rem338win
11-23-2013, 11:37 PM
Being who we are and how we deal with things, Mrs. Gunner and I were visiting earlier this week and mourning the fact that Murray (Gunner) had moved on from this world to the next. During that time we decided that we should try to get out on this Saturday and have a memorial hunt, her hopefully another good hunting friend, and I. It turned out that the other friend couldn't come due to family commitment, but his visit with Mrs. Gunner had some positive consequences. During their visit a buck showed up in the yard and after a scramble for a rifle and ammo, the buck had moved off and was no where to be found. But Mrs. Gunner started to feel the fever again and it gave her the drive to go to a beautiful spot that she drove by often and ask for permission where none could be obtained before. Much to her excitement she received a very positive response and she called me at work and left an excited message. Saturday's hunt would be a special one, as Mrs. Gunner had started the first steps of hunting without her dear husband.
Well, this morning as I pulled up her driveway in the dark, I saw this odd figure on the downhill side of her and Murray's driveway moving. I first thought bear, maybe, too dark for a deer.....its Mrs. Gunner all camo'd up and ready to go! She was excited and obviously itching to get into the field. After quickly going over all the "Murray stuff" that we were both packing that day (I had the 6.5 Rem Mag, a Dozier knife, a hat I had bought him, his WIN card, the little Leupold spotter...she had his camo on, a pack he bought her, the Minox bino's, some deer scents, the .280 he'd given her, and more...) as it was a hunt in his memory, we headed off to the property previously mentioned.
We walked a brush line at the edge of the property in the ghostly grey of the moring toward the back of the place and the river that bordered it. The -10 wasn't biting all that hard, likely due to the lack of wind and the effort of moving while bundled up. The wet chill made all of the smells we hunters adore clear on the olfactory and the eyes played the odd trick convincing us that grey bodies moved at the tree lines across fields and clear cuts. It was perfect to persue the rascally ungulate called whitetail.
The green field was a sharp contrast to the frosty, yellow tall grass, cottonwoods and cedar timber as we passed through and moved into the ungroomed range. It was clear that there is lots of deer movement through that land, and we were moving cautiously on high alert as we approached the areas we intended to lay scent and call in.
We saw a few does and their twins from the spring, and a couple young dry ones as well. Unaware of us do to our super-sneaky, just-by-chance still hunting skills we were able to enjoy watching them, as well as a small woodpecker, in the morning jaunt. After discovering more than we needed to in order to form the opinion that this hunting spot was an absolute whitetail dream land, we ended up in a flat meadow, full of layed down, frosty high grass just off of a slough, a stream bed and about 200yds from an oxbow in the river. It was getting close to the time of day when Mrs. Gunner's cat needed its daily medicine, so after some short deliberation we decided to spray some estrus scent and make some doe bleats to bring a mossy horned brute to us. We setup at the base of the 8' tall remander of an old cottonwood, and started to strategically spray the scent and expertly turn the very difficult to operate bleat can over, and over. Between the concentrated moments of making the doe notes just right, I looked over at Mrs. Gunner to see her gun on the ground and her eyes looking far off. I may have said something along the lines of "you don't look like you expect much to happen..." with a grin on my face and her look returned that I may have guessed right. After calling a time or two more, and a paused look to the slough on my right, I looked back to the line of cottonwoods and hawthorne on my left and saw a doe moving quickly then pausing to stare over her shoulder about 120 yards away. I told Mrs. Gunner about my new friend and she sat up a bit higher to look over the grass that blocked her view. She looked at me as if to say "stop messing with me, boy.." and said "I don't see her". Patiently I told her that the tail outline was pointed right at us, and she was looking back as if expecting her beau to appear soon. Mrs. Gunner stereotypically decided that I must still think she was born yesterday, until I smuggly informed her the larger grey form of the buck I knew was to come had just arrived and that she needed to get on her Bog-pod. She did see the buck that appeared just in time to vindicate me, and in a moment told me that was not her buck (you see she is a seasoned vet, that only cuts her tag on the quarry of her specific choosing) and that if I wanted him, he was all mine. Given the rarity that time is for me in these busy days, and the facts that he wasn't a fork, he had good body size, the day was already memorable, and we had Murray's stuff with us, I decided to take him. The buck kept moving along the edge of the cottonwoods and hawthorne, quartering to most of the way, and the long, yellow grass nearly to his back line. I couldn't use the Bog-pod setup for a nearly foot shorter Mrs. Gunner (not her problem, but ogre-ish mine), so I followed the buck freehand with the Leupold 2.5-8 on 5x until he cleared the grass at roughly 80yds facing me, but quartered slightly to my left. The wires fell to were I pictured the heart, and the 6.5 Remington Magnum that Murray and I spent so much time talking about in its infancy went off like the trigger was directly wired to my brain. The "whock" of the 120gr Ballistic Tip hitting his side made it back to my ear as my left eye saw him stumble and pick himself up to run directly toward Mrs. Gunner and I. The onside shoulder obviously bloody, I did my best to hit him again as he closed in to mere yards to our left; the glancing blow to his same injured leg wasn't required. The buck had hit a bank of earth overhung with a scraggly bending hawthorne curtained with the same long, yellow grass that was all around us. We gathered my precious brass for a moment, high fived and hugged. We made mention of how Murray would have enjoyed this, and then I went to find the blood that led us into the buck's exact expiring place. We had to untangle him from the vegitation, and I pulled him clear enough of the small labrynth to get some memorable pictures. We had some teary moments, and shared another hug, Mrs. Gunner remembering who exposed her to this wonderful tradition, and I how much he would've wanted to be here. How much I wanted him to be there.
I hope you get the big fella you held out for tomorrow Mrs. Gunner! and make sure the other guy does the dirty work for you....
Mrs.Gunner kneeling in the meadow soaking it all in...
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/07A65B06-CF35-49A1-959B-3500527C8557-872-00000150D9C1CF24_zpsf1617e5e.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/07A65B06-CF35-49A1-959B-3500527C8557-872-00000150D9C1CF24_zpsf1617e5e.jpg.html)
Can you see the buck....
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/2B7E5851-9596-437F-95CF-86A936C231B3-872-000001468B5B7F8B_zpse1f4f0d5.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/2B7E5851-9596-437F-95CF-86A936C231B3-872-000001468B5B7F8B_zpse1f4f0d5.jpg.html)
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/7A277BD5-EBD4-4376-A052-53723EA41B77-872-000001464797238A_zps586b4ea2.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/7A277BD5-EBD4-4376-A052-53723EA41B77-872-000001464797238A_zps586b4ea2.jpg.html)http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/A95533A0-2CAB-499D-AEFC-2758EC8CC994-872-000001460B60B231_zpsde2b1daa.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/A95533A0-2CAB-499D-AEFC-2758EC8CC994-872-000001460B60B231_zpsde2b1daa.jpg.html)
And it wouldn't be the same if I didn't have one of the old boy....http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/MurafterMoose_zpsfe24d1bb.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/MurafterMoose_zpsfe24d1bb.jpg.html)
Well, this morning as I pulled up her driveway in the dark, I saw this odd figure on the downhill side of her and Murray's driveway moving. I first thought bear, maybe, too dark for a deer.....its Mrs. Gunner all camo'd up and ready to go! She was excited and obviously itching to get into the field. After quickly going over all the "Murray stuff" that we were both packing that day (I had the 6.5 Rem Mag, a Dozier knife, a hat I had bought him, his WIN card, the little Leupold spotter...she had his camo on, a pack he bought her, the Minox bino's, some deer scents, the .280 he'd given her, and more...) as it was a hunt in his memory, we headed off to the property previously mentioned.
We walked a brush line at the edge of the property in the ghostly grey of the moring toward the back of the place and the river that bordered it. The -10 wasn't biting all that hard, likely due to the lack of wind and the effort of moving while bundled up. The wet chill made all of the smells we hunters adore clear on the olfactory and the eyes played the odd trick convincing us that grey bodies moved at the tree lines across fields and clear cuts. It was perfect to persue the rascally ungulate called whitetail.
The green field was a sharp contrast to the frosty, yellow tall grass, cottonwoods and cedar timber as we passed through and moved into the ungroomed range. It was clear that there is lots of deer movement through that land, and we were moving cautiously on high alert as we approached the areas we intended to lay scent and call in.
We saw a few does and their twins from the spring, and a couple young dry ones as well. Unaware of us do to our super-sneaky, just-by-chance still hunting skills we were able to enjoy watching them, as well as a small woodpecker, in the morning jaunt. After discovering more than we needed to in order to form the opinion that this hunting spot was an absolute whitetail dream land, we ended up in a flat meadow, full of layed down, frosty high grass just off of a slough, a stream bed and about 200yds from an oxbow in the river. It was getting close to the time of day when Mrs. Gunner's cat needed its daily medicine, so after some short deliberation we decided to spray some estrus scent and make some doe bleats to bring a mossy horned brute to us. We setup at the base of the 8' tall remander of an old cottonwood, and started to strategically spray the scent and expertly turn the very difficult to operate bleat can over, and over. Between the concentrated moments of making the doe notes just right, I looked over at Mrs. Gunner to see her gun on the ground and her eyes looking far off. I may have said something along the lines of "you don't look like you expect much to happen..." with a grin on my face and her look returned that I may have guessed right. After calling a time or two more, and a paused look to the slough on my right, I looked back to the line of cottonwoods and hawthorne on my left and saw a doe moving quickly then pausing to stare over her shoulder about 120 yards away. I told Mrs. Gunner about my new friend and she sat up a bit higher to look over the grass that blocked her view. She looked at me as if to say "stop messing with me, boy.." and said "I don't see her". Patiently I told her that the tail outline was pointed right at us, and she was looking back as if expecting her beau to appear soon. Mrs. Gunner stereotypically decided that I must still think she was born yesterday, until I smuggly informed her the larger grey form of the buck I knew was to come had just arrived and that she needed to get on her Bog-pod. She did see the buck that appeared just in time to vindicate me, and in a moment told me that was not her buck (you see she is a seasoned vet, that only cuts her tag on the quarry of her specific choosing) and that if I wanted him, he was all mine. Given the rarity that time is for me in these busy days, and the facts that he wasn't a fork, he had good body size, the day was already memorable, and we had Murray's stuff with us, I decided to take him. The buck kept moving along the edge of the cottonwoods and hawthorne, quartering to most of the way, and the long, yellow grass nearly to his back line. I couldn't use the Bog-pod setup for a nearly foot shorter Mrs. Gunner (not her problem, but ogre-ish mine), so I followed the buck freehand with the Leupold 2.5-8 on 5x until he cleared the grass at roughly 80yds facing me, but quartered slightly to my left. The wires fell to were I pictured the heart, and the 6.5 Remington Magnum that Murray and I spent so much time talking about in its infancy went off like the trigger was directly wired to my brain. The "whock" of the 120gr Ballistic Tip hitting his side made it back to my ear as my left eye saw him stumble and pick himself up to run directly toward Mrs. Gunner and I. The onside shoulder obviously bloody, I did my best to hit him again as he closed in to mere yards to our left; the glancing blow to his same injured leg wasn't required. The buck had hit a bank of earth overhung with a scraggly bending hawthorne curtained with the same long, yellow grass that was all around us. We gathered my precious brass for a moment, high fived and hugged. We made mention of how Murray would have enjoyed this, and then I went to find the blood that led us into the buck's exact expiring place. We had to untangle him from the vegitation, and I pulled him clear enough of the small labrynth to get some memorable pictures. We had some teary moments, and shared another hug, Mrs. Gunner remembering who exposed her to this wonderful tradition, and I how much he would've wanted to be here. How much I wanted him to be there.
I hope you get the big fella you held out for tomorrow Mrs. Gunner! and make sure the other guy does the dirty work for you....
Mrs.Gunner kneeling in the meadow soaking it all in...
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/07A65B06-CF35-49A1-959B-3500527C8557-872-00000150D9C1CF24_zpsf1617e5e.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/07A65B06-CF35-49A1-959B-3500527C8557-872-00000150D9C1CF24_zpsf1617e5e.jpg.html)
Can you see the buck....
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/2B7E5851-9596-437F-95CF-86A936C231B3-872-000001468B5B7F8B_zpse1f4f0d5.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/2B7E5851-9596-437F-95CF-86A936C231B3-872-000001468B5B7F8B_zpse1f4f0d5.jpg.html)
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/7A277BD5-EBD4-4376-A052-53723EA41B77-872-000001464797238A_zps586b4ea2.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/7A277BD5-EBD4-4376-A052-53723EA41B77-872-000001464797238A_zps586b4ea2.jpg.html)http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/A95533A0-2CAB-499D-AEFC-2758EC8CC994-872-000001460B60B231_zpsde2b1daa.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/A95533A0-2CAB-499D-AEFC-2758EC8CC994-872-000001460B60B231_zpsde2b1daa.jpg.html)
And it wouldn't be the same if I didn't have one of the old boy....http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q137/rem338win/MurafterMoose_zpsfe24d1bb.jpg (http://s135.photobucket.com/user/rem338win/media/MurafterMoose_zpsfe24d1bb.jpg.html)