I decided that I was sick yesterday and had to leave my house a 4 am to search of a cure. In my searching, i heard some insane cat screams and I saw tons of birds, but after about 2.5 hours of searching, I decided I should probably go into work.
Got into work by 9 and immediately my co-worker @spencerlillywhite messages me about leaving at noon to go back out to this piece of public land that has been eating at him for a while. After some arm twisting (I was not looking forward to hiking back in after my am hunt) I decided that I should since it would be my last opportunity.
We start hiking in around 1:30 and about 2:30 I realize that my phone was pulled out of my pocket by brush (I had a cord hanging loose that got caught up on a branch). We searched for 30 minutes, no luck so we decided to hunt and not worry about the phone and at that point Spense phone was only at 20% battery, so he turned off his phone and we decided it was only for emergencies / hiking out in dark.
We get to a good glassing spot and I was resdy to setup my tripod but Spenser kept being logical and said that we should get to the other side this ravine because it will make a stalk easier if we find one...I agreed but didn’t like it. Haha on the way up out of the ravine we saw tons of fresh sign from the wet ground. We get up and I plop down to glass. After glassing for a while I tell Spenser that I need to focus my glassing to a hill where the wind is coming from the backside of the deer.
No joke, after maybe 5 more minutes I see a deer head shaped rock. I could not stop staring at it. No movement at all, then I realized the dark spot was an eye and say “deer” then notice a fork on his head and followed that up with “legal buck”. He was laying on a rock, under a bush about 700 yards into the wind. After a few more minutes of looking at him he finally moves an ear. We hashed out a stalk plan to get within 250 yards for a shot. As we put on the stalk, we kicked an owl and a ton of quail. We would occasionally peak to the buck laying there like statue.
We then popped up on our shooting rocks with a game plan that I shoot first and Spenser takes the follow up shot.
After waiting there with the buck in my cross hairs for a few minutes, I decide to take the shot. Boom! Felt great, buck jumps up followed by another Boom from Spenser.
We see the buck fall and knew we was down, but I could have sworn I saw him go up hill which is never a good sign. I was triple guessing myself. After a few minutes of searching Spenser decided to look beneath than his bed and sure enough there he was.
From first glance, blood everywhere and only a single bullet hole. How can this be? Did I really miss? However, I got my tag out and start filling it out. As we start quartering it out, we noticed to separate entrance and exit wounds about 1” apart. lol at first I thought it was one until I notice that one is on each side of a rib on the entrance side with two separate exit wounds.
I felt much better after seeing that. We did get to sneak in a photo right before the phone died. Battery was so low that when we put it in camera mode it would shut off.
We packed the meat and hiked out, mostly blind (really dark) in a brand new area several hours past dark. Definitely some sketchy parts but gratefully Spenser’s phone turned back on so we could occasionally check our path. It was about a 2 mile packout, relatively easy but man, my Hips were so sore this morning.
Side note, Sheriff initially did not want to counter sign the tag because he was not familiar with the area. We were able to show him our OnX which made him comfortable to sign it! Another great reason for that tool!
Got into work by 9 and immediately my co-worker @spencerlillywhite messages me about leaving at noon to go back out to this piece of public land that has been eating at him for a while. After some arm twisting (I was not looking forward to hiking back in after my am hunt) I decided that I should since it would be my last opportunity.
We start hiking in around 1:30 and about 2:30 I realize that my phone was pulled out of my pocket by brush (I had a cord hanging loose that got caught up on a branch). We searched for 30 minutes, no luck so we decided to hunt and not worry about the phone and at that point Spense phone was only at 20% battery, so he turned off his phone and we decided it was only for emergencies / hiking out in dark.
We get to a good glassing spot and I was resdy to setup my tripod but Spenser kept being logical and said that we should get to the other side this ravine because it will make a stalk easier if we find one...I agreed but didn’t like it. Haha on the way up out of the ravine we saw tons of fresh sign from the wet ground. We get up and I plop down to glass. After glassing for a while I tell Spenser that I need to focus my glassing to a hill where the wind is coming from the backside of the deer.
No joke, after maybe 5 more minutes I see a deer head shaped rock. I could not stop staring at it. No movement at all, then I realized the dark spot was an eye and say “deer” then notice a fork on his head and followed that up with “legal buck”. He was laying on a rock, under a bush about 700 yards into the wind. After a few more minutes of looking at him he finally moves an ear. We hashed out a stalk plan to get within 250 yards for a shot. As we put on the stalk, we kicked an owl and a ton of quail. We would occasionally peak to the buck laying there like statue.
We then popped up on our shooting rocks with a game plan that I shoot first and Spenser takes the follow up shot.
After waiting there with the buck in my cross hairs for a few minutes, I decide to take the shot. Boom! Felt great, buck jumps up followed by another Boom from Spenser.
We see the buck fall and knew we was down, but I could have sworn I saw him go up hill which is never a good sign. I was triple guessing myself. After a few minutes of searching Spenser decided to look beneath than his bed and sure enough there he was.
From first glance, blood everywhere and only a single bullet hole. How can this be? Did I really miss? However, I got my tag out and start filling it out. As we start quartering it out, we noticed to separate entrance and exit wounds about 1” apart. lol at first I thought it was one until I notice that one is on each side of a rib on the entrance side with two separate exit wounds.
I felt much better after seeing that. We did get to sneak in a photo right before the phone died. Battery was so low that when we put it in camera mode it would shut off.
We packed the meat and hiked out, mostly blind (really dark) in a brand new area several hours past dark. Definitely some sketchy parts but gratefully Spenser’s phone turned back on so we could occasionally check our path. It was about a 2 mile packout, relatively easy but man, my Hips were so sore this morning.
Side note, Sheriff initially did not want to counter sign the tag because he was not familiar with the area. We were able to show him our OnX which made him comfortable to sign it! Another great reason for that tool!
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