Longish story. Photos at the end if you don't like reading.
Man, this season will be one that I remember forever! I'm building points right now for an X9A or X12 tag, so I got 2 D16 tags. I decided last year that I wanted to try and get myself to where I can shoot all of my red meat, and not purchase from the store if I don't choose to. That's not to say I won't eat some beef, I do love my carne asada, but I really enjoy knowing where my food came from and it's rewarding to take it from field to plate. The last two seasons have been a little frustrating, but certainly educational. I have good spots with lots of deer, but maybe wasn't hunting them as effectively as I could.
So, this year I really went all out. I'm not sure I have ever had a personal goal that I wanted so badly to accomplish (to consistently fill D16 tags each year). In order to reach my goal of supplying all my meat from the field, I was going to have to fill at least one of my D16 tags, preferably both, in addition to tags I have elsewhere. My deer hunting partner, Matt (posts here as Msteiger) was committed too and put in a lot of footwork with me. We spent a lot of time in the field over the last 6 months, hiking, glassing and running trailcams. I started seeing velvet all the way back in April, and moved my cams every 3-6 weeks. I got bucks on most of my cam locations, which was encouraging. I also upgraded a number of pieces of equipment. The country that I hunt in D16 is big and public and as you guys know, glassing is key. I see a lot of deer but it's not all that often they come to me, glassing from a distance really increases your opportunities. I got married in June and my wife really showed her love by buying me a pair of Zeiss Victory HT's as a wedding gift. What a difference that glass makes! My previous glass were fine, they are a pair of 8 power Steiner's but I found over the last two seasons that you really need 10's here. Probably the best decision I made was to buy a tripod for glassing, that was the biggest game changer for me. When you're glassing these big hills and canyons, for hours on end, you're going to miss deer without a tripod. I decided to "buy once, cry once" and went with the Outdoorsmans system from the Outdoorsmans shop in phoenix. those guys are glassing experts and I recommend their products to anyone.
Well, opening day approached, I made sure I was free from work for it. I told Matt he shouldn't feel obligated to hunt with me if he wanted to focus on his own tag, but I had missed opening day the last two years and felt I needed to focus on mine. He wanted to try and fill tags as a team, and opted to come along with me, which is awesome. I owe him a debt. We camped at the trailhead Friday night, slept very poorly, got up at 330 and did breakfast and coffee and started hiking at 430 to be in position before shooting time. The spot I wanted to hunt on opening day actually wasn't the kind of place you can glass for miles. It was a "little" canyon, about 300 yards across, that I had gotten a number of bucks on camera in, and had seen a good buck last year during the season that didn't give me a good shot opportunity so I let him walk. I had figured out how I wanted to set up and we got in there before shooting time. The first 90 minutes passed uneventfully as the temperature ratcheted up. Then, at about 0800 I spotted two shiny objects walking over the hill to the refuge of the shade on the north slope, just as I had hoped and planned for. It was a doe and a buck behind her on a leash. The buck was a nice one, he was a big fork with a cool 3rd point on his left side. We watched them get to the shade and bed down right at 300 yards. I wasn't immediately ready to take that shot, but I was confident they would be there for quite a while. So with Matt on the glass, I started mentally preparing and getting into a position that I felt stable enough to shoot from. I couldn't shoot prone from where I was. I got something behind me to support my back better and leaned back into the hill, my shooting sticks in front of me on the hillside. I got behind the scope and started to hold on the buck and felt good in that position.
Once I felt good we started the waiting game. The buck got up once a little while later, but moved behind a tree to thrash a bush. We got a little nervous but were pretty confident he would stay with the doe. He came right back and bedded again, on the dot at 300 yards, this time I could only see his face. In my mind I was hoping as the sun got higher the doe would move further down the hill into the shade and the buck would follow. After nearly four hours of us sitting in the direct sunlight, the sun finally hit her and she got up. To my dismay, she turned and moved to the left, walked past the buck, kind of in the direction they had come from, which would rapidly take them out of range for me. I knew this might be my only chance. I held on the buck and thumbed the safety off. When he got up he was quartering to me pretty severely and I didn't really like that shot but I knew he was going to turn to follow her (gotta love the rut!!!). He immediately started to turn and as soon as he was broadside I squeezed and let one fly. I lost him after the shot as he went behind some brush but Matt had him in the binoculars and described his movements as I chambered another round. It was obviously a good hit, he jumped, attempted to stot away with the doe, but crashed into a couple of bushes and trees, I got back on him just in time to see him collapse about 30 yards downhill from where I shot him. We gave him some time, although I was pretty sure he was dead before he hit the ground. We couldn't actually see him where he collapsed but he couldn't get off that hill without us knowing. One of us stayed on the glass while the other packed up their gear, and when we were both ready we started moving around to where he had expired. It probably took 25 minutes to get over there, and he was right where we saw him collapse between two bushes.
I was so stoked! I spent some time and admired him, took some photos and filled out my tag. He was a nice mature deer, big bodied and he'd been fighting and had some chips out of his antler tips and had a big flap sliced out his left ear, the flap was still attached but was folded back. We dragged the deer into the shade of an oak and broke him down there, packing meat into game bags as we worked. The bullet liquefied the lung on the entrance side, grazed the heart, and lodged under the skin on the far side. The joints below the shoulder blades (the "elbows") were shattered on both sides. You'll see that we didn't leave much for the birds. The Rifle is a Tikka Model 658, which is a predecessor to the modern T3. It's a .270 Win and is quite accurate. I have a Leupold VX-3 2.5-8x36 on it. Just shooting Core-lokts because they work damn well and my rifle likes them. Packed the meat out after that, got it cold, and processed it the next day in Matt's kitchen. Here are some photos, some cropped to remove land marks:
Thanks for reading... Since opening day Matt and I have been working on getting him a deer. Seeing a lot of rut activity, which is really fun, had some good encounters, almost got it done for him, and I was able to fill my second tag on 11/1 on a solo hunt. I'll post part two with those stories later. We have third season AZ Coues deer after D16 and then I'll go to a friend's place in Texas to fill any gaps in the freezer in January.
Kellen
Man, this season will be one that I remember forever! I'm building points right now for an X9A or X12 tag, so I got 2 D16 tags. I decided last year that I wanted to try and get myself to where I can shoot all of my red meat, and not purchase from the store if I don't choose to. That's not to say I won't eat some beef, I do love my carne asada, but I really enjoy knowing where my food came from and it's rewarding to take it from field to plate. The last two seasons have been a little frustrating, but certainly educational. I have good spots with lots of deer, but maybe wasn't hunting them as effectively as I could.
So, this year I really went all out. I'm not sure I have ever had a personal goal that I wanted so badly to accomplish (to consistently fill D16 tags each year). In order to reach my goal of supplying all my meat from the field, I was going to have to fill at least one of my D16 tags, preferably both, in addition to tags I have elsewhere. My deer hunting partner, Matt (posts here as Msteiger) was committed too and put in a lot of footwork with me. We spent a lot of time in the field over the last 6 months, hiking, glassing and running trailcams. I started seeing velvet all the way back in April, and moved my cams every 3-6 weeks. I got bucks on most of my cam locations, which was encouraging. I also upgraded a number of pieces of equipment. The country that I hunt in D16 is big and public and as you guys know, glassing is key. I see a lot of deer but it's not all that often they come to me, glassing from a distance really increases your opportunities. I got married in June and my wife really showed her love by buying me a pair of Zeiss Victory HT's as a wedding gift. What a difference that glass makes! My previous glass were fine, they are a pair of 8 power Steiner's but I found over the last two seasons that you really need 10's here. Probably the best decision I made was to buy a tripod for glassing, that was the biggest game changer for me. When you're glassing these big hills and canyons, for hours on end, you're going to miss deer without a tripod. I decided to "buy once, cry once" and went with the Outdoorsmans system from the Outdoorsmans shop in phoenix. those guys are glassing experts and I recommend their products to anyone.
Well, opening day approached, I made sure I was free from work for it. I told Matt he shouldn't feel obligated to hunt with me if he wanted to focus on his own tag, but I had missed opening day the last two years and felt I needed to focus on mine. He wanted to try and fill tags as a team, and opted to come along with me, which is awesome. I owe him a debt. We camped at the trailhead Friday night, slept very poorly, got up at 330 and did breakfast and coffee and started hiking at 430 to be in position before shooting time. The spot I wanted to hunt on opening day actually wasn't the kind of place you can glass for miles. It was a "little" canyon, about 300 yards across, that I had gotten a number of bucks on camera in, and had seen a good buck last year during the season that didn't give me a good shot opportunity so I let him walk. I had figured out how I wanted to set up and we got in there before shooting time. The first 90 minutes passed uneventfully as the temperature ratcheted up. Then, at about 0800 I spotted two shiny objects walking over the hill to the refuge of the shade on the north slope, just as I had hoped and planned for. It was a doe and a buck behind her on a leash. The buck was a nice one, he was a big fork with a cool 3rd point on his left side. We watched them get to the shade and bed down right at 300 yards. I wasn't immediately ready to take that shot, but I was confident they would be there for quite a while. So with Matt on the glass, I started mentally preparing and getting into a position that I felt stable enough to shoot from. I couldn't shoot prone from where I was. I got something behind me to support my back better and leaned back into the hill, my shooting sticks in front of me on the hillside. I got behind the scope and started to hold on the buck and felt good in that position.
Once I felt good we started the waiting game. The buck got up once a little while later, but moved behind a tree to thrash a bush. We got a little nervous but were pretty confident he would stay with the doe. He came right back and bedded again, on the dot at 300 yards, this time I could only see his face. In my mind I was hoping as the sun got higher the doe would move further down the hill into the shade and the buck would follow. After nearly four hours of us sitting in the direct sunlight, the sun finally hit her and she got up. To my dismay, she turned and moved to the left, walked past the buck, kind of in the direction they had come from, which would rapidly take them out of range for me. I knew this might be my only chance. I held on the buck and thumbed the safety off. When he got up he was quartering to me pretty severely and I didn't really like that shot but I knew he was going to turn to follow her (gotta love the rut!!!). He immediately started to turn and as soon as he was broadside I squeezed and let one fly. I lost him after the shot as he went behind some brush but Matt had him in the binoculars and described his movements as I chambered another round. It was obviously a good hit, he jumped, attempted to stot away with the doe, but crashed into a couple of bushes and trees, I got back on him just in time to see him collapse about 30 yards downhill from where I shot him. We gave him some time, although I was pretty sure he was dead before he hit the ground. We couldn't actually see him where he collapsed but he couldn't get off that hill without us knowing. One of us stayed on the glass while the other packed up their gear, and when we were both ready we started moving around to where he had expired. It probably took 25 minutes to get over there, and he was right where we saw him collapse between two bushes.
I was so stoked! I spent some time and admired him, took some photos and filled out my tag. He was a nice mature deer, big bodied and he'd been fighting and had some chips out of his antler tips and had a big flap sliced out his left ear, the flap was still attached but was folded back. We dragged the deer into the shade of an oak and broke him down there, packing meat into game bags as we worked. The bullet liquefied the lung on the entrance side, grazed the heart, and lodged under the skin on the far side. The joints below the shoulder blades (the "elbows") were shattered on both sides. You'll see that we didn't leave much for the birds. The Rifle is a Tikka Model 658, which is a predecessor to the modern T3. It's a .270 Win and is quite accurate. I have a Leupold VX-3 2.5-8x36 on it. Just shooting Core-lokts because they work damn well and my rifle likes them. Packed the meat out after that, got it cold, and processed it the next day in Matt's kitchen. Here are some photos, some cropped to remove land marks:
Thanks for reading... Since opening day Matt and I have been working on getting him a deer. Seeing a lot of rut activity, which is really fun, had some good encounters, almost got it done for him, and I was able to fill my second tag on 11/1 on a solo hunt. I'll post part two with those stories later. We have third season AZ Coues deer after D16 and then I'll go to a friend's place in Texas to fill any gaps in the freezer in January.
Kellen
