passthrough
Active Member
- Messages
- 363
Let me start by saying that any hunt that I have with my boys is always a favorite of mine and this was no exception. We have been beyond blessed when it comes to drawing this hunt. Having watched his brother shoot two bucks on it in the past my youngest was chomping at the bit to have his chance. This hunt had its own set of challenges, the biggest was the amount of time that we had for it. With his basketball schedule we were only going to have 5 of the 9 days to hunt, luckily that included the last 2 days.
The first weekend of the hunt was good, but no shooter bucks were located. We were checking likely areas and checking spots where we had seen big bucks rutting before. Little to no rutting activity, but tons of deer. He passed on 52 different bucks in the first two days, the best being in the 160's. Fast forward to Thanksgiving Day, we rolled into an area that held big bucks and immediately located a 175 buck posturing to a buck that we thought would touch the 200 mark. Some tense moments followed as we watched them chase each other around and into the trees before we could get a shot off. Ugh! So close! Shortly after we located an absolute giant, a buck that a friend of ours knew of and we hoped we would turn up. A buck that we thought was 220+, in the scope at 463 but never stopped moving, as big bucks do, he slipped into the trees and gone. We looked for that buck up until the last day, passing on tons and tons of other bucks along the way.
On the morning of the last day we located a hot spot, finally some rutting activity. We had several mature bucks chasing does, all in one herd. It was difficult because they were in super tall sage and in and out of the tree line. Our target buck was a super wide framey 190+ kind of buck, but would take any of the 3 mature bucks that presented an opportunity. After a frustrating morning of cat and mouse one of the big bucks stopped in a window long enough to give him a shot. One well placed bullet anchored his first big buck!
I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to make memories with my boys. Although it wasn't the super wide 190+ buck that we were targeting, it was an equally amazing buck, one that he is so proud to add to his collection. His buck ended up scoring 187 3/8. What makes him even more of a trophy is his age, from the looks of his teeth, more than likely a 6+ year old buck. I will send his teeth off to confirm that. This hunt gets a lot of scrutiny, I am thankful for the opportunity to get to hunt mule deer at this time of year, but also understand enough about herd dynamics to know that it was not sustainable at the original number of tags offered. I believe that 25 tags is perfect. A hunt of this quality should be exceptionally hard to draw. I believe that the future for 2B is bright, we saw tons of young bucks and more importantly, a fawn crop that is simply amazing. Cheers!
The first weekend of the hunt was good, but no shooter bucks were located. We were checking likely areas and checking spots where we had seen big bucks rutting before. Little to no rutting activity, but tons of deer. He passed on 52 different bucks in the first two days, the best being in the 160's. Fast forward to Thanksgiving Day, we rolled into an area that held big bucks and immediately located a 175 buck posturing to a buck that we thought would touch the 200 mark. Some tense moments followed as we watched them chase each other around and into the trees before we could get a shot off. Ugh! So close! Shortly after we located an absolute giant, a buck that a friend of ours knew of and we hoped we would turn up. A buck that we thought was 220+, in the scope at 463 but never stopped moving, as big bucks do, he slipped into the trees and gone. We looked for that buck up until the last day, passing on tons and tons of other bucks along the way.
On the morning of the last day we located a hot spot, finally some rutting activity. We had several mature bucks chasing does, all in one herd. It was difficult because they were in super tall sage and in and out of the tree line. Our target buck was a super wide framey 190+ kind of buck, but would take any of the 3 mature bucks that presented an opportunity. After a frustrating morning of cat and mouse one of the big bucks stopped in a window long enough to give him a shot. One well placed bullet anchored his first big buck!
I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to make memories with my boys. Although it wasn't the super wide 190+ buck that we were targeting, it was an equally amazing buck, one that he is so proud to add to his collection. His buck ended up scoring 187 3/8. What makes him even more of a trophy is his age, from the looks of his teeth, more than likely a 6+ year old buck. I will send his teeth off to confirm that. This hunt gets a lot of scrutiny, I am thankful for the opportunity to get to hunt mule deer at this time of year, but also understand enough about herd dynamics to know that it was not sustainable at the original number of tags offered. I believe that 25 tags is perfect. A hunt of this quality should be exceptionally hard to draw. I believe that the future for 2B is bright, we saw tons of young bucks and more importantly, a fawn crop that is simply amazing. Cheers!
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