2021 on the Vernon

Never posted in the hunt adventure section but figured maybe I would this year, I decided it was time to burn my wife's deer points on a Vernon muzzy tag this year and she is planning on mentoring our 13 year old son on the hunt. Having never set foot on the unit I'm sure it will be a challenge. We've been out on the unit 3 times now trying to learn the roads, turns out there are roads everywhere on the unit.

Actually some pretty country out in the desert.

Plenty of lizards out here for the kids to catch.

Someone's old spot

First bucks I've seen on the Vernon, nothing special but I guess it's a start. Hopefully I start seeing some bucks too get excited about soon.

No shortage of trail cameras that's for sureWent out for a quick afternoon look again on the Vernon tonight, the smoke in the air made it tough to glass so we resorted to just driving some roads, seen a few little bucks but nothing great. Getting a little nervous I haven't seen anything yet to get excited over.

Went out on a quick over night trip on the Vernon this passed weekend, it's been really smokey as everyone knows and it's making glassing a little bit tougher. Was able to find a couple little better bucks but still looking for that 170" plus type buck which was the goal we had set for this hunt. We did see one buck from a distance that looked to be well over 170" but we couldn't get close enough to really judge him or get any pictures of him. Checked a couple cameras that had some decent bucks on them as well as a few spike elk. And saw an antelope buck that I couldn't resist stopping for to get a picture of. I'll add some pictures of this quick trip.

Another day on the Vernon trying to find something tag worthy. Found a bunch of average bucks and a few small bulls and a few crazy cactus bucks.

Been working and coaching baseball alot lately so I haven't had a chance to get out on the Vernon to much in the last couple weeks but we are counting down the days now one week from today till opening day. We've found a couple good bucks and we're excited to get out there for about 10 days. I'll add a couple pictures from the last time I was out there. The next picture I post will be once the hunt starts. Good luck to everyone this fall.

Well the 2021 muzzy hunt has come and gone for us, I pulled my toy hauler out the Sunday before the hunt to have a few days of scouting before the hunt. I went out Monday morning and located 19 bucks in one canyon mostly small to average bucks along with a 30" two point and about a 180" 4 point that I considered a shooter for my 13 year old son. Well I watched these same bucks all day Monday and Tuesday and I was alone the entire time and figured I knew about what they were doing so I thought we'd hunt this buck opening morning.

So after I had a set plan to kill that buck opening morning rolled around and we were in the spot we wanted to be well before daylight and right as it got light enough to see through the binos we located the buck but the problem was we also located two guys that were hot on his trail so we backed out and let them chase him around the mountain, (literally chase) I'll get to that part later. So we backed out and went to the back side of the mountain where I knew this buck went to bed, figured we'd let them do the hard work and we'd set up where we knew the buck had gone the last few days. Well that plan didn't work either because once we got to the back side there were two other guys headed up the mountain. So with plan A and plan B down the drain we sat back and watched these 4 guys chase everything around the mountain. The original guys we saw got to the top of the front side of the mountain and noticed the other two guys coming up the backside so they literally started running across the hillside to stay ahead of them, it was kind of a s**t show to say the least. In the mean time we stayed down on the road and watched all the bucks head ridge over ridge till they were long gone. I'll include a few pictures of the majority of the type of bucks we were seeing on this hunt.

So after we figured the morning hunt was shot we decided to head up another near by canyon that we had scouted and seen some decent bucks in and as we drove up this canyon at roughly 8:45 in the morning we had 5 bucks and a couple doe's run across the road right in front of us, one of the bucks looked pretty promising so I told my son to get his gun out as I grabbed the shooting sticks, I saw the biggest buck stop for just a split second and realized he was a shooter in our eyes, they were all moving up the steep hillside through the burned cedars and sage and wouldn't ever stop to give us a shot so I had my son follow the buck up the hill through the scope on his muzzleloader. The deer all got about 20 yards from the top of the ridge and stopped in some green cedars but we didn't have a shot at the big buck because he was right behind a tree and all we could see was his head, then a smaller buck and a doe walked right in front of the bigger buck and passed in front of him so we figured the big buck would follow them and maybe stop in one little clearing and present a shot. Well the big buck then turned straight away from us looking like he was going to go over the hill without giving a shot opportunity when the last second he turned broadside in the only shooting lane we had, I had previously ranged the tree he was behind and it was 295 yards straight uphill so I dialed the scope up to the correct moa and told my son squeeze the trigger when he felt comfortable, after a couple seconds he let loose and we heard the "thud" of a solid hit and the buck hunched up and started doing the spins and rolled about 30 yards down the hill. The buck ended up being a solid 26" beautiful 4x4 that my son is thrilled with. This was a really fun hunt with family and we are overall impressed with this unit for seeing quantity as we were seeing 15-25 bucks per day but the unit lacks on quality from what I've seen over scouting the last 3 months. Great unit if you are happy with killing 150-160" bucks. My boys buck came in at about 168" and it was probably the third biggest buck I saw the entire time I've spent on the unit.