Rifle: Benelli R1 Argo E-Pro
Bullet: Handloaded Hornady 165 grain ECX
Here’s the story. Tuesday. Lots of tracks in the snow that fell that night and morning. No animals though, with the exception of coyotes howling all day long.
Wednesday. Hiking in a slightly different spot, again, nothing all day except a pack of 3 coyotes in the distance. At some point I sat down, and my waterbottle fell out of its pouch, which I of course didn’t notice until hours later when I was thirsty. By some miracle (and my footprints) I managed to find it, icy cold and quite refreshing by then. Getting towards evening, cold and tired from hiking all day in below zero wind. What do I spot on the next hillside? Two white deer butts. I set up and glass them, no antlers on one, but in the fading light I see the other has some headgear. Not huge, but I’m after meat. Too far to shoot, so I start stalking up, it’s rolling hills though, so I lost sight pretty quick. When I crested the next hill, they had gone down into a dip, so I naturally followed them. Which of course ended up bumping them out and my frozen fingers fumbled the safety and I watched the buck bounce off into the sunset. So I head home, set an alarm to be out there just before sunrise to smoke this guy.
Thursday. I wake up to an unusual amount of light. By some great misfortune, I slept through my alarms (or semi-consciously turned them off). I’ve shot bucks in the middle of the day before, so what the heck I say. Middle of the afternoon by the time I get out there. Within the first 15 minutes I run into a group of six does. I sit and watch them, looking for any bucks. Nope, but one notices me and starts huffing and puffing. This is also when I discover that my rangefinder isn’t working. Well, nuts. Don’t see a buck, but I have limited sightlines. So I circle back the way I came around the other side of the hill to get another look. I bump the exact same buck as yesterday, not 300m from where I saw him out of the thick rosehips. He goes running off into the hills and I go after him. But he went into the alternate dimension animals enter when they break line of sight with you. The next few hours are spent poking into every bit of cover and feeding area I know. Loads of sign and tracks, but no deer. At one point I see the same six does again, or at least I am fairly positive it was the same does. Light starts to fade and I start to head back to the truck, should get there right as it’s too dark to shoot. I’m lost in thought, planning on how I’m going to get that buck tomorrow morning. Then I look up and see a deer, not 30m away on the other side of some rosehips. Head down, but a good, thick body perfectly broadside. I kneel and am thinking, “just lift your head, show me your antlers!”. Not a second later, he does. Not huge antlers, but bigger than the one I was chasing. His head goes back down, I can’t believe this deer hasn’t seen, smelled or heard me, or if he did, he gave exactly zero fluffs. Gun up, boom. I have never seen a deer jump so high, it was almost comical. He turns and starts to run off, but he’s wobbling bad. It’s gonna be dark in 20 minutes, so I fire twice more just to try and get him on the ground. No luck and he disappears behind a tree. Cursing myself because I swear I nailed him with a perfect shot, I go after and find him on the ground behind the tree breathing his last, perhaps 20m from where he started. I see the entry, right behind the shoulder, double lung. Not huge antlers, a decently wide 3x2, but a big, thick body on him.
Awesome. Cut my tag, give a celebratory yell. Where he died I could actually see my truck. Which was followed by a long expletive as I had about 600m of steep elevation gain to get there. No way I could possibly get the truck closer with the icy roads, guaranteed to get stuck. Grab it antlers and start huffing and puffing while the light is fading by the second. Right on cue, the coyotes sound off. Not a chance I can come back in the morning, even with the frigid temperatures. Text my hunting buddy, see if he’d be willing to come help me out. He was busy, but a couple hours later he came out with the quad and got him up that godforsaken hill right fast. Right on time as I hadn’t even got this deer to the really steep part. Even the two of us took a minute to get this dang deer into the truck. Got home, got to skinning. No wonder this deer was so freakin’ heavy! He had an inch of fat over his whole body, one of the fattest deer I have seen in person. I suspect he’s gonna be some good eats.
Anyways, that’s my story for my 2023 mulie. I’ll see if I can figure out the eldritch sorcery that is uploading photos tomorrow.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Hugh Mann
