhere ….the suggestion was put your elbow high and make a scratching action against your head (like a dog) then plop straight down.....well i don't know if the deer were just really tame or not but they slowly all went back to their business while a stayed low....I may try that trick again with more skiddish ones before i believe it works well or not...the one big one in the pic was a huge momma and she was the last one to stop staring at me...my phone doesnt take the best photos but if you zoom in you can see big momma still staring while the fawn had gone back to playing around. i was literally surrounded by them on all sides at one point and thought i might have to fight my way out...JK ...heheheheh
After approaching about 4 different groups of all does I circled back yet again and managed to spot a small buck with 4 does...on the other side of some thick stuff...
One at a time they moved past the thick stuff and i watched each one come out on the other side of the thick stuff....every one except the buck....after about what seemed like 10 minutes I thought the buck must have circled round a different route so I started stalking again in super silent ninja stealth mode....
Other than the odd little patch of thick stuff, it was mostly what I call "1-step country" where you could see far enough to be noticed moving by the deer so seeing them first was critical. I figured I better start moving again and I would use the thick stuff as cover....
I should have backed out and went around but instead moved towards the thick stuff....sure enough, the buck was in there.....the buck rose and I was close enough to try an easy offhand shot....luckily for the buck that 6 inch tree was in the way just enough and I hit lumber instead of deer....I quickly reloaded and emerged from the thick stuff with a view of 6 or 8 deer and the buck was quartering away a little but close enough for an off hand shot again....with no trees for him to hide behind this time, I managed to put one through his heart...….
After i knocked it down i did a quick double check on my wounded tree to ensure it would survive ...heheheh ok just to figure out how i could have missed that first shot from so close...easy to do because the deer was moving and i was swinging as i shot from 40-50 feet away outside the thick stuff at him as he scrambled out...
While i was showing to my hunting partners the wounded tree, one of them managed to find a full skeleton from a previous years kill that had not been retrieved..it was not from us as we had not hunted there previously and so here it is in behind the other 2 skinned out heads.
Because we now had 2 down we decided it was probably a good idea to all pitch in and get to work ….the 3rd deer would have to wait…. I gutted my fellow and flagged my way back to other buddy that took the early morning shot...
When I hooked up with him he was just opening his up so I helped him and let him know I had one down as well....
The first thing i said to him when i saw the deer was "those tines look freaky"....then I ask him where he was shooting from....he said "over there by the barn" but over there by the barn wasn't even visible with the fog...it was over 300 yds and I was very much impressed by my buddy's shot. he managed to see it when the fog lifted briefly
the quad was still back at camp so buddy went back and grabbed the quad....we loaded both of them up on the back, tied them in place, and went back to camp...we normally drag out deer skin on then hang them to wash out the cavity drip dry/wipe out a bit then skin it....I always say "If the ribs aint white, it aint right"...There was a hose station there at our site that we were able to use to wash them out which was easier than the usual way with throwing buckets of water inside.... this is the two of them all cleaned up
Once washed, we moved them to a covered area to hang, skin ( we always do head down for skinning and peel the ankles first before putting the rope through them) and bag them up (game bags)
Due to warmer weather (it was predicted to go 20 that day) we had to do some extra tarping to ensure they were in the shade and extra taping to make sure no flies could find their way in to the game bags
Late that day, we found "our second wind" ..heheh..and decided we would try sending the last guy into the timber while the other 2 of us looked for a black bear that was in the area and needed to be removed.
We split up and for my route I did a big circle along the edge of the timber. as i moved along I bumped a couple of deer but then I spotted the bear. I'm not sure if he saw me or smelled me but all of a sudden he hightailed it out of there away from me...but the treed area was not too big so the bear had to turn to stay in the trees....as it turned while it ran, i saw it for almost a km in a half circle around me and i spotted him 3 more times as he continued to run and cross openings…."well that was cool to watch a bear do that" i thought, but on the other hand, he just ran through the area where the other fellow was gonna go so it probably it spooked all the deer out of the area... It was now getting later so i turned to go back to camp...
as i was kinda thinking the bear was gone i moved quickly and through open areas as i went....i crossed one large opening and managed to scare up a "weird looking" deer....it took off and ran right past where buddy was sitting so i went towards him...when we met up i mentioned the bear bumping through the area and he asked if i saw the WT doe that just ran by him..... then it clicked for me why that deer looked weird...it was the small ears, how it ran and the big white flag that i somehow didn't register until he mentioned the WT...oh ya...that is why that one looked weird...heheheheh
It cooled off really nicely that night with the clear skies so we were not worried about the meat. The next morning we had already talked about doing a drive to go find some whitetails but after seeing one where we were, we decided to see if we could find a WT in the same location (or that pesky bear) instead. We did the exact same routes as we did when looking for that bear. The plan of action was that the 2 of us that were tagged out on muleys would stay along the edges and watch for WT or a bear while the last guy would go through the trail that went through the trees to look for his muley buck....
Again we headed out in the pitch black with the plan to watch for anything we could legally shoot getting pushed out of the treed area by our last muley hunter.
We waited until first shooting light and buddy entered the path through the treed area as the other 2 of us moved to different spots to post up....he was no more than 5 minutes into the woods when we heard the shot....It was the smallest buck at only a 2x2 but we were super happy to see that the 82 yo had connected on one... what a dead eye shot too... he said it was coming straight towards him and got so close he decided to do a head shot...His 300 WM didn't really leave much skull to do a euro on.....more like only a pair of salad forks survived...heheh……(the rest of us both used 30-06 remingtons)
I had to cut out some detail so it would fit
Thanks for reading
Bill & Co
ps that skull we found was a 3x4 and quite tall
Reply With Quote
