Well fellas- everybody in our party got their deer this year. My two cousins got their first deer, my six month prego wife shot hers, my bro shot his first whitetail, and I shot a meat buck. We hunted hard for two weekends and took a few days off work to try to find a good buck. Normally my bro and I can both come out of our area with some sort of 20"-24" four point, not this year. Rain and snow storms the first weekend had all the deer bedded down hard, and then the moon was out and bright the last week. luckily it got really cold and forced the deer to stay out a bit longer in the morning.
My two cousins are from the valley so they don't get to shoot very often or very far. But they both showed up with three shot groups that you could cover with a quarter. the older cousin John and I hunted opening day morning and didn't get a shot at anything. I knew where some bucks had been haging out but they where in an area that we only make one hunt a season in because it is so god awefull steep (I seacretly love it!), it didn't help that it was raining and windy. But I knew that they had to go home sunday so we put on the rain gear and headed up the mountain. We hiked up for an hour and a half before we found a few bucks. Got them to stand broad at 167 yards. Got the shooting sticks up and talked to him to settle him down a bit. BANG....whack! just a bit to far forward. Hit him on the point of the close shoulder and out of the pocket where the bottom of the neck hits the off shoulder. The deer take off a bit, three shots later he is standing broadside at 276 yards and he puts anotherone in and breaks the close leg. Buck stumbles down the mountain, gets hung up in some brush and dies. He was shooting a savage stevens in 30-06 with some 150gr. cor-loks.
During this whole ordeal I was thinking to my self "let him kill it, let him kill it". Then he tells me he's about out of bullets!, I'm panicing, not wanting to kill his first deer for him. Finally he gets it done. we get it all cut up in the snow and rain, get it packed out and back to the truck when he looks at me and said "oh man...no wonder I couldn't hit anything!" he shook his rifle and the scope was shacking all over the place! his base screws had come undone! Somebody was looing out for him on that hunt for sure. That was four of the most misserable hours of my life, but it was worth it to see the look on his face the rest of the weekend.
Fast forward to the next weekend, and I'm taking his brother sam out. Sam forgot his tag on the opening weekend so he just got lota of exercise. We hunt all weekend and finally sunday morning we find three bucks, a nice little four point, a bigger three point, and a littler one. He is shooting my wife's 7-08 with 120 BTs. We put the sneak on them and get within 300 yards. By the time he gets all set up they go over the rigde. We pack up and keep sneaking. We get set up on them at about 100 yards, and he smokes this little four point buck right in the lungs. The buck makes a 30 yard loop on the hillside and falls down the hill. Mean while his buddies just stand there looking at him. We sit there for a bit and I'm debating on shooting the three point or not. He wasn't as big as I wanted but I knew that this was the last hunt I was going to be able to do. About that time Sam leans over and says to me "you can shoot that one if you want" So I took the shooting sticks and let him have a 200gr ET out of my trusty 338WM. High lung shot and around the hill he goes, blood everywhere. Sam was pretty excited. Here is his buck.
The pics of my wifes buck are on a different camera and I'm hoping to get them emailed to me today. I didn't get any of my buck in the hills because my camera died after taking Sam's pics. I'll get the story for them up here later today hopefully.
My two cousins are from the valley so they don't get to shoot very often or very far. But they both showed up with three shot groups that you could cover with a quarter. the older cousin John and I hunted opening day morning and didn't get a shot at anything. I knew where some bucks had been haging out but they where in an area that we only make one hunt a season in because it is so god awefull steep (I seacretly love it!), it didn't help that it was raining and windy. But I knew that they had to go home sunday so we put on the rain gear and headed up the mountain. We hiked up for an hour and a half before we found a few bucks. Got them to stand broad at 167 yards. Got the shooting sticks up and talked to him to settle him down a bit. BANG....whack! just a bit to far forward. Hit him on the point of the close shoulder and out of the pocket where the bottom of the neck hits the off shoulder. The deer take off a bit, three shots later he is standing broadside at 276 yards and he puts anotherone in and breaks the close leg. Buck stumbles down the mountain, gets hung up in some brush and dies. He was shooting a savage stevens in 30-06 with some 150gr. cor-loks.
During this whole ordeal I was thinking to my self "let him kill it, let him kill it". Then he tells me he's about out of bullets!, I'm panicing, not wanting to kill his first deer for him. Finally he gets it done. we get it all cut up in the snow and rain, get it packed out and back to the truck when he looks at me and said "oh man...no wonder I couldn't hit anything!" he shook his rifle and the scope was shacking all over the place! his base screws had come undone! Somebody was looing out for him on that hunt for sure. That was four of the most misserable hours of my life, but it was worth it to see the look on his face the rest of the weekend.
Fast forward to the next weekend, and I'm taking his brother sam out. Sam forgot his tag on the opening weekend so he just got lota of exercise. We hunt all weekend and finally sunday morning we find three bucks, a nice little four point, a bigger three point, and a littler one. He is shooting my wife's 7-08 with 120 BTs. We put the sneak on them and get within 300 yards. By the time he gets all set up they go over the rigde. We pack up and keep sneaking. We get set up on them at about 100 yards, and he smokes this little four point buck right in the lungs. The buck makes a 30 yard loop on the hillside and falls down the hill. Mean while his buddies just stand there looking at him. We sit there for a bit and I'm debating on shooting the three point or not. He wasn't as big as I wanted but I knew that this was the last hunt I was going to be able to do. About that time Sam leans over and says to me "you can shoot that one if you want" So I took the shooting sticks and let him have a 200gr ET out of my trusty 338WM. High lung shot and around the hill he goes, blood everywhere. Sam was pretty excited. Here is his buck.
The pics of my wifes buck are on a different camera and I'm hoping to get them emailed to me today. I didn't get any of my buck in the hills because my camera died after taking Sam's pics. I'll get the story for them up here later today hopefully.
