Well, I managed to save my season after all. I was feeling a little ‘down’ because due to some mechanical ‘issues’ with my Trooper, I was not able to get my LEH Whitetail doe. I was lucky enough to draw 3 LEH’s this year, and was only able to cancel my Mulie doe. Moose hunting was a bust – no moose around and it was way too hot.
Anyhow, I had this week booked off for vacation and was able to complete the repairs to the Trooper yesterday and I planned to sneak away and get one day of hunting in on my own. As some of you know, we have been experiencing some pretty bad storms lately, and I was lucky enough to get a calm day – so I hoped the deer would be moving after the storms. And I was right – to an extent. I got up to my spot a little later than I wanted, but I found a young doe right away that was alone. I waited and did some calling, but nothing else showed. So I went for a walk up to another cut-block, but there was nothing moving up there. After a snack, I headed back down and figured I would have some lunch and move on. But before I got back to the truck, I noticed some very fresh tracks on the road I was on. So fresh that they were not there an hour previous. So as it happened, they were headed in the same direction I was. There were two tracks, one smaller and one set that were big with the dewclaw imprints. I followed them to where they cut up into the first cut-block I was in earlier. I figured lunch could wait, because I knew these deer were not far ahead of me. I slowly walked and carefully scanned with the binos…then I spotted the butt end of a doe. The doe was facing away from me and I was so focused on trying to ‘grow horns’ on it, that I didn’t see the buck standing 10 yards to the right of the doe. I spotted him staring at me after I dropped the binos and even at 100 yards (or so) I knew he was a good size buck and these were the pair I was following. I could tell that his antlers were past his ears on 4 power through my scope, so off came the safety and with one bark of the .308win he was down for the count. This is the biggest Blacktail I have taken.
So it’s a pretty good way to round out the season, oh, and it was a nice birthday present as well.
Cheers!
[FONT="]James
[/FONT]
Anyhow, I had this week booked off for vacation and was able to complete the repairs to the Trooper yesterday and I planned to sneak away and get one day of hunting in on my own. As some of you know, we have been experiencing some pretty bad storms lately, and I was lucky enough to get a calm day – so I hoped the deer would be moving after the storms. And I was right – to an extent. I got up to my spot a little later than I wanted, but I found a young doe right away that was alone. I waited and did some calling, but nothing else showed. So I went for a walk up to another cut-block, but there was nothing moving up there. After a snack, I headed back down and figured I would have some lunch and move on. But before I got back to the truck, I noticed some very fresh tracks on the road I was on. So fresh that they were not there an hour previous. So as it happened, they were headed in the same direction I was. There were two tracks, one smaller and one set that were big with the dewclaw imprints. I followed them to where they cut up into the first cut-block I was in earlier. I figured lunch could wait, because I knew these deer were not far ahead of me. I slowly walked and carefully scanned with the binos…then I spotted the butt end of a doe. The doe was facing away from me and I was so focused on trying to ‘grow horns’ on it, that I didn’t see the buck standing 10 yards to the right of the doe. I spotted him staring at me after I dropped the binos and even at 100 yards (or so) I knew he was a good size buck and these were the pair I was following. I could tell that his antlers were past his ears on 4 power through my scope, so off came the safety and with one bark of the .308win he was down for the count. This is the biggest Blacktail I have taken.
So it’s a pretty good way to round out the season, oh, and it was a nice birthday present as well.
Cheers!
[FONT="]James
[/FONT]
