It's been a tough go these past few years as my physical ability wanes and my disability takes over.
I've seen my hunting crew of 10 years kinda disband and move on to other things. The younger ones aren't hunting with us much anymore and my hunting partner is spending his time hunting with his girlfriend
...... so as it gets harder for me to physically do these things, I been pretty bummed out. My drive to hunt pushes me forward though and I'm glad my wife supports this and has her hunting license too.
I have been steadily working on my hunting rig for this year which is a lifted 89 jeep xj cherokee. I had to do a rear main seal, oil pump, replace a busted rear leaf shackle, oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, distributor and all that stuff. Anyways yesterday we put a one day permit on it so I could test it on and off road and make sure my home mechanic skills are still up to snuff LOL We drove out to a local area where my wife and her friend got 2 bucks a couple years ago and drove way into one of the big cuts to watch a south facing slope for black bears. Deer are open too but for Mule deer it's 4pt only till Oct 1st and any buck whitetail. I have black bear and mulie tags but my luck in the early 4pt season has not been stellar over the years LOL.
So we sat and glassed the immense cut for a couple hours and then started to roll on home at a road hunting speed. I don't normally road hunt much but a guy could see a deer anywhere around these parts so it be silly not to have a rifle handy. As we drove along my wife grumbled that we had seen nothing and I responded that it's early in the season and we just have to be in the right place at the right time either by chance or by careful planning. Then as we rounded what we call Two Buck Corner and got a couple hundred yards down the road I spot a whitish rump shape far out in the fireweed of a massive cut the sloped slightly up and away from us. The deer was near 280 yards away and I could just make out antlers with my binoculars.
I got out of the jeep and found a good rest for my rifle, Ruger M77 MKII 7mm rem mag and she is sighted in with the federal premium 160gr Nosler Partition.
I set my Nikon M3 4-16x42 parallax to 300 yards and cranked her up to 16 and settled in for what would be about 10 minutes of the buck standing motionless broadside , looking straight at us. I could see that he was a decent buck but could not clearly count the antler tines with him looking right at us. Then a free range group of cattle made some noise a few 100 yards away and the deer turned his head in their direction. I still could not quite make out 4 tines clearly but was now about 60% sure he was a legal buck ..... but i hesitated.... it was a long shot and I haven't taken many shots past 100 on game in a few years and even then not often. The deer then turned away and was walking up to the crest of my sight line when he sky lighted his rack and I could clearly see a modest 4x4 rack on his head as he was heading away. My finger, still resting on the trigger guard, relaxed and I lifted my head from the scope to say to the wife , he's gone....... When the deer stopped and turned perfect broadside and reflex took over as the rifle barked and the deer disappeared from my view.
I have confidence in this rifle and knew that my shot was good so I headed straight for it up the cut through the fireweed and blow down. I found it right where it last stood, crumpled in a heap and called down to the wife to bring the recovery bag. I should have also got her to grab one of our phones so we could take pictures in the field but unfortunately our phone were both in the jeep. I quickly got the buck gutted and tied for dragging and my wife went ahead of me through the fireweed to navigate a route out to the road with the least obstacles in our way. Took just shy of 2 hours to get that buck the 300 yards out to the jeep but we got it done and headed for home.
Got some pics to take this morning before the work starts so will post them up later.
As my disability affects me more every year, it is a great feeling to have harvested this deer and even though I'm paying for it big time in body pain LOL..... it was worth every minute!! I'm also very thankful for my loyal and supportive wife who is also a hunter and it's awesome that we got to have this experience together.
Next sunday I'm off for my mountain blacktail hunt in region 2 so hopefully the luck holds!!
Hope everyone else is finding time to get out in the woods and I'd love to hear about everyone else's adventures too
1st hunt, region 5 mule deer, pics post #4
2nd hunt , region 2 black tail pics post 25
3rd hunt , region 2 black tail pics post 37 & 38
4rth hunt, region 5 mule deer (wife's tag) post 44
I've seen my hunting crew of 10 years kinda disband and move on to other things. The younger ones aren't hunting with us much anymore and my hunting partner is spending his time hunting with his girlfriend
...... so as it gets harder for me to physically do these things, I been pretty bummed out. My drive to hunt pushes me forward though and I'm glad my wife supports this and has her hunting license too. I have been steadily working on my hunting rig for this year which is a lifted 89 jeep xj cherokee. I had to do a rear main seal, oil pump, replace a busted rear leaf shackle, oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, distributor and all that stuff. Anyways yesterday we put a one day permit on it so I could test it on and off road and make sure my home mechanic skills are still up to snuff LOL We drove out to a local area where my wife and her friend got 2 bucks a couple years ago and drove way into one of the big cuts to watch a south facing slope for black bears. Deer are open too but for Mule deer it's 4pt only till Oct 1st and any buck whitetail. I have black bear and mulie tags but my luck in the early 4pt season has not been stellar over the years LOL.
So we sat and glassed the immense cut for a couple hours and then started to roll on home at a road hunting speed. I don't normally road hunt much but a guy could see a deer anywhere around these parts so it be silly not to have a rifle handy. As we drove along my wife grumbled that we had seen nothing and I responded that it's early in the season and we just have to be in the right place at the right time either by chance or by careful planning. Then as we rounded what we call Two Buck Corner and got a couple hundred yards down the road I spot a whitish rump shape far out in the fireweed of a massive cut the sloped slightly up and away from us. The deer was near 280 yards away and I could just make out antlers with my binoculars.
I got out of the jeep and found a good rest for my rifle, Ruger M77 MKII 7mm rem mag and she is sighted in with the federal premium 160gr Nosler Partition.
I set my Nikon M3 4-16x42 parallax to 300 yards and cranked her up to 16 and settled in for what would be about 10 minutes of the buck standing motionless broadside , looking straight at us. I could see that he was a decent buck but could not clearly count the antler tines with him looking right at us. Then a free range group of cattle made some noise a few 100 yards away and the deer turned his head in their direction. I still could not quite make out 4 tines clearly but was now about 60% sure he was a legal buck ..... but i hesitated.... it was a long shot and I haven't taken many shots past 100 on game in a few years and even then not often. The deer then turned away and was walking up to the crest of my sight line when he sky lighted his rack and I could clearly see a modest 4x4 rack on his head as he was heading away. My finger, still resting on the trigger guard, relaxed and I lifted my head from the scope to say to the wife , he's gone....... When the deer stopped and turned perfect broadside and reflex took over as the rifle barked and the deer disappeared from my view.
I have confidence in this rifle and knew that my shot was good so I headed straight for it up the cut through the fireweed and blow down. I found it right where it last stood, crumpled in a heap and called down to the wife to bring the recovery bag. I should have also got her to grab one of our phones so we could take pictures in the field but unfortunately our phone were both in the jeep. I quickly got the buck gutted and tied for dragging and my wife went ahead of me through the fireweed to navigate a route out to the road with the least obstacles in our way. Took just shy of 2 hours to get that buck the 300 yards out to the jeep but we got it done and headed for home.
Got some pics to take this morning before the work starts so will post them up later.
As my disability affects me more every year, it is a great feeling to have harvested this deer and even though I'm paying for it big time in body pain LOL..... it was worth every minute!! I'm also very thankful for my loyal and supportive wife who is also a hunter and it's awesome that we got to have this experience together.
Next sunday I'm off for my mountain blacktail hunt in region 2 so hopefully the luck holds!!
Hope everyone else is finding time to get out in the woods and I'd love to hear about everyone else's adventures too
1st hunt, region 5 mule deer, pics post #4
2nd hunt , region 2 black tail pics post 25
3rd hunt , region 2 black tail pics post 37 & 38
4rth hunt, region 5 mule deer (wife's tag) post 44
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