BACKGROUND
This past weekend I drove 12 hours back to California, since my university had a three day weekend, in which many college kids go out and drink... I had other plans in mind. My girlfriend and I wanted to go hunting in CA public land. We arrived Friday 3 am and went to check out some spots later that afternoon and ran into a group of hunters... we beat them to their glassing spot. We saw nothing.
Saturday we had planned to hike out early morning to the spot, but we slept through the alarm. To make things worse when we were hiking up my water bladder leaked and soaked my entire bag. I was not having a good day. After glassing for hours we decided to head down and grab some lunch. We came up with a plan and headed back.
THE HUNT
After arriving we glassed for a couple minutes and took a quick nap. A couple minutes later we spotted a little forky about 200 yards out... my heart was racing this was the moment... he went to scare some does and out of the blues pops out this good looking buck who was also looking for action. We watched him for a 5 minutes waiting for the right time to make a good shot. Throughout this I was shaking... this was going to be my first buck. The buck was moving around a lot and finally stopped behind the doe... the position was perfect.. at that moment I heard some "road" hunters scrambling to get out and shoot... we could see them but they could not see us. That is when my girlfriend said "shoot".
My first shot was high and did not hit him. He stood completely still and I reloaded and fired off another round. This one hit him right behind the shoulder. He was injured and began limping. I fired off another round hitting the front shoulder again and that bullet came out of his bottom neck area. At that point I knew he was done.
THE DRAGGING
We went to look for him and found him not too far. He was a nice buck. I gutted him and dragged him back to the truck which took a couple of hours. We went home and I skinned and saved all the meat. At this point it was already 3 am Sunday. Later that morning I went to get him countersigned and reported the harvest. By noon we were on the road back to school.
The website is not letting me post the pics but I will try
This past weekend I drove 12 hours back to California, since my university had a three day weekend, in which many college kids go out and drink... I had other plans in mind. My girlfriend and I wanted to go hunting in CA public land. We arrived Friday 3 am and went to check out some spots later that afternoon and ran into a group of hunters... we beat them to their glassing spot. We saw nothing.
Saturday we had planned to hike out early morning to the spot, but we slept through the alarm. To make things worse when we were hiking up my water bladder leaked and soaked my entire bag. I was not having a good day. After glassing for hours we decided to head down and grab some lunch. We came up with a plan and headed back.
THE HUNT
After arriving we glassed for a couple minutes and took a quick nap. A couple minutes later we spotted a little forky about 200 yards out... my heart was racing this was the moment... he went to scare some does and out of the blues pops out this good looking buck who was also looking for action. We watched him for a 5 minutes waiting for the right time to make a good shot. Throughout this I was shaking... this was going to be my first buck. The buck was moving around a lot and finally stopped behind the doe... the position was perfect.. at that moment I heard some "road" hunters scrambling to get out and shoot... we could see them but they could not see us. That is when my girlfriend said "shoot".
My first shot was high and did not hit him. He stood completely still and I reloaded and fired off another round. This one hit him right behind the shoulder. He was injured and began limping. I fired off another round hitting the front shoulder again and that bullet came out of his bottom neck area. At that point I knew he was done.
THE DRAGGING
We went to look for him and found him not too far. He was a nice buck. I gutted him and dragged him back to the truck which took a couple of hours. We went home and I skinned and saved all the meat. At this point it was already 3 am Sunday. Later that morning I went to get him countersigned and reported the harvest. By noon we were on the road back to school.
The website is not letting me post the pics but I will try
