Some of you folks may have seen the picture of the deer that I was able to shoot in the Best Mule Deer Photo thread (Vote on the Best Mule Deer Photo, sponsored by Kryptek | Rokslide Forum) so I thought I would actually take the time to post the entire story. I was blessed for a variety of reasons (more than normal) during a year when I know so many folks struggled to make it through. Like many of you, I chose to take my struggles outside and spend as much time chasing turkeys in April, bluegill and steelhead in May, and then eventually preparing for a move across the country in the months following.
2020 started off with two noteworthy details; I was a single man and I was living in Western Michigan. Then as we all know C 1- Niner swept through changing the landscape of normalcy for the months to come. I was living with my (at the time) girlfriend who was a special education teacher at our local school system. Michigan suffered through a 79 day lock down period where she was working remotely as we both struggled our way through the typical long Michigan winters combined with a mandated sentence; which only increased the effects of cabin fever. Fortunately for the two of us, our incomes were not effected as she was able to continue educating and my work is mostly remote aside from a few shipping runs I make throughout the week. During that time there were mumbles about whether or not the education system would begin to see funding cuts which increased the stress and made us consider taking solace in a state less impacted by Covid.
Westward Ho! Flash forward to July 4th and we found ourselves signing a lease in Wyoming and her accepting a new teaching role out here. This indirectly put a lot of pressure on a guy who had already been dating the same woman for 3-1/2 years, the same woman who's mother had a thirst for grand kids and a future mother in law who already had two of her own. So needless to say, we took off and got hitched!
My wife is an incredible woman who loves bowhunting and the outdoors just as much as I do so when I told her that I was offered the opportunity to head to South Dakota the day we got back from our wedding she didn't blind an eye. I loaded up the truck and pointed it back east for a solid 6 hour drive to the areas that I was set to meet up with some friends in.
For those of you who have hunted the state of SD you're familiar with the mix of grasslands intermingled with badlands topography and the style of hunting it presents itself with. The first morning was cool and crisp, not a cloud in the sky. We parked the truck and hiked in just about a quarter mile to our vantage point where we would drop down and glass taking in the landscape. Immediately upon sitting the tripod up we found a great deer that was feeding and drinking his way around a damned up section of creek. I quickly learn the idiosyncrasies of the landscape and its nearly invisible draws as the buck would simply step down into a draw and disappear, only to suddenly manifest 50 yards away as he climbed back out. This country was made for archery hunting big deer.
l
We watched as the buck fed around for the next 2 hours until he disappeared again into his bed. We circled the area to gain a different vantage looking 180 from our initial setup. We ascended the clay buttes and dodged rattlesnake holes until we found him bedded against a 10 foot clay wall and easing into a nap. We watched him for long enough to ensure he wasn't planning on rebedding any time soon, only to turn around as see 3 other bucks and 2 does quickly skirting across the landscape. One of those bucks being the "Honey Moon Buck" we were immediately put on alert.
We could immediately tell that this deer was ancient based on the overwhelming amount of sagging skin on his neck and noticeably grey appearance. These deer fed down into some low buck brush that was surely impenetrable. We picked our jaws up just in time to notice a good amount of cloud cover moving in. My motto when hunting anything is always "Bird in the hand" and every mature animal I have killed has strictly been because they simply showed up first. For every 150" whitetail I have shot there is a bucket of 110-120" dead heads they are sitting on. So we quickly skirted back to the first buck we put to bed and made a game plan. The plan was to come right over top of this deer and kill him in his bed but as I was moving in on him I hear the one noise I wasn't anticipating. Sharp tails flushing. Undoubtedly this deer was now alert and I was inside of 40yds at this point. I gave it some time and slowly crept in, filling my sock covered feet with cactus on each step. Making my way to the edge, I noticed the tines of the buck. I was 10 feet away from this deer at this point and as I came to full draw he wasted no time hanging around. He bounded out of my life and I bounded my way back to the truck for a sandwich.
The evening was spent scouting different areas as we wanted to put as little pressure on the honey moon buck as possible to have a shot at him the next day. We woke up the next morning only to copy and paste our day 1 game plan. Immediately we found this deer as he was feeding right toward us. The ditches and water ways made it almost too easy for us to close the distance to get inside of 300yards and watch him feed around for a few hours. I was quickly getting indoctrinated with the persistent 35mph winds that rip down these coulies. Suddenly the bucks took off on a dead run toward the drainage we were watching them from. It turns out a group of does caught our wind and they weren't hanging around to see if the party was over or not. We circled back 200yds to keep the wind in our favor and watch them bed down inside a plum thicket.
Insert Ninja skills, I found myself army crawling up to the opposite bank of which the deer were bedded against. We knew the specific tree this deer was against and all I needed to do was keep crawling from sage bush to sage bush until I could see his tines. Once I was able to spot them I ranged the bank right behind him and dialed my sight to the 40yd mark. I rose to my knees at full draw only to get blasted in the left side by the wind making it impossible to execute a timely shot. The deer simply stayed bedded staring at me, and the eventual arrow coming his way.
The deer shot up from his bed, ran about 60yds and toppled over as the arrow was buried into the bank behind him. I lost my mind, football spiked my bow and tackled my buddies as we could not believe that this just worked out. The rest of the story starts to become a blur as the evening was fueled strictly by whiskey and chocolate chip cookies.
Thanks to @robby denning and @Ryan Avery for running these contests allowing us to have a place to share the experiences we all love
Much appreciate
Mr and Mrs DKime
2020 started off with two noteworthy details; I was a single man and I was living in Western Michigan. Then as we all know C 1- Niner swept through changing the landscape of normalcy for the months to come. I was living with my (at the time) girlfriend who was a special education teacher at our local school system. Michigan suffered through a 79 day lock down period where she was working remotely as we both struggled our way through the typical long Michigan winters combined with a mandated sentence; which only increased the effects of cabin fever. Fortunately for the two of us, our incomes were not effected as she was able to continue educating and my work is mostly remote aside from a few shipping runs I make throughout the week. During that time there were mumbles about whether or not the education system would begin to see funding cuts which increased the stress and made us consider taking solace in a state less impacted by Covid.
Westward Ho! Flash forward to July 4th and we found ourselves signing a lease in Wyoming and her accepting a new teaching role out here. This indirectly put a lot of pressure on a guy who had already been dating the same woman for 3-1/2 years, the same woman who's mother had a thirst for grand kids and a future mother in law who already had two of her own. So needless to say, we took off and got hitched!
My wife is an incredible woman who loves bowhunting and the outdoors just as much as I do so when I told her that I was offered the opportunity to head to South Dakota the day we got back from our wedding she didn't blind an eye. I loaded up the truck and pointed it back east for a solid 6 hour drive to the areas that I was set to meet up with some friends in.
For those of you who have hunted the state of SD you're familiar with the mix of grasslands intermingled with badlands topography and the style of hunting it presents itself with. The first morning was cool and crisp, not a cloud in the sky. We parked the truck and hiked in just about a quarter mile to our vantage point where we would drop down and glass taking in the landscape. Immediately upon sitting the tripod up we found a great deer that was feeding and drinking his way around a damned up section of creek. I quickly learn the idiosyncrasies of the landscape and its nearly invisible draws as the buck would simply step down into a draw and disappear, only to suddenly manifest 50 yards away as he climbed back out. This country was made for archery hunting big deer.
lWe watched as the buck fed around for the next 2 hours until he disappeared again into his bed. We circled the area to gain a different vantage looking 180 from our initial setup. We ascended the clay buttes and dodged rattlesnake holes until we found him bedded against a 10 foot clay wall and easing into a nap. We watched him for long enough to ensure he wasn't planning on rebedding any time soon, only to turn around as see 3 other bucks and 2 does quickly skirting across the landscape. One of those bucks being the "Honey Moon Buck" we were immediately put on alert.
We could immediately tell that this deer was ancient based on the overwhelming amount of sagging skin on his neck and noticeably grey appearance. These deer fed down into some low buck brush that was surely impenetrable. We picked our jaws up just in time to notice a good amount of cloud cover moving in. My motto when hunting anything is always "Bird in the hand" and every mature animal I have killed has strictly been because they simply showed up first. For every 150" whitetail I have shot there is a bucket of 110-120" dead heads they are sitting on. So we quickly skirted back to the first buck we put to bed and made a game plan. The plan was to come right over top of this deer and kill him in his bed but as I was moving in on him I hear the one noise I wasn't anticipating. Sharp tails flushing. Undoubtedly this deer was now alert and I was inside of 40yds at this point. I gave it some time and slowly crept in, filling my sock covered feet with cactus on each step. Making my way to the edge, I noticed the tines of the buck. I was 10 feet away from this deer at this point and as I came to full draw he wasted no time hanging around. He bounded out of my life and I bounded my way back to the truck for a sandwich.
The evening was spent scouting different areas as we wanted to put as little pressure on the honey moon buck as possible to have a shot at him the next day. We woke up the next morning only to copy and paste our day 1 game plan. Immediately we found this deer as he was feeding right toward us. The ditches and water ways made it almost too easy for us to close the distance to get inside of 300yards and watch him feed around for a few hours. I was quickly getting indoctrinated with the persistent 35mph winds that rip down these coulies. Suddenly the bucks took off on a dead run toward the drainage we were watching them from. It turns out a group of does caught our wind and they weren't hanging around to see if the party was over or not. We circled back 200yds to keep the wind in our favor and watch them bed down inside a plum thicket.
Insert Ninja skills, I found myself army crawling up to the opposite bank of which the deer were bedded against. We knew the specific tree this deer was against and all I needed to do was keep crawling from sage bush to sage bush until I could see his tines. Once I was able to spot them I ranged the bank right behind him and dialed my sight to the 40yd mark. I rose to my knees at full draw only to get blasted in the left side by the wind making it impossible to execute a timely shot. The deer simply stayed bedded staring at me, and the eventual arrow coming his way.
The deer shot up from his bed, ran about 60yds and toppled over as the arrow was buried into the bank behind him. I lost my mind, football spiked my bow and tackled my buddies as we could not believe that this just worked out. The rest of the story starts to become a blur as the evening was fueled strictly by whiskey and chocolate chip cookies.
Thanks to @robby denning and @Ryan Avery for running these contests allowing us to have a place to share the experiences we all love
Much appreciate
Mr and Mrs DKime
