brotherjack
11-09-2006, 11:28 PM
So, early early this morning, long before all the lazy road hunters were up and around, The Wife and I head up into the mountains in search of mulies. Hiking in before daylight, legs burning, we get positioned way up the mountainside looking down on an area we're almost 100% certain will hold some bucks come daylight. Get comfy, setup spotting scope, let heart rate slow down and sweat evaporate, etc.
About 10 minutes after my GPS says we're into legal hunting time (but still pretty darn dark if you ask me), we watch a truck drive up and park about half a klick down the hill from us (where I had parked the day before when I had the hillside to myself, actually). Doors slam. 30 seconds... Ka-BOOM ... slight pause ... zoooowwwweeeeeeeee..Ka-BOOM.... kind of spooky, as we heard the ricochet well before we heard the shot. Dang it, I think - so much for todays hunting...
But, as we've already hiked clear up the dang mountain in the dark, there's no sense in going home just yet. We sit and watch as the pre-dawn light slowly illuminates the mountainside until we can see more clearly the whole herd of mule deer down below our position. Oh, sweet - doe in heat, right there. Must be half a dozen bucks down there. Through the spotting scope I start checking them out. Three or four 3 point's, several 2 points, and ... hey, that guy there looks bigger than the rest. Oh yes, 4 points I see!
By this time, the hunter from down the hill is looking up at the deer with the glass, as is another hunter who's pulled up about half a click to our right and somewhat down-hill. As the next truck comes pulling up onto the hill, my wife says "to heck with this, I'm gonna go kill that deer."
The second she stands up, big boy gets a little spooky, and slowly heads off into a draw away from my wife. As I'm watching through the spotting scope, I figure out why - someone's blown a headshot on this fellow. One ear is hanging free and flopping in the breeze. He knows camo and guns spells trouble for him.
But, he no sooner gets a tree between himself and my wife, and he stops and goes back to looking longingly after the doe that's got all the bucks drawn into the area to begin with. Using the tree for a visual shield, my wife makes her way down to around two or three hundred yards away from the deer. As close as she's going to get without trying to cover open ground. Since that's going to take a while as spooky as he is, I put down the binoculars, and go back to the spotting scope watching the deer. Yep, definitely got a free hanging ear.
Without warning, well ahead of my expected timetable, a gunshot. The deer looks up. Second gunshot a few seconds later, and the deer does that classic 'heart-shot kick' and bolts out of view of the spotting scope. Yikes - I'm supposed to be making any possible tracking job easier by watching him in the binoculars to see where he goes in case he gets out of sight of my wife! A quick scramble later, I find him in the glass just in time to watch him tip over, mabye 25 yards from where he was standing when my wife shot him. The whole herd of mule deer with him just stand around looking stupid till my wife chases them off.
Well well well, sometimes it does pay to wake up earlier than the next guy! Three different hunters come out of the woodwork and come over to chat, and happily none of them were upset - they were all either looking for bigger deer, or in one case was our downhill shooter checking to see if we had shot the same buck he had shot (at?) earlier (nope, different deer - no doubts).
And that, as they say, was that. First mule deer my wife ever got - not a super-monster, but easily big enough for the likes of us meat hunters. I paced off the shot at approximately 190 yards. She said she only missed the first shot because she thought she was more like 300 yards (we need a rangefinder!), and had held the point of aim too high - second shot was textbook perfect placement. She's batting two for two now - last two times I took her hunting, she's shot a deer. Not bad for a girl with an old .303 British, eh?
Anyway, stories without pics are bad, so here's a pic:
http://xjack.org/hunting/md1-06.jpg
About 10 minutes after my GPS says we're into legal hunting time (but still pretty darn dark if you ask me), we watch a truck drive up and park about half a klick down the hill from us (where I had parked the day before when I had the hillside to myself, actually). Doors slam. 30 seconds... Ka-BOOM ... slight pause ... zoooowwwweeeeeeeee..Ka-BOOM.... kind of spooky, as we heard the ricochet well before we heard the shot. Dang it, I think - so much for todays hunting...
But, as we've already hiked clear up the dang mountain in the dark, there's no sense in going home just yet. We sit and watch as the pre-dawn light slowly illuminates the mountainside until we can see more clearly the whole herd of mule deer down below our position. Oh, sweet - doe in heat, right there. Must be half a dozen bucks down there. Through the spotting scope I start checking them out. Three or four 3 point's, several 2 points, and ... hey, that guy there looks bigger than the rest. Oh yes, 4 points I see!
By this time, the hunter from down the hill is looking up at the deer with the glass, as is another hunter who's pulled up about half a click to our right and somewhat down-hill. As the next truck comes pulling up onto the hill, my wife says "to heck with this, I'm gonna go kill that deer."
The second she stands up, big boy gets a little spooky, and slowly heads off into a draw away from my wife. As I'm watching through the spotting scope, I figure out why - someone's blown a headshot on this fellow. One ear is hanging free and flopping in the breeze. He knows camo and guns spells trouble for him.
But, he no sooner gets a tree between himself and my wife, and he stops and goes back to looking longingly after the doe that's got all the bucks drawn into the area to begin with. Using the tree for a visual shield, my wife makes her way down to around two or three hundred yards away from the deer. As close as she's going to get without trying to cover open ground. Since that's going to take a while as spooky as he is, I put down the binoculars, and go back to the spotting scope watching the deer. Yep, definitely got a free hanging ear.
Without warning, well ahead of my expected timetable, a gunshot. The deer looks up. Second gunshot a few seconds later, and the deer does that classic 'heart-shot kick' and bolts out of view of the spotting scope. Yikes - I'm supposed to be making any possible tracking job easier by watching him in the binoculars to see where he goes in case he gets out of sight of my wife! A quick scramble later, I find him in the glass just in time to watch him tip over, mabye 25 yards from where he was standing when my wife shot him. The whole herd of mule deer with him just stand around looking stupid till my wife chases them off.
Well well well, sometimes it does pay to wake up earlier than the next guy! Three different hunters come out of the woodwork and come over to chat, and happily none of them were upset - they were all either looking for bigger deer, or in one case was our downhill shooter checking to see if we had shot the same buck he had shot (at?) earlier (nope, different deer - no doubts).
And that, as they say, was that. First mule deer my wife ever got - not a super-monster, but easily big enough for the likes of us meat hunters. I paced off the shot at approximately 190 yards. She said she only missed the first shot because she thought she was more like 300 yards (we need a rangefinder!), and had held the point of aim too high - second shot was textbook perfect placement. She's batting two for two now - last two times I took her hunting, she's shot a deer. Not bad for a girl with an old .303 British, eh?
Anyway, stories without pics are bad, so here's a pic:
http://xjack.org/hunting/md1-06.jpg