First Coues deer hunt
- Thread starter Lungpopper
- Start date
Wow looks like a great hunt, unreal country. I’ve been thinking about a couse hunt for a couple of years now. This may make me pull the trigger on a trip next winter!
Congrats guys... I got one today too. He broke an antler off rolling down the hill and we had to do a little blood trailing but I got him. Found the antler too lol. Hopefully Ed can fix it...
Great job fellas! Nice eye-guards Darryl. What rifle did you decide on?
A little backstory before I get into my buck story. I applied in a few states for a November deer hunt and was unsuccessful. I hit up Darrel in July to see if wanted to party tag for the AZ leftover deer tag draw. He was game and we put in our 5 choices crossed our fingers and waited. About a month later we got drawn and the unit we got drawn for was our 5th and last choice. After reading up in the unit we weren’t super stoked but bottom line we had a tag for a November rifle coues hunt. The unit has a lot of access issues and we New we had to figure it out. @Lungpopper made a quick trip over there in September to figure out the access and actually found a few good bucks. Me and LP went back over there in the beginning of October to get a game plan and figure out where our backcountry camp would be at this point we were feeling a lot better about the tag because we were seeing bucks and we’re pretty sure no one accept us would be dumb enough to hike in as far as we were going to which turned out to be true.
I picked up LP 3am last Thursday to head out to our unit so we could backpack into our base camp and get ready for opening day Friday. We all carried 3 gallons of water in our packs were around 70lbs with rifles attached. The hike in sucked I fact all the hiking sucked it was beautiful. It takes a twisted human being to want to go in where we did imagine steep canyons, all uphill, rocks, cactus, and 2ft tall grass that pulls at your legs every step you make. We made it to camp around 4pm got set up and did some glassing and went to be ready for opening morning.
Opening day I was on my own, Victor and LP we’re together. I don’t want to take away from the deer Victor shot so I will let LP post up the details on that buck but it was an incredible spot and stock kill on opening day. I won’t do the story justice. I probably glassed up 30 deer on opening day but only one buck and he must have seen me first and he never stopped to look back. We all got back to camp after dark Friday night.
Saturday morning Victor has to pack his deer down death mountain to put it in the cooler. Me and LP decided to stay together so we could help with stalks etc. The day before we went high so we decided to stay at the same elevation as camp and glass which turned up a ton of does but no bucks. So we New we had to climb death mountain behind camp to get into the isolated valleys behind camp. This clomp is basically a 1,000 elevation gain in some the craziest terrain you could imagine. We started glassing the back valleys around 10 am. We did not see a deer for 3 hours but stayed in the 15s. Around 1:30 about a mile away I glassed up a deer or a stick or a deer or a stick or oh crap that’s a buck feeding under that tree in the shade a mile away. Swarovski 15x56 are game changers.
I made a plan and LP was gonna stay back and watch the buck to make sure it didn’t leave its bed. The hike to that buck was about two miles. I dropped into the saddle below where we’re glassing and started working up the first hill. When I got to the top of the first hill it was 1:50 and a buck jumped up I hoped a fence to get on him then he went to the other side of the fence and took off. I racked a round popped my lenses caps and rested my rifle on a tree he stupidly stopped at 140yds and turned back to see what I was all I had was his neck and head over the top of a bush but that’s all that was needed. I let the Tika 260 eat and sent a 127g LRX right through his neck and he hit the ground where he stood. Sometimes you just get lucky if you are willing to get out where no one else is enough things happen this was one of those times. I got up to my buck text LP to come on over he had no idea it was my shot and that I had gotten a buck since I dropped out of site. I was kind of bummed sitting there thinking now we have to pack this deer out and LP will have to wait another day. When LP got to me about 30 minutes later I asked him if the original buck I was gonna stalk moved after my shot and he said no it was still bedded. So we gutted my buck real quick and hung it from the tree it died under and decided to see if we could get LP that original buck.
We had about another mile and two hills to climb to get to the original buck so we started off. We got to the canyon with the buck around 3pm. As soon as we looke over the edge of the hill into the canyon that old fork was on his feet perfectly broadside 264 yards feeding on a bush. He was about 200feet below us and had no idea we were there and about to turn his lights out. LP took his time and got set up on a steady rest and boom he lived up to his name double lung shot. Th buck stumbled forward like Mike Tyson just hit him and fell belly up 10 yards from the initial hot stone dead. Even though the buck was only a 260 yard shot we had to hike about a 1/4 miles own into the canyon to get to him. LP made quick work gutless method and packed him on out.
I got back to my deer at dark and got him processed and in the pack.
We were back to camp around 8pm that night and just like that we had filled all three tags in two days.
We hike out our camp and deer on Sunday morning our packs had to be around 80-90lbs it was miserable and wonderful all at the same time.
This was an incredible trip. Hard work paid off road hunters were still driving around in their quads and side by sides while we were packing out our backcountry bucks. This trip solidified 15x56 binoculars for me, if you don’t have 15’s you are missing deer. We never would have got our bucks with out 15’s.
I picked up LP 3am last Thursday to head out to our unit so we could backpack into our base camp and get ready for opening day Friday. We all carried 3 gallons of water in our packs were around 70lbs with rifles attached. The hike in sucked I fact all the hiking sucked it was beautiful. It takes a twisted human being to want to go in where we did imagine steep canyons, all uphill, rocks, cactus, and 2ft tall grass that pulls at your legs every step you make. We made it to camp around 4pm got set up and did some glassing and went to be ready for opening morning.
Opening day I was on my own, Victor and LP we’re together. I don’t want to take away from the deer Victor shot so I will let LP post up the details on that buck but it was an incredible spot and stock kill on opening day. I won’t do the story justice. I probably glassed up 30 deer on opening day but only one buck and he must have seen me first and he never stopped to look back. We all got back to camp after dark Friday night.
Saturday morning Victor has to pack his deer down death mountain to put it in the cooler. Me and LP decided to stay together so we could help with stalks etc. The day before we went high so we decided to stay at the same elevation as camp and glass which turned up a ton of does but no bucks. So we New we had to climb death mountain behind camp to get into the isolated valleys behind camp. This clomp is basically a 1,000 elevation gain in some the craziest terrain you could imagine. We started glassing the back valleys around 10 am. We did not see a deer for 3 hours but stayed in the 15s. Around 1:30 about a mile away I glassed up a deer or a stick or a deer or a stick or oh crap that’s a buck feeding under that tree in the shade a mile away. Swarovski 15x56 are game changers.
I made a plan and LP was gonna stay back and watch the buck to make sure it didn’t leave its bed. The hike to that buck was about two miles. I dropped into the saddle below where we’re glassing and started working up the first hill. When I got to the top of the first hill it was 1:50 and a buck jumped up I hoped a fence to get on him then he went to the other side of the fence and took off. I racked a round popped my lenses caps and rested my rifle on a tree he stupidly stopped at 140yds and turned back to see what I was all I had was his neck and head over the top of a bush but that’s all that was needed. I let the Tika 260 eat and sent a 127g LRX right through his neck and he hit the ground where he stood. Sometimes you just get lucky if you are willing to get out where no one else is enough things happen this was one of those times. I got up to my buck text LP to come on over he had no idea it was my shot and that I had gotten a buck since I dropped out of site. I was kind of bummed sitting there thinking now we have to pack this deer out and LP will have to wait another day. When LP got to me about 30 minutes later I asked him if the original buck I was gonna stalk moved after my shot and he said no it was still bedded. So we gutted my buck real quick and hung it from the tree it died under and decided to see if we could get LP that original buck.
We had about another mile and two hills to climb to get to the original buck so we started off. We got to the canyon with the buck around 3pm. As soon as we looke over the edge of the hill into the canyon that old fork was on his feet perfectly broadside 264 yards feeding on a bush. He was about 200feet below us and had no idea we were there and about to turn his lights out. LP took his time and got set up on a steady rest and boom he lived up to his name double lung shot. Th buck stumbled forward like Mike Tyson just hit him and fell belly up 10 yards from the initial hot stone dead. Even though the buck was only a 260 yard shot we had to hike about a 1/4 miles own into the canyon to get to him. LP made quick work gutless method and packed him on out.
I got back to my deer at dark and got him processed and in the pack.
We were back to camp around 8pm that night and just like that we had filled all three tags in two days.
We hike out our camp and deer on Sunday morning our packs had to be around 80-90lbs it was miserable and wonderful all at the same time.
This was an incredible trip. Hard work paid off road hunters were still driving around in their quads and side by sides while we were packing out our backcountry bucks. This trip solidified 15x56 binoculars for me, if you don’t have 15’s you are missing deer. We never would have got our bucks with out 15’s.
Here is a phot of me going after the deer I shot my buck at the top of the hill of the saddle I am in in a valley right on the back side. The buck LP shot was in the top right corner of the photo.
