I decided to take a week off from work to hunt D16 public land this year. I purchased two D16 tags, so I figured I had my work cut out for me. Saw a lot of doe opening morning. At 11:30, a monster of a buck, who was apparently bumped by someone else, was headed right towards me at a fairly good clip. As he approached, his path took him behind manzanita cover. Once I figured out what game trail he was taking, I sighted in between two manzanita trees where he would appear next. As he emerged from cover and came into view in my scope, he was on the move and now quartering away. I only had a fraction of a second before he would disappear into the thick cover to decide whether it was a clean shot. In that instant, I decided it wasn’t a clean shot and let him go. I had never shot a big game animal on the move, and this one was quartering away and moving at a fair pace. His rib cage was dead center in my scope at 100 yards though. I kicked myself off and on for the rest of the day, toggling back and forth between “I should have taken the shot”, and “no, it wasn’t a clean shot …you made the right call”. I never saw another buck all day.
I hunted hard Sunday through Thursday only seeing a couple of does all week. I covered a lot of miles each day and my body was beginning to feel it. But I kept at it. I was encouraged by @Corguy15 throughout the week. He and I were both hunting the same general areas and we would cross paths almost daily. He was seeing more bucks than me, and this knowledge helped me to keep my hopes up. His experience towards the end of the week also alerted us to the fact that at least some of the bucks were starting to group up with does.
Finally, on Friday morning, back in my favorite spot of all of the land I had covered and the same spot where I had harvested a forky last year, a doe popped out of the brush square in front of me. She immediately spotted me up on the hillside perched in a rock pile. We had a 10 minute staring contest with neither of us moving. Once she determined that I was not a threat to her, she began grazing in the opening, although still somewhat suspicious. Then, a second doe appeared through the brush about 10 yards from her. She too saw me immediately (so much for my hiding job) and began a second staring contest.
Then, after about a minute, a nice 3x3 popped out right beside the second doe and also stared right at me. I skipped using binoculars because I could tell with plain eyesight he was more than a forky. Unlike the does, he wasn’t playing the staring game. In the second it took me to get on my rifle, he was already in the process of turning from head on to broadside and was on the move at only 80 yards. This time, I let it rip (30-06, Barnes VOR-TX TTSX 180 grain). From the time I first saw him appear until he was double lunged was likely less than 5 seconds. Right place, right time, finally. After all of the miles covered during the week from one ridge top to another, when I shot him, he was about 10 yards from where I shot my buck last year and he died about 15 yards from where the previous one died.
Ironically, while packing him out, I bumped what I believe was the monster of a buck that I saw on opening day. I still had another tag to fill, but my gun was on my pack and I had a 3x3 deer head in my hands. Maybe next time I will reverse the position of those two items for the pack out. LOL. Not sure if I will get back out this season to attempt to fill my second tag, but if so, I have hope that there is at least one big buck still out there.
Sorry for the poor picture quality, but I was hunting alone so had to improvise by leaning my phone on my backpack to get the shot.
I hunted hard Sunday through Thursday only seeing a couple of does all week. I covered a lot of miles each day and my body was beginning to feel it. But I kept at it. I was encouraged by @Corguy15 throughout the week. He and I were both hunting the same general areas and we would cross paths almost daily. He was seeing more bucks than me, and this knowledge helped me to keep my hopes up. His experience towards the end of the week also alerted us to the fact that at least some of the bucks were starting to group up with does.
Finally, on Friday morning, back in my favorite spot of all of the land I had covered and the same spot where I had harvested a forky last year, a doe popped out of the brush square in front of me. She immediately spotted me up on the hillside perched in a rock pile. We had a 10 minute staring contest with neither of us moving. Once she determined that I was not a threat to her, she began grazing in the opening, although still somewhat suspicious. Then, a second doe appeared through the brush about 10 yards from her. She too saw me immediately (so much for my hiding job) and began a second staring contest.
Then, after about a minute, a nice 3x3 popped out right beside the second doe and also stared right at me. I skipped using binoculars because I could tell with plain eyesight he was more than a forky. Unlike the does, he wasn’t playing the staring game. In the second it took me to get on my rifle, he was already in the process of turning from head on to broadside and was on the move at only 80 yards. This time, I let it rip (30-06, Barnes VOR-TX TTSX 180 grain). From the time I first saw him appear until he was double lunged was likely less than 5 seconds. Right place, right time, finally. After all of the miles covered during the week from one ridge top to another, when I shot him, he was about 10 yards from where I shot my buck last year and he died about 15 yards from where the previous one died.
Ironically, while packing him out, I bumped what I believe was the monster of a buck that I saw on opening day. I still had another tag to fill, but my gun was on my pack and I had a 3x3 deer head in my hands. Maybe next time I will reverse the position of those two items for the pack out. LOL. Not sure if I will get back out this season to attempt to fill my second tag, but if so, I have hope that there is at least one big buck still out there.
Sorry for the poor picture quality, but I was hunting alone so had to improvise by leaning my phone on my backpack to get the shot.
