Well, my wife flew in Thursday night and we hit the road asap. We sorted and packed gear at the trailhead and were hiking in Friday mid-day. This was our first backpack hunt together, and my wifes first. We also had not been able to do any backpacking together for the past two years, due to work, moving, moving, moving, buying a house, newborn etc...
Here she is loaded up and excited. Lucky for us, we were able to use the game cart to shuttle gear for 1.5 of our 6.5 mile hike in. Packs were 34 and 37 pounds, which included all gear, food, and 200 oz. of water. Add 10 lbs for the rifle, and a few lbs for the binos and clothes we wore on the way in.
We gained the ridge in the late afternoon and setup camp. Pretty stoked on the shelter still, it is a palace. Right before we gained the ridge (2200 ft. gain) 8 muley does walked right past us single file. We were pumped and figured it was a sign, that we were in Muley paradise...
Spent the next couple days glassing and hiking around, but never turned up another critter. The morning of the third day we decided to glass, and if nothing was found we would leave. It would not have been possible (our comfortable) to have punched her tag after morning, and get out with everything and get her back to airport etc....
So we opted to move to a new location, which happened to have a hot spring near by (she had been talking about hot springs since she landed, not sure why, as she knew we were on a hunting vacation...) but I learned long ago how to receive a hint.... so by 10pm we were soaking with plans for a morning hunt.
We hunted some state land all morning and afternoon, with only a few does coming around. Her flight was the next morning at 6am, and by mid afternoon we were hanging our heads and realizing it was likely over. Kim did not want to wait around this area all evening, so we started the drive home. On the way I could not help by watch the GPS, and anytime we were near public land, pull over and glass for deer.
Well, there was one more section left that we would pass by. We get to it, and there is deer everywhere. Atleast 2 white tail bucks (1 was a spike) several does, then we see 5 muley bucks and 8+ does...? Can't recall exactly.
Well we have shit spread out everywhere in the truck by thius time, so it takes a minute to locate hunter orange etc...
But, 2 of the muley bucks are standing patiently on a ridge, broadside, 839 yards. We take our time setting up the shot, I get everything dialed in, and she settles in for a shot. The bucks casually walk down the other side... So we grab everything and jog towards the ridge. We creep over, and there is 3 does, and a 5x4 (wider and taller than his big ol ears) and a smaller 4x4. They are side hilling 139 yards from us and we peering over the ridge. Easy shot for Kim. She fires, nothing, I cant see where the shot went. She fires again, same result. I become chaotic grab the rifle and send another, same results...
THEN the golden lesson.... I had a nasty tumble during our desecent from the backpack hunt. I tumbled maybe 20 yards. Lucky I didnt break anything. I gave the rifle a once over when I got my self gathered, and visually it seemed fine, no glaring marks, scope was tight etc. But obviously my zero was off... given the results of those shots.
We started walking back to the truck, depressed. Then there are these two fork horns looking at us. I tell my wife if we can walk by them, and go up the adjacent draw we could come out above them, less than 30 yards away. Maybe this was an un ethical choice... But we did it and it worked. We got in under 40 yards, and she took the shoot, which ended up being about 12 inches off.
