fuzzwilkens
11-25-2006, 03:43 PM
My pal Dan and I were up in the Pemberton area on Friday for my first Mulie hunt. We got started at 7am but the fog was heavy and it was snowing so it took us an hour to get up as far as we could with the truck and then we had to hike from there. Along the way we spotted a Doe with more tracks in front of her but no signs of a buck. We also spotted black bear tracks. We hiked for about 1km in foot deep snow and came across 3-4 sets of fresh deer tracks and all of sudden we spotted some cougar tracks 10 feet apart and realized the cougar must have chased the deer as both tracks converged and disappeared into thick bush. We hiked for another kilometer and stopped overlooking a valley, scanning the valley and mountain across from us. We just stood there in 18" of snow and were debating whether to keep going when all of sudden my pal whispered freeze. 250-300 across the valley from us was some movement. At first Dan thought it was a coyote but as soon as we glassed it we realized it was a buck. Dan offered me the shot but I asked him to take it since I was convinced it was close to 300 yards. The buck disappeared behind a tree and we thought that we lost him when he emerged still walking. We had seconds to get him before he went behind some thick cover so Dan took the shot and dropped him on the spot. He sprung up after 5 seconds and fell dead. It was a perfect lung shot at a deer on the move. That was the easy part. Now we had to cross the valley and we were at 2300ft. We busted our butts for the next 5 hours locating him, cutting him up and carrying him 3km to the truck under fog and snow all the while on cougar and grizzly watch. I'll post pictures next but I'm pretty happy for my first buck. He was a small 200lb 4X3.