Brambles
12-02-2010, 01:38 PM
Left for Saskatchewan on Nov 24th, season opener was on Nov 25th.
I'll leave out the details on the Majority of the deer taken since they arn't my story to tell but I will regale you with this story.
Day two .... we head into this area we had hunted in 2008.
We had spotted a couple good 4's and 5's running around but we had just spotted a 6, couldn't tell if he was a 6x6 or a 5x6 but, to say these deer are flighty is an understatement.
We drive into the area to start the hunt and this Brute 4x5 screams out of a coulee right in front of us, my hunting partner for that day managed to get a bullet into him before he hit the tree rows and makes him stumble. Since he got the first bullet into the animal the deer was now his regardless of who finished it off, now the goal was to find and recover the deer
We make a plan to push him out of a group of tree's that we seen him go into, I volunteered to do the pushing as the rest of the group surounded the group of tree's.
I manage to cut what I think is his tracks headed into the tree's, no blood yet. I look ahead and 40 yards in front of me I see him get out of his bed, its thick and I put up my rifle and the safety is on, damn.... he starts running. I run so I have a clear shot, up with the rifle and I shoot low. clean miss. We track him across a field and into a large Coulee. I asked one of the group to check the bed for blood and they confirmed blood and a small piece of bone in his bed.
We set up along the top of the coulee and I go in blood trailing him.
After about 500 yards or so I manage to glass him up in a group of tree's about another 500 yards ahead of me. Wanting to get a shot while he's not moving. I inch forward trying to get a shot, I come to a ridgeline and I can get a 350 yard shot at him but the snow is deep and the ridge is flat, I have to belly crawl and every time I set up for the shot the bipod sinks into the snow and no shot is avaliable. I'm skylined by this point but the sun is at my back........ I just can't seem to clear this damn flat ridge go get a shot.
Just as I'm about to get off the shot one of the other hunters see's what I'm up to and looks over the coulee directly above the deer and the deer see's him and starts running. I try a shot but hit low again...starting to think the added weight of the bipod is making me drop the rifle.
Normally I don't take these kind of shots but we gotta get this wounded deer down.
The deer is like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix as he dodges bullet fire from the coulee tops. No one manages to connect and the deer makes it into a Vast PFRA pasture.
For those of you who dont' know, a PFRA pasture is a large chunk of land set aside as community cattle pasture, there are many of these pastures set up all over saskatchewan. You have to hunt them on foot until you get an animal down and then you can drive in and claim your deer. The land is very rolling and lots of coulee's. Tough area to hunt and the locals dont' hunt them much because its a low odds hunt.
As the rest of the group post along the PF I make my way to where the buck was last seen to pick up his trail. After making it almost to the horizon:shock: I see two of the other guys have already picked up the trail and were in to coulee bottom. We give hand signals and decide I would stay up just below the coulee edge and if they bumped him I could get a better shot.
We parallel eachother for quite some time, wind is about 40mph and coming from the west, the sun is in the south east and its about -9 with out the wind. Wind in the coulee is nothing.
I can see that the coulee T's at the end so as I'm inching along and see on the western part of the "T" that there is a big buck bedded, I instantly drop down below sight. Can't risk having the deer see me and him run like lightenting. The tracks show that the wounded deer had also gone in the same Western "T" of the coulee. I meet up with the other two guys and tell them what I breifly seen. He's over 300 yards west bedded in the coulee.
We inch to the top of the ridge cutting the distance down to 250yds. I line up and take him in the neck. It all happened very quick as we didn't want the buck to get any further.
Now its over....yehaw, a long hunt is over. We are high fiveing, couple fist pumps. Then one of the group looks over and goe's HoleyShit there's a big buck bedded Right there, I throw up my bino's....holy shit THATS the wounded buck, all we can see is his nose and antlers as he's bedded behind something. We all drop to the ground and the guy who spotted it takes the first shot and misses, not sure how many shots were fired as he layed there. But I managed to finish him off with my second shot.
We walk up to where the wounded buck Lay... and HOLY CRAP, MASSIVE 4x6 definitly pushing the 160 mark.
After looking at that buck for a few minutes we headed over to my buck...... Didn't know what to expect, didn't get a real good look at him because we were concerned he'd see us and run. As we got closer........It turned out NOT to be a mistake, my first look at him was right another buck also Pushing 160... He is a 6x5.... I told my brother on the way to Sask that I wanted a buck with a typical 6 and I got him.:mrgreen:
Both these deer are pretty large for he area we are hunting, we see lots of deer but most of the bigger bucks are in the 135-145 class. Two bucks pushing 160 shot 150 yards apart AND intheir beds is incredible.
Lots of things could have happened on this hunt and if any one of those things changed it would have resulted in me not getting a chance at this deer. Glad I volunteered go be the workhorse and push coulees:mrgreen:
Pictures up in a minute
I'll leave out the details on the Majority of the deer taken since they arn't my story to tell but I will regale you with this story.
Day two .... we head into this area we had hunted in 2008.
We had spotted a couple good 4's and 5's running around but we had just spotted a 6, couldn't tell if he was a 6x6 or a 5x6 but, to say these deer are flighty is an understatement.
We drive into the area to start the hunt and this Brute 4x5 screams out of a coulee right in front of us, my hunting partner for that day managed to get a bullet into him before he hit the tree rows and makes him stumble. Since he got the first bullet into the animal the deer was now his regardless of who finished it off, now the goal was to find and recover the deer
We make a plan to push him out of a group of tree's that we seen him go into, I volunteered to do the pushing as the rest of the group surounded the group of tree's.
I manage to cut what I think is his tracks headed into the tree's, no blood yet. I look ahead and 40 yards in front of me I see him get out of his bed, its thick and I put up my rifle and the safety is on, damn.... he starts running. I run so I have a clear shot, up with the rifle and I shoot low. clean miss. We track him across a field and into a large Coulee. I asked one of the group to check the bed for blood and they confirmed blood and a small piece of bone in his bed.
We set up along the top of the coulee and I go in blood trailing him.
After about 500 yards or so I manage to glass him up in a group of tree's about another 500 yards ahead of me. Wanting to get a shot while he's not moving. I inch forward trying to get a shot, I come to a ridgeline and I can get a 350 yard shot at him but the snow is deep and the ridge is flat, I have to belly crawl and every time I set up for the shot the bipod sinks into the snow and no shot is avaliable. I'm skylined by this point but the sun is at my back........ I just can't seem to clear this damn flat ridge go get a shot.
Just as I'm about to get off the shot one of the other hunters see's what I'm up to and looks over the coulee directly above the deer and the deer see's him and starts running. I try a shot but hit low again...starting to think the added weight of the bipod is making me drop the rifle.
Normally I don't take these kind of shots but we gotta get this wounded deer down.
The deer is like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix as he dodges bullet fire from the coulee tops. No one manages to connect and the deer makes it into a Vast PFRA pasture.
For those of you who dont' know, a PFRA pasture is a large chunk of land set aside as community cattle pasture, there are many of these pastures set up all over saskatchewan. You have to hunt them on foot until you get an animal down and then you can drive in and claim your deer. The land is very rolling and lots of coulee's. Tough area to hunt and the locals dont' hunt them much because its a low odds hunt.
As the rest of the group post along the PF I make my way to where the buck was last seen to pick up his trail. After making it almost to the horizon:shock: I see two of the other guys have already picked up the trail and were in to coulee bottom. We give hand signals and decide I would stay up just below the coulee edge and if they bumped him I could get a better shot.
We parallel eachother for quite some time, wind is about 40mph and coming from the west, the sun is in the south east and its about -9 with out the wind. Wind in the coulee is nothing.
I can see that the coulee T's at the end so as I'm inching along and see on the western part of the "T" that there is a big buck bedded, I instantly drop down below sight. Can't risk having the deer see me and him run like lightenting. The tracks show that the wounded deer had also gone in the same Western "T" of the coulee. I meet up with the other two guys and tell them what I breifly seen. He's over 300 yards west bedded in the coulee.
We inch to the top of the ridge cutting the distance down to 250yds. I line up and take him in the neck. It all happened very quick as we didn't want the buck to get any further.
Now its over....yehaw, a long hunt is over. We are high fiveing, couple fist pumps. Then one of the group looks over and goe's HoleyShit there's a big buck bedded Right there, I throw up my bino's....holy shit THATS the wounded buck, all we can see is his nose and antlers as he's bedded behind something. We all drop to the ground and the guy who spotted it takes the first shot and misses, not sure how many shots were fired as he layed there. But I managed to finish him off with my second shot.
We walk up to where the wounded buck Lay... and HOLY CRAP, MASSIVE 4x6 definitly pushing the 160 mark.
After looking at that buck for a few minutes we headed over to my buck...... Didn't know what to expect, didn't get a real good look at him because we were concerned he'd see us and run. As we got closer........It turned out NOT to be a mistake, my first look at him was right another buck also Pushing 160... He is a 6x5.... I told my brother on the way to Sask that I wanted a buck with a typical 6 and I got him.:mrgreen:
Both these deer are pretty large for he area we are hunting, we see lots of deer but most of the bigger bucks are in the 135-145 class. Two bucks pushing 160 shot 150 yards apart AND intheir beds is incredible.
Lots of things could have happened on this hunt and if any one of those things changed it would have resulted in me not getting a chance at this deer. Glad I volunteered go be the workhorse and push coulees:mrgreen:
Pictures up in a minute