I first want to start off by saying I have an incredible wife and family. I have 4 kids and my wife gave me full support this season to get out and get this done. Honestly after 12 days out this year and the season a week away from closing I was getting ready to quit and start taking the boys upland hunting. I come from a family of non hunters but luckily a family friend started taking me bird hunting when I was a kid. So I have been hunting for nearly 20 years and become fairly successful at upland. I had never hunted big game until I got on this site two years ago. So I have you guys to thank for this insane big game addiction.
Now to my deer. Yesterday was Veterans Day which my company honors and takes off. Thanks to all that serve because of you I get to carry a rifle and hunt. I left the house around 3am and met a customer of mine up at MCC. We got out to the area we were gonna hunt spread out and got after it. Like always I got high and glassing my butt off 1 doe later it was lunch time. At this point honestly I was ready to go home, MCC has a 2x3 rule over the 12 days I have been out I have seen countless doe and passed on no less than 12 bucks that just didn't make the cut.
I could tell from my customers eyes that he wanted to get back out, he is a good friend of mine so I called the wife and said see you after dark. As soon as I get out to our spot I bust a couple coyotes mousing and pop a nice male at exactly 200 now I am starting to get pumped and things are looking up.
I drank 5 hour energy and say let's do this.
I had two areas for the day so I sent my customer in his truck about 2 miles up the road to where I think is the better area and I begin a bushwaking hike to hopefully get my deer on what most likely be my last afternoon hunting deer for the season. (Pheasant is opening and I owe my dog and boys some hunting big time.) I end up about a mile from the truck glassing a really hot area. Crazy it was 80 degrees around 1 pm yesterday and I was cooking. After glassing for and hour I make the decision that if I am miserable so are the deer and there is no way a deer is in this area. I decide to keep pushing a back a few more canyons bushwaking the whole time. I finally get to a great north facing valley and as I am dropping in to it I can feel the temperature drop, it is at 10-15 degrees cooler on this north face. As I ascended from the top of the ridge to the floor I told myself there are deer in this valley.
Now the fun starts. It's now 3pm and I start still hunting the floor of this valley/canyon glassing the north facing wall knowing a deer is going to be bedded down somewhere. I get about a 1/2 mile in and bust two Doe and a small 2x3 buck. There was no time to think I was able to rack a round into my new Tikka T3X chambered in 260 with 127g Barnes LRX hand loads drop to a knee put him in my scope and pull the trigger. He was on the run the first round hit him in the ribs 100yds he kept going getting further and further, second round 150 took out his shoulder, at this point he is about 200 out and starting to slow he goes under an oak and I can see him limping. My adrenaline is pumping this is my first buck this is really happening I put one more in his neck and down he goes. Looking back all 3 were solid shots and would have dropped him but since I was off hand and he was moving so fast I was not positive I had connected good. There was no way he was getting away not today no way.
When I finally got up to that oak and saw him laying there I could not believe it. I was hooting and hollering like a mad man all by myself miles from my truck dancing around like I had won the super bowl. It took me about an hour and a half to get back to my truck and luckily I was able to drive a lot closer to the deer than where I had originally parked.
Thank you all for your help and support. I am ruined for life, now I need an elk, mule deer, antelope, moose, etc you name it. I am hooked. Big game hunting is more challenging than any type of hunting than I have ever done but when it all came together in that couple of seconds yesterday I forgot about all the days scouting, all the days in the field hunting, the countless miles and ridges. It was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. What a day!
Now to my deer. Yesterday was Veterans Day which my company honors and takes off. Thanks to all that serve because of you I get to carry a rifle and hunt. I left the house around 3am and met a customer of mine up at MCC. We got out to the area we were gonna hunt spread out and got after it. Like always I got high and glassing my butt off 1 doe later it was lunch time. At this point honestly I was ready to go home, MCC has a 2x3 rule over the 12 days I have been out I have seen countless doe and passed on no less than 12 bucks that just didn't make the cut.
I could tell from my customers eyes that he wanted to get back out, he is a good friend of mine so I called the wife and said see you after dark. As soon as I get out to our spot I bust a couple coyotes mousing and pop a nice male at exactly 200 now I am starting to get pumped and things are looking up.
I drank 5 hour energy and say let's do this.
I had two areas for the day so I sent my customer in his truck about 2 miles up the road to where I think is the better area and I begin a bushwaking hike to hopefully get my deer on what most likely be my last afternoon hunting deer for the season. (Pheasant is opening and I owe my dog and boys some hunting big time.) I end up about a mile from the truck glassing a really hot area. Crazy it was 80 degrees around 1 pm yesterday and I was cooking. After glassing for and hour I make the decision that if I am miserable so are the deer and there is no way a deer is in this area. I decide to keep pushing a back a few more canyons bushwaking the whole time. I finally get to a great north facing valley and as I am dropping in to it I can feel the temperature drop, it is at 10-15 degrees cooler on this north face. As I ascended from the top of the ridge to the floor I told myself there are deer in this valley.
Now the fun starts. It's now 3pm and I start still hunting the floor of this valley/canyon glassing the north facing wall knowing a deer is going to be bedded down somewhere. I get about a 1/2 mile in and bust two Doe and a small 2x3 buck. There was no time to think I was able to rack a round into my new Tikka T3X chambered in 260 with 127g Barnes LRX hand loads drop to a knee put him in my scope and pull the trigger. He was on the run the first round hit him in the ribs 100yds he kept going getting further and further, second round 150 took out his shoulder, at this point he is about 200 out and starting to slow he goes under an oak and I can see him limping. My adrenaline is pumping this is my first buck this is really happening I put one more in his neck and down he goes. Looking back all 3 were solid shots and would have dropped him but since I was off hand and he was moving so fast I was not positive I had connected good. There was no way he was getting away not today no way.
When I finally got up to that oak and saw him laying there I could not believe it. I was hooting and hollering like a mad man all by myself miles from my truck dancing around like I had won the super bowl. It took me about an hour and a half to get back to my truck and luckily I was able to drive a lot closer to the deer than where I had originally parked.
Thank you all for your help and support. I am ruined for life, now I need an elk, mule deer, antelope, moose, etc you name it. I am hooked. Big game hunting is more challenging than any type of hunting than I have ever done but when it all came together in that couple of seconds yesterday I forgot about all the days scouting, all the days in the field hunting, the countless miles and ridges. It was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. What a day!
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