6chukar
Active Member
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- 115
This picture was is from the opening day of the archery season and the first time we saw Kades buck. Once we saw him, my son decided this was the only buck he wanted to chase. Unfortunately this particular deer hung in some nasty country that made stalks with a bow very difficult but lucky for us my son is 15 and can hunt all three seasons but that didn’t stop us from trying.
We were able to locate him again on the second weekend of archery and somehow Kade got to 55 yards through steep shale rock. He wanted to take a shot but I didn’t think it was a great idea at that distance with his limited experience with a bow so I told him to try and get to 40. That didn’t pan out due to the noisy terrain but I knew we still had muzzy and rifle season to try and get it done. Once muzzle loader season opened we were once again able to locate him in the same basin. We were able to get to 150 yards and I couldn’t help but let him take a rip at him. He has 2 deer under his belt with a muzzle loader and I questioned myself on whether it was too far or not but either way he took the shot. Well I got my answer because it was a clean miss. My heart dropped. So many thoughts go through your head at that point. Will we see him again or did we just blow it. I was pretty sure this buck stayed in this basin due to the water that was in the bottom and I was worried that if weather hit he would head for different country. Fast forward two weeks, it was September 21 and an early snow storm had hit the area. We were two hours into daylight and we still couldn’t locate the buck. I told Kade we would give it ten more minutes and start looking elsewhere. This never works for me btw but this time was different. It was just meant to be I guess.
We had to go all the way around the mountain and come down on top of the buck. He was in heavy timber so we needed a ton of luck on this one. It was so steep that we were making snowballs that were rolling 50 yards or more downhill when we were walking. Any other time of day this would have hosed us but it was mid day and the fresh snow was melting out of the tall trees and hitting the ground giving us just enough distractions to close the distance. I finally spotted one of the bucks that was with him but I didn’t see him. I was just about to take another step and Kade grabbed my shoulder. I turned to see that he was super focused on a particular tree but no words were coming out. I looked in front of us and couldn’t believe that buck was 27 yards from us facing us and eating between two pines. We were both frozen. He had about a 4” gap between the trees. I put my binos up just to make sure it was him and “BANG”!!!!! Kade couldn’t take it. I saw bucks bouncing everywhere but no movement behind the giant pines. After a few falls to get down to him we saw that he was piled up and not moving. What an amazing feeling and I don’t think I can ever top that one. There is absolutely nothing I’d rather do then watch my kids hunt.
