ruttinbuck
11-21-2007, 11:25 PM
Well another deer season has come and gone.
I had some luck,and good times with great buddies.We started with our annual hunt to the cariboo country chasing mulies.
We arrived and set up camp,ended up having a late first night and slept in the next morning.By 7:30AM I was getting tired of hanging around camp waiting for the others to rise from their slumber.Not feeling the greatest and zippo energy to spend the day hiking I went for a drive and check out some of the local crossings for an idea what was around.
By 8:30Am I had covered what I wanted to see,the radio had come to life as the boys had awaken,so I started making my way back to camp.
I was checking out some older log cuts that ran off the road up steep hillsides with mature stands topping out before the hillsides had crested.
I could see with my eyes a couple of white dots on the hillside below the stand of trees and stopped to glass them "just incase" they were indeed mulies.
I use zeiss dyalyt 8X30 binos as my packers and when I brought them up to look at the dots they were indeed deer and I could see bone.
Outcame my spotting binos,I have a pair of Minox 15X58 ED "big eyes" for extended glassing off a tripod or in this case a window mount.
The bucks turned out to be 3pts, 2 of them pushing each other around at least 800yds from me and only bounds from the heavy timber that the cut became.
As I watched them feed,then spar with each other I caught movement as another deer was coming out of some scrub at the same location on the cut as them.This guy dwarfed the first two both in body and antler size.As he fed I could see two good split on the one side,but between his head down in the grass and his facing away from me I could'nt get better than that from my location.
OK decision time,these bucks are undisturbed,its 8:45AM,they are a couple of bounds from cover at the top of a very steep,not hunter friendly vantage point.Did I mention the wind blowing the wrong way to climb the cut.
I decide they are not spooked and have'nt been hunted as they are still out 1.5 hours after light,I will gamble and come back tomorrow morning at first light and either catch them lower working up the cut and with a better wind sneak my way up for a shot.
Next morning comes,I get dropped off on an old skid trail I decided on yesterday for my access.I start up the trail crawling along expecting deer anytime.There up on the hillside is a lone deer,up come the binos.Its a buck the bigger one from yesterday or another one the same size.I am quite a ways away and he does'nt know I am in the area.
I follow the skid trail climbing slowly,I can see the cut gets alot steeper 100yds or so ahead.As I come out of some young fir trees and out into an open part of the cut I put the glasses up and he is looking down now right at me.I look ahead and see that the skid trail has a cutbank on the high side ahead of me.When I get to the cutbank I slowly take off my pack frame and lay it down on the bank so I can get prone using it for my rest,the whole time he has'nt moved just staring down at me.
I get behind my 7mm SAUM and get settled in,crosshairs behind the shoulder,breath out,squeeze,BOOM....WHACK comes back to me as I see him turn straight downhill and dissappear into a group of small fir.
I wait,watching through my scope,he does'nt come out.I can see a complete view of the trees he is in and he does'nt come out.I wait 30 mins he has'nt come out.
As I slowly work my way up the hillside I realize wow this is one steep hill.Going extra slow as I get close to his cover I am looking everywhere at once making sure I don't miss him trying to escape or laying under some brush in his death bed.
Then I saw him lying on the backside of the cover on the hillside,YEAH!! those splits were good.
He grossed 166+ and nets 160+
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Reg5buck071.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Reg5buck073.jpg
Back home in region 3 country now for some muley chasing.I was working a group of does that show up on the same range every fall the same week for the rut.Bucks show up sniff buts and either hang out or move on to other ranges.
I saw this character a couple of times over a week span but he always eluded me,usually because a doe saw me or the wind busted me.The morning I got him I had them spotted at 300yds.I was'nt going to get any closer as I was in semi open terrain and the does were moving to their bedding cover not that fast but not stopping.
They were working their way across a hillside and as they went through the trees I would see him then he would dissapear.
I knew from my past sightings he was the same kinda buck I had got earlier in the month but his browtines were alot more prominent against the yellow grass on the hillsides.I knew he was the big guy on the hill as he had ruled now for about a week and his harem was seemed to be getting bigger.
I had positioned myself behind a stump for cover my pack layed on the top.My rangefinder said 299 and 296yds for a confirmed range.
I was waiting for him to turn broadside and as he turned to smell a doe he stopped totally broadside.
BOOM.....WHACK came back as my 7mm SAUM spoke and he was down and DRT.
163+ gross 159+ netRB
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Doug5PT6.jpg
I had some luck,and good times with great buddies.We started with our annual hunt to the cariboo country chasing mulies.
We arrived and set up camp,ended up having a late first night and slept in the next morning.By 7:30AM I was getting tired of hanging around camp waiting for the others to rise from their slumber.Not feeling the greatest and zippo energy to spend the day hiking I went for a drive and check out some of the local crossings for an idea what was around.
By 8:30Am I had covered what I wanted to see,the radio had come to life as the boys had awaken,so I started making my way back to camp.
I was checking out some older log cuts that ran off the road up steep hillsides with mature stands topping out before the hillsides had crested.
I could see with my eyes a couple of white dots on the hillside below the stand of trees and stopped to glass them "just incase" they were indeed mulies.
I use zeiss dyalyt 8X30 binos as my packers and when I brought them up to look at the dots they were indeed deer and I could see bone.
Outcame my spotting binos,I have a pair of Minox 15X58 ED "big eyes" for extended glassing off a tripod or in this case a window mount.
The bucks turned out to be 3pts, 2 of them pushing each other around at least 800yds from me and only bounds from the heavy timber that the cut became.
As I watched them feed,then spar with each other I caught movement as another deer was coming out of some scrub at the same location on the cut as them.This guy dwarfed the first two both in body and antler size.As he fed I could see two good split on the one side,but between his head down in the grass and his facing away from me I could'nt get better than that from my location.
OK decision time,these bucks are undisturbed,its 8:45AM,they are a couple of bounds from cover at the top of a very steep,not hunter friendly vantage point.Did I mention the wind blowing the wrong way to climb the cut.
I decide they are not spooked and have'nt been hunted as they are still out 1.5 hours after light,I will gamble and come back tomorrow morning at first light and either catch them lower working up the cut and with a better wind sneak my way up for a shot.
Next morning comes,I get dropped off on an old skid trail I decided on yesterday for my access.I start up the trail crawling along expecting deer anytime.There up on the hillside is a lone deer,up come the binos.Its a buck the bigger one from yesterday or another one the same size.I am quite a ways away and he does'nt know I am in the area.
I follow the skid trail climbing slowly,I can see the cut gets alot steeper 100yds or so ahead.As I come out of some young fir trees and out into an open part of the cut I put the glasses up and he is looking down now right at me.I look ahead and see that the skid trail has a cutbank on the high side ahead of me.When I get to the cutbank I slowly take off my pack frame and lay it down on the bank so I can get prone using it for my rest,the whole time he has'nt moved just staring down at me.
I get behind my 7mm SAUM and get settled in,crosshairs behind the shoulder,breath out,squeeze,BOOM....WHACK comes back to me as I see him turn straight downhill and dissappear into a group of small fir.
I wait,watching through my scope,he does'nt come out.I can see a complete view of the trees he is in and he does'nt come out.I wait 30 mins he has'nt come out.
As I slowly work my way up the hillside I realize wow this is one steep hill.Going extra slow as I get close to his cover I am looking everywhere at once making sure I don't miss him trying to escape or laying under some brush in his death bed.
Then I saw him lying on the backside of the cover on the hillside,YEAH!! those splits were good.
He grossed 166+ and nets 160+
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Reg5buck071.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Reg5buck073.jpg
Back home in region 3 country now for some muley chasing.I was working a group of does that show up on the same range every fall the same week for the rut.Bucks show up sniff buts and either hang out or move on to other ranges.
I saw this character a couple of times over a week span but he always eluded me,usually because a doe saw me or the wind busted me.The morning I got him I had them spotted at 300yds.I was'nt going to get any closer as I was in semi open terrain and the does were moving to their bedding cover not that fast but not stopping.
They were working their way across a hillside and as they went through the trees I would see him then he would dissapear.
I knew from my past sightings he was the same kinda buck I had got earlier in the month but his browtines were alot more prominent against the yellow grass on the hillsides.I knew he was the big guy on the hill as he had ruled now for about a week and his harem was seemed to be getting bigger.
I had positioned myself behind a stump for cover my pack layed on the top.My rangefinder said 299 and 296yds for a confirmed range.
I was waiting for him to turn broadside and as he turned to smell a doe he stopped totally broadside.
BOOM.....WHACK came back as my 7mm SAUM spoke and he was down and DRT.
163+ gross 159+ netRB
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f217/ruttinbuck/kills/Doug5PT6.jpg