I punched my buck tag this morning. I couldn't be happier. This brute is was old and just a pig of a deer. We all estimated him at 225 - 240 on the hoof. 13 points plus 1 one broken off. Not a huge rack, but super funky with tines going everywhere.
This is my first deer of the 2013 season and also my first Mule deer. I am currently hunting in Montana. Put in for Elk and Mule deer tags and got drew on both. Saturday was the opening day. We were on the ground at 6:45 am, in place and ready for the 7:32 legal shooting time. Plan was to catch the herd moving from the Alfalfa fields down low back up the mountains. Weather here has been unusually warm all week. Sunny and 57-60 degrees. Only saw a small band of 10 Elk with no shooter bulls. Moved up higher onto the mountain around 10am and stalked some Mule deer in the Ponderosa pine timber. Nothing worth shooting there either. We were headed back down toward the lodge when we spotted a nice group of deer. Stopped about 350 yards out and started glassing the herd. Deer were bedding and some were feeding. Was on head number 21 when my guide said, "Jason, there is a pretty nice buck bedded up by the Sage brush" I glassed him and said, "Conner, what do you think?" He said that he was a pretty nice buck and that if I wanted him we would go after him so we started our stalk. We moved in to 250 yards before he stood up and he slowly moved away from us feeding a little but never offering a broadside shot. We ranged him at 297 and he bedded back down against a big clump of Sage again. We stalked in closer and the buck got up and started moving straight away again, only showing us his hind quarters. We broke right and tried to get a broadside on him. When we finally got him broadside,he had several does around him so I had to hold off. Conner ranged him at 301 yards and when the does finally broke off I settled the cross hairs on him and slowly started to squeeze the trigger. When the gun went off, the guide said, "You hit him, he's down" I worked the bolt and chambered another round and readied for him to get up and run. As I watched through the scope, he tried to get his front feet under him and flipped over onto his back then rolled about 10 yards down the hill and was done. He is a nice 5x4 that is 17 1/2" tall with a 16 3/4" inside spread. The rifle was a classic Weatherby Vanguard Max in .300 Winchester Magnum with a Shepards scope sitting on top.
This morning we had a band of Elk within 75-100 yards but it was 30 minutes before legal shooting time. The old bull in the group was bugling his head off. What an awesome sound. They moved into the timber and disappeared into the foot hills. They are predicting 4-5 inches of snow tonight in the lower elevations and double that above 4,500 feet. We'll be back out in the morning and see if it brings them down off the mountain.
I am just getting around to posting this. I shot this buck last Saturday evening right after a nasty storm laid down. 10 yard shot on video. He piled up 50 or so yards later. Hopefully if life will slow down a little I will get a video edit done of the hunt.
To set this hunt up, in August I had shoulder surgery that thankfully was a best case scenario. Still my doctor (also a bow hunter) told me that if I wanted to hunt before gun season it would likely be with a crossbow. While I have nothing against crossbows, I was NOT hunting with anything other than my bow period. 6 weeks after surgery I was shooting 30 arrows a night at 60#. It hurt like hell but that didn't matter. On October 4th, I was in a tree stand with my bow. Fast forward to Saturday evening. The moment I saw this deer I knew I was going to shoot him. This is the type of deer that I have routinely passed up over the past 8 or 9 years without a second thought. But for this year anyway, my definition of a trophy has changed. I simply wanted to take a solid buck with my bow. I'm very proud of this deer actually. I killed him with my bow when my doctor said I wouldn't be bow hunting and did it all on self video. His rack is OK, tall and narrow. He was a tank of a body, weighing in at about 195# field dressed according to my deer scale. It took a buddy and I well over an hour to get him out of 300 yards deep of corn using a 2 wheel cart. We were whipped when we got him to the truck.
Here is a photo from the next day. Hopefully I will have a video edit done in the next few days to post up.
Here is a cell phone image that I snapped of my video camera screen at the shot. The red you see is the arrow nock.
First, congrats to all who have taken deer thus far, and good luck to those who are still at it. I killed this 9pt last Saturday, capping off probably the best day I have ever spent in the stand. Lots of buck activity, making rubs and scrapes, sparring, chasing does, from after first light until 12:30.