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Thread: My whitetail buck

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Lower mainland
    Posts
    124

    My whitetail buck

    I should probably introduce myself I’ve been on here for some time in an out but have never done a write up, I’m a young guy been hunting most my life with my father and brother, love hunting and fishing and the outdoors more than anything it’s what I live for.

    being rained in all day I figured I’d do my first write up since I’ve got nothing to do. This year my family was super excited and blessed to pull a group hunt for any bull moose in region 7, so early in the year we started getting prepared purchasing a wall tent and a trailer and all the equipment needed to do a big hunt like this.

    my father in his earlier years would do a big trip everysingle year but ever since his hunting partner moved to the island and became unfit for the adventures of hunting he had stopped going, and so my brother and I have never been on a long trip camping out in the bush for 2 weeks so it made for a very exciting few months before the season started for my brother and i.

    fast forward to sept 23rd we headed up into our hunting spot in search of moose and or deer if we came across any. First few days of the hunt were very very slow with temperatures above 25 degrees in the afternoon seem to be that there were no animals in the area at all, loggers were saying they were seeing several cows and bulls in early September but ever since then they haven’t seen any at all.

    So the evening of day 4 we were around the dinner table deciding where each of us would spend our time in the morning we made a plan and hit the hay.

    5:30 o’clock the next morning we each get our gear together and hit the dirt, my brother and father took the quad and went up the road around 20 kilometres or so and I took the truck and headed down the road a few kilometres to a spot where the day previous, I had seen a few moose and deer tracks. While it was still dark I managed to slowly make my way into the wet mossy/grassy feild and set my self up in a position where I could see almost 360 around me and all the corners of the feild, since I was not apart of the group draw my trigger finger wasn’t too excited but since I’d seen many deer tracks in there and smaller moose tracks I had a few hopes for a whitetail buck or a spike fork moose.

    this was what It looked like where I was hunting him, that was close to the end of the opening behind that photo it’s open for about another 600 or so yards.



    about an hour or so into my hunt I had let out a few cow calls to see if I would get any replies or see any movements but hadn’t had any luck, In the spot I was hunting it’s about 250 yards to the end of the clearing and covered in some 3-4 foot tall willow patches and while I was glassing at the end of the opening I spotted a small buck feeding it’s way down through the opening. I was seated looking through my binos, and the buck was behind several willows and at first glance I saw a black tail and dark coloured antlers so I figured it was a mule deer.

    at that time of the year it was only open for 4 pt mule deer bucks so I didn’t pay much attention to it and went about with my moose calls. About half hour later 50 yards to my left here comes the little buck, but this time I get a real clear look at him small ears, big whitetail, light coloured body and a 2x2 rack yup he’s legal! But I was hesitant to shoot him at first since I was alone and did not feel like going back to the truck and going to find my brother and dad and derailing there moose hunt for this little white tail. But after a few minutes of watching him thrash at some brush and getting a look at his pretty good sized body I figured I’d take him, shot him with my 300 weatherby in the lungs and watched him run about 30 feet into a patch of timber.

    all jittered up I waited about 10 minutes packed my stuff into my pack and headed over to where I saw him last. As I walked to where I thought I saw him drop to my surprise he wasn’t there, scratching my head i proceeded to look for the deer searching the whole area where I saw him last in a 100 yard radius, I went back to where I shot him and zigzagged looking for blood but could not see a drop on the soft mossy redish coloured ground I was on, after about half an hour I was dumbfounded that I could not find the buck but deep down in my gut I knew I hit him, I was not going to leave without finding him, I walked into a small willow patch not even near where I saw him last and there he laid a feeling of excited but mostly thankfulness that I had found him and I didn’t feel sick to my stomach anymore thinking that I hit him but wouldn’t find him.

    here he was after I pulled out a bit into a cleaner area for a photo.



    now the hard part, over the years I’ve always hunted alongside my father, now since I’m 19 and legal to hunt alone, the dragging and gutting is now all my business because my father isn’t with me. I didn’t want to gut him where he Laid because I’d have to drag him through a wet muddy mossy feild for about 800 yards so I didn’t want to get all that dirty crap inside of him, Every year any deer we’ve shot we’ve dragged out a lot of easy ones back to the truck or quad but also several tuff times even with 2 guys. I overestimated my strength and stamina being alone, with a heavy duty aluminum framed pack I tied his rack to the bottom of my pack with a piece of rope strapped my pack on and I went for it, about 30 feet in and I’m huffin already crap I’m not even close, pacing my self and taking a few breaks over a span of about 45 minutes I get to about half way point and I’m absolutely whipped, “f*ck this” I’m gutting him It’s about another 350 yards and it’s more mossy than it is muddy back to the truck, so I take about 10 minutes to gut him and get him cleaned up and now I’m back to tow/haul mode, legs are on fire, breathing heavy stopping every 30 feet, this guy was kicking my a** it would’ve been smarter for me to break him down but it’s too late now. About an hour later going an extremely slow pace I reach the road, loaded him in the truck and back to camp I went, I was beat, wet and tired I had hoped my brother and father were there already to help hang him up but they weren’t which was odd it was around 12 or so and we’d usually be coming back to camp around that time so I went to get some water to clean the inside of the buck and surely after a few minutes they showed up. we took care of the buck and my father took him to the game cooler shortly after.

    me back at camp all beat up and dirty with my buck.



    on the moose side we spent a total of 8 days there and seen nothing but a cow we decided it would be better if we pulled the plug now and came up later in October when the snow fell on the mountains and would push the moose down into the valley, so 2 weeks ago we went up again and saw nothing but a grizz and a few fat black bears in 8 days due to work we had to pull out again unsuccessful for moose, so in total we spent 16 days there and moose wise we only seen 1 cow in an area that use to be littered with moose even up until last year. Super bummed about the moose part but so very grateful and thankful to have spent the time out in the wild creating incredible experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life.


    I have posted a few links to images I do not know if they will work, I’m hoping they do if not I’ll try and learn how to do that right now.
    Last edited by Kos; 10-30-2022 at 06:36 PM.

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Lower mainland
    Posts
    124

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Not by any means my biggest buck, but surely the hardest I’ve ever worked pulling out a deer by myself and that’s why I’ll never ever forget that moment. Now the pressure is on for 4 pt season to try and get some more meat in the freezer and I’m slowly trying to shift into more mountain hunting rather than driving roads, I hope to be able to post up a few more of my hunts down the road.

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Gambier island
    Posts
    104

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Nice work and awesome story. Thanks for sharing

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Lower mainland
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    Re: My whitetail buck

    Quote Originally Posted by Evanguy View Post
    Nice work and awesome story. Thanks for sharing
    Thanks! just finished reading yours story sounded like and incredible hunt and you did a perfect write up congratulations!

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Posts
    393

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Congrats man!! Nice write up

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Posts
    3,381

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Well school is never out. Great write up and congratulations.

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Central Interior of our beautiful british columbia.
    Posts
    6,340

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Every bite of that deer will be so satisfying! Nothing better than a hard earned animal!! I am not sure if if wild game tastes as good as it does, or if it tastes so good because of how hard we work for it?!! Memories with family in the end, is as important as the meat! Moose hunting this year was not as easy as it has been in in past years. It was hot, the bulls were not vocalizing as much as they have in the past, and they were doing their thing in the cool night air! We ate 2 LEH authourizations way up north, as the environmental conditions were tropical!! We managed a couple bulls closer to home though, in our backyard! Congrats on the whitetail, and it will be some fine vittles on the table!! Moosinaround
    "A good day hunting is mud on your truck or blood on your hands"

    “Some people go to church and think about hunting……………others go hunting and think about God!”

    It's actually called the 375 "ouch and ouch"!!

    "Not asking for any spots or anything like that............................................"

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    B.C CANADA
    Posts
    4,804

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Nice work , I'll add you don't have to worry about dirt and such in the body cavity so you could have gutted it right away . If you halved or quartered it then you get dirt , hair etc on the meat . I have dragged small mule deer (gutted) a km or more , whole just to keep them clean so well done !


    Quote Originally Posted by Spy View Post
    Ok thanks for pointing that out, can’t believe how wrong I was and how right you are.
    Quote Originally Posted by dino View Post
    I don't know why he always attacks me so vicously.

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Lower mainland
    Posts
    124

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Quote Originally Posted by moosinaround View Post
    Every bite of that deer will be so satisfying! Nothing better than a hard earned animal!! I am not sure if if wild game tastes as good as it does, or if it tastes so good because of how hard we work for it?!! Memories with family in the end, is as important as the meat! Moose hunting this year was not as easy as it has been in in past years. It was hot, the bulls were not vocalizing as much as they have in the past, and they were doing their thing in the cool night air! We ate 2 LEH authourizations way up north, as the environmental conditions were tropical!! We managed a couple bulls closer to home though, in our backyard! Congrats on the whitetail, and it will be some fine vittles on the table!! Moosinaround
    you’re absolutely right about that haha, nothing felt better then eating the tenderloins my dad cooked over the fire that night, my god did that taste good, and yeah dang moose didn’t work out for us, even around October 20th in previous years temps would be -10 or -15 in the mornings in our area but this year the lowest it got was -5 on one crisp morning, I drove up one road and climbed up to where there was a foot of snow and that was the only track I had seen and it was days previous I’m guessing when the snow had just started falling. A hard unsuccessful hunt definitely makes you cherish the good and successful hunts tho so there isn’t much to worry about!!

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2019
    Location
    Lower mainland
    Posts
    124

    Re: My whitetail buck

    Quote Originally Posted by Dannybuoy View Post
    Nice work , I'll add you don't have to worry about dirt and such in the body cavity so you could have gutted it right away . If you halved or quartered it then you get dirt , hair etc on the meat . I have dragged small mule deer (gutted) a km or more , whole just to keep them clean so well done !
    you’re 100% right I realized that after I gutted him and finished dragging him, there was nothing in him at all, definitely lesson learned, thanks for tip!

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