goatdancer
11-13-2008, 05:19 PM
Looked like it was going to be the third staight year of the skunk. Hadn't seen a buck all season. Even the doe sightings had dried up a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't blame it on all the weekend warriors scaring the critters cause I don't hunt weekends. Had to do something to change my luck so my wife gave me a haircut Wednesday evening.
Alarm goes off at 5am Thursday morning. Usual ritual, breakfast, gear into truck and hit the road by 5:35. Drive out, dump the quad and hit the trail for a drive-by shooting, hopefully. Just a little snow on the ground but warmish so snow was just starting to melt.
Rode up some logging roads, fresh sign right from the highway. Deer tracks everywhere, some pretty big ones too. Things were looking up already.
Went up quite high, more fresh sign. Stopped to check out some tracks and walked about 100 feet into some very promising country. Didn't want to follow the tracks cause they went downhill, pretty steep downhill. Tried my new distressed doe/fawn call and moved over about 75 feet to try avoid being spotted by any critter that might come calling. All of a sudden I spotted a deer approaching from the side about 75 feet below me. Maybe the call works after all. Turns out to be a spiker whitetail. Gun automatically goes up to the shoulder, scope caps click open, crosshairs on neck, safety off. Should I, shouldn't I. Browning barks and the Federal HE 180gr Nosler Partition does its job. Deer drops and slides 20 feet further downhill.:mad: Ever try drag a deer UP a 45 degree, grass and pine needle, snow covered slope?:shock: Even a little deer? Thank God for quads with winches.:smile: Even then it took 20 minutes to get it up to the trail.
After removing all the nonessential innards (ravens and coyotes need to eat too), deer goes for a quad ride. Back to the truck by 1:15pm.
Couldn't go any better than that. Not a big buck, looks about the size of Peppers, but he's going to be tasty. The big guys will have to wait till next year.
Alarm goes off at 5am Thursday morning. Usual ritual, breakfast, gear into truck and hit the road by 5:35. Drive out, dump the quad and hit the trail for a drive-by shooting, hopefully. Just a little snow on the ground but warmish so snow was just starting to melt.
Rode up some logging roads, fresh sign right from the highway. Deer tracks everywhere, some pretty big ones too. Things were looking up already.
Went up quite high, more fresh sign. Stopped to check out some tracks and walked about 100 feet into some very promising country. Didn't want to follow the tracks cause they went downhill, pretty steep downhill. Tried my new distressed doe/fawn call and moved over about 75 feet to try avoid being spotted by any critter that might come calling. All of a sudden I spotted a deer approaching from the side about 75 feet below me. Maybe the call works after all. Turns out to be a spiker whitetail. Gun automatically goes up to the shoulder, scope caps click open, crosshairs on neck, safety off. Should I, shouldn't I. Browning barks and the Federal HE 180gr Nosler Partition does its job. Deer drops and slides 20 feet further downhill.:mad: Ever try drag a deer UP a 45 degree, grass and pine needle, snow covered slope?:shock: Even a little deer? Thank God for quads with winches.:smile: Even then it took 20 minutes to get it up to the trail.
After removing all the nonessential innards (ravens and coyotes need to eat too), deer goes for a quad ride. Back to the truck by 1:15pm.
Couldn't go any better than that. Not a big buck, looks about the size of Peppers, but he's going to be tasty. The big guys will have to wait till next year.