The hunt was a bit like the end of your hunt Dan. My buddy and I had worked up a ridge, great Mule deer country. Scattered Ponderosa pine, bitter brush, some true fir and lodgepole pine. We had climbed up opposite spines to about 6500 feet where we joined up and started working along a long narrow ridge. We were looking at a couple of does when the buck stepped out. Buddy said damn I really want a good white tail, I said Shoot him! Now! The buck was only a touch over 100 yards, the rifle came up and 150 grain AccuBond went in tight behind the shoulder. Now, if he had dropped right there life would have been glorious. We could have drug him 1/2 mile down a slight grade to a road. He did not, I saw his back end drop and he lunged off the top of the ridge. On the flat he would have only gone 30 yards or so but there was a slight cliff of about 20 feet then a very steep slope into an old burn covered in blow down. I said bad words. On about his third lunge he crashed into the tamarack blowdown in the picture.
