mcseal2
WKR
- Joined
- May 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2,674
Finished my 2020 big game hunting Tuesday evening. I started the season hunting a giant buck I’d been getting pictures of and seen in person. Opening morning he came past my blind at 80 yards but it was well before legal shooting light. That evening in the same place I had a truck park on the fence line behind me that scared the does all out of the pasture I was in. That was apparently enough to push the giant into hiding. I hunted the area multiple times and to my knowledge never spooked any deer. I never saw the giant again and he has not been back on camera as of now.
As the second week of season rolled around and winds changed I began hunting a different buck, an old massive buck with one normal and one odd side. I saw him walk out of a draw straight away from me to a bench in a weed patch one morning. By the time I was sure it was him he was at 900 yards and bedded immediately after. I could see his head from the chin up as he surveyed his domain. I slipped up to the last available cover at 450 yards and spent an hour using the 15x Swaros off the tripod from every possible angle trying to pick out the buck. I had lost just enough elevation I could not see him. I eventually gave up and slipped back out. At 900 yards I could still see him lying there. He did not get old by being dumb, he was almost impossible to approach in his bed.
We had help coming to move some cows at 10 that morning so I did not have the option of waiting him out. Coming in from above him would have required crossing onto a property that does not allow hunting. My only chance would have been walking at an angle toward him across the open hill and hoping that he held tight long enough I could shoot him bedded or jump shoot him. I decided I had to many hunting days left to attempt that.
Another wind change led me to hunt another area the next day. I had seen a lot of activity there on my cameras and scouting from a distance. There were a couple good bucks there at times but not consistently. A little after 5 on Tuesday one of those bucks stepped out. As soon as I saw the kicker point off his G2 I knew exactly what buck it was and switched from my binos to my old 264 Win mag. I got the Huskemaw reticle on the vitals and sent the Berger 140 grain VLD across the 220 yards separating us. The buck lunged forward as the trigger broke and ran into the brush. As I was preparing to shoot the buck must have dropped his head to spar with a smaller buck I could not see from my angle. I was a little worried the buck had lunged forward before my bullet arrived but when I started looking for blood I found lung tissue instead. 80 yards later I was standing over my buck. The tape later showed a gross score of 172.5” with 40” of that coming from mass. Not a wide buck but he had good tine length and great mass.
My friend Dean gave me both sheds he’d found last spring off my buck from last year. Estimating a broken brow and the inside spread off the sheds he looks to have added around 20” between 4 and 5 years of age.
I hunted every morning and evening but one of the rifle season up until I got my buck. Nothing can replace time in the field for hunting old bucks that seldom move during daylight, and even more seldom make mistakes. I get wore down trying to cram a full day of ranch work into a few hours in the middle of the day plus the hours after dark but it is worth it. It lets me spend those vital morning and late afternoon hours hunting.
With all the bad things that happened in 2020, the bright side was definitely the hunting. A nice caribou and great buck will be added to the wall of memories in the shop.
As the second week of season rolled around and winds changed I began hunting a different buck, an old massive buck with one normal and one odd side. I saw him walk out of a draw straight away from me to a bench in a weed patch one morning. By the time I was sure it was him he was at 900 yards and bedded immediately after. I could see his head from the chin up as he surveyed his domain. I slipped up to the last available cover at 450 yards and spent an hour using the 15x Swaros off the tripod from every possible angle trying to pick out the buck. I had lost just enough elevation I could not see him. I eventually gave up and slipped back out. At 900 yards I could still see him lying there. He did not get old by being dumb, he was almost impossible to approach in his bed.
We had help coming to move some cows at 10 that morning so I did not have the option of waiting him out. Coming in from above him would have required crossing onto a property that does not allow hunting. My only chance would have been walking at an angle toward him across the open hill and hoping that he held tight long enough I could shoot him bedded or jump shoot him. I decided I had to many hunting days left to attempt that.
Another wind change led me to hunt another area the next day. I had seen a lot of activity there on my cameras and scouting from a distance. There were a couple good bucks there at times but not consistently. A little after 5 on Tuesday one of those bucks stepped out. As soon as I saw the kicker point off his G2 I knew exactly what buck it was and switched from my binos to my old 264 Win mag. I got the Huskemaw reticle on the vitals and sent the Berger 140 grain VLD across the 220 yards separating us. The buck lunged forward as the trigger broke and ran into the brush. As I was preparing to shoot the buck must have dropped his head to spar with a smaller buck I could not see from my angle. I was a little worried the buck had lunged forward before my bullet arrived but when I started looking for blood I found lung tissue instead. 80 yards later I was standing over my buck. The tape later showed a gross score of 172.5” with 40” of that coming from mass. Not a wide buck but he had good tine length and great mass.
My friend Dean gave me both sheds he’d found last spring off my buck from last year. Estimating a broken brow and the inside spread off the sheds he looks to have added around 20” between 4 and 5 years of age.
I hunted every morning and evening but one of the rifle season up until I got my buck. Nothing can replace time in the field for hunting old bucks that seldom move during daylight, and even more seldom make mistakes. I get wore down trying to cram a full day of ranch work into a few hours in the middle of the day plus the hours after dark but it is worth it. It lets me spend those vital morning and late afternoon hours hunting.
With all the bad things that happened in 2020, the bright side was definitely the hunting. A nice caribou and great buck will be added to the wall of memories in the shop.
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