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Follow up on the 'Once-in-a-lifetime' Trophy Deer Hunt
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<blockquote data-quote="Rymart" data-source="post: 125683" data-attributes="member: 3688"><p><strong>Re: Follow up on the \'Once-in-a-lifetime\' Trophy Deer Hunt</strong></p><p></p><p>Part 2:</p><p></p><p>On to the hunt:</p><p></p><p>Over 7 pre-season scouting trips I had not seen one deer that I thought was over 28 inches wide, this was dissappointing. Some were close. We scouted one last time the day before the season opened. That evening around sunset we came across a buck down low in some cedars. He was about 150 yards from the truck when we saw him. He was about 29 inched wide and was heavy. He was a good typical 4x4 with some really long eye gaurds. He did not seem to be bothered at all by us. We put him to bed and went back for him in the morning. We got there about an hour before legal light and quietly walked into an area where we could overlook where he was the previous evening. All of the other hunters in the area were hunting a couple of miles up higher than we were, we had it to ourselves. Anyway, the buck conveniently missed our appointment. By 9:00 am every hunter on the mountain had worked his way down to where we were. There were people pushing every draw and every patch of cedars in the area. We only heard one set of shots. Those turned out to be someone bagging a nice 32" buck.</p><p></p><p>Later that day, as I was glassing a hillside, I caught a glimpse of a nice buck bedded in the shadow of a cedar tree. I took my eyes off of it for a second and it took me nearly 10 minutes to find it again. He was only about 450 yards away. He was fairly heavy and about 27" wide, but he was only a three point. I spent about 20 minute watching him, trying to talk myself into taking him, but I couldn't do it on opening day. One unusual thing that I noticed was that this buck was moving his head in a very subtle circular motion. His antlers were constantly moving. At first I thought he might have CWD, but then I noticed that his antlers were moving at almost exactly the same rate as the branches around him that were swaying in the wind. Could he really be that tricky? I don't know.</p><p></p><p>Over the first week of the hunt I saw, on average, about 15 to 20 bucks per day that were 3-points or better. Only two of them appeared to be 28" or better, and I only caught glimpses of them in the cedars before they dissappeared. Never could find them again.</p><p></p><p>On the second week I began hunting a different part of my hunt area (Aspen Mountain). I had spent most of the first week around Little Mountain and it seemed to me that most of the 400 people with this hunt were also there. On Aspen Mountain, I saw lots of small bucks and does. On one morning I saw nearly 70 does and small bucks in one canyon. I figured there had to be some nicer buck somewhere near by. Finally, I glassed three nice bucks bedded about a mile above the rest of the deer (just below the top of the mountain in a patch of thick brush). I was lucky enough to have caught the sun reflecting off of their antlers. They were approximately 1200 yards away. The wind was blowing so hard that I could not keep the spotting scope steady enough to tell if any of them were shooters. It looked like two of them were around 25 to 26 inches and the third one may have been larger. After fighting the wind for a half hour, I tried to move closer. The next vantage point was approximately 850 yards from the bucks. When I arrived at the next vantage point the bucks were up out of there beds and had me busted. I got a better look at the larger buck as he was sneaking away and decided that he was probably a shooter. When they dissappeared behind a large hump, I moved quickly to get into a shooting position if they came out the other side of the hump. I was about 500 yards away when the first buck came out close to where I expected them to be. I started to set up for a shot. then the second buck came out (these were the two smaller bucks). Right as the third buck came out from behind the hump, a thick fog/cloud blew in over the top of the mountain, obscurring him completely. Then it began to snow heavily. The rest of the day was pretty much a blizzard. I think I saw the larger buck two more times during the season, but every time I got within 1200 yards of him, he would slip away, leaving the two smaller bucks behind. Every time that I saw him, there was absolutely no cover between us and there was not a feasible way to get any closer.</p><p></p><p>In case anyone is bored yet, it will get better, and eventually there will be pictures /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rymart, post: 125683, member: 3688"] [b]Re: Follow up on the \'Once-in-a-lifetime\' Trophy Deer Hunt[/b] Part 2: On to the hunt: Over 7 pre-season scouting trips I had not seen one deer that I thought was over 28 inches wide, this was dissappointing. Some were close. We scouted one last time the day before the season opened. That evening around sunset we came across a buck down low in some cedars. He was about 150 yards from the truck when we saw him. He was about 29 inched wide and was heavy. He was a good typical 4x4 with some really long eye gaurds. He did not seem to be bothered at all by us. We put him to bed and went back for him in the morning. We got there about an hour before legal light and quietly walked into an area where we could overlook where he was the previous evening. All of the other hunters in the area were hunting a couple of miles up higher than we were, we had it to ourselves. Anyway, the buck conveniently missed our appointment. By 9:00 am every hunter on the mountain had worked his way down to where we were. There were people pushing every draw and every patch of cedars in the area. We only heard one set of shots. Those turned out to be someone bagging a nice 32" buck. Later that day, as I was glassing a hillside, I caught a glimpse of a nice buck bedded in the shadow of a cedar tree. I took my eyes off of it for a second and it took me nearly 10 minutes to find it again. He was only about 450 yards away. He was fairly heavy and about 27" wide, but he was only a three point. I spent about 20 minute watching him, trying to talk myself into taking him, but I couldn’t do it on opening day. One unusual thing that I noticed was that this buck was moving his head in a very subtle circular motion. His antlers were constantly moving. At first I thought he might have CWD, but then I noticed that his antlers were moving at almost exactly the same rate as the branches around him that were swaying in the wind. Could he really be that tricky? I don’t know. Over the first week of the hunt I saw, on average, about 15 to 20 bucks per day that were 3-points or better. Only two of them appeared to be 28" or better, and I only caught glimpses of them in the cedars before they dissappeared. Never could find them again. On the second week I began hunting a different part of my hunt area (Aspen Mountain). I had spent most of the first week around Little Mountain and it seemed to me that most of the 400 people with this hunt were also there. On Aspen Mountain, I saw lots of small bucks and does. On one morning I saw nearly 70 does and small bucks in one canyon. I figured there had to be some nicer buck somewhere near by. Finally, I glassed three nice bucks bedded about a mile above the rest of the deer (just below the top of the mountain in a patch of thick brush). I was lucky enough to have caught the sun reflecting off of their antlers. They were approximately 1200 yards away. The wind was blowing so hard that I could not keep the spotting scope steady enough to tell if any of them were shooters. It looked like two of them were around 25 to 26 inches and the third one may have been larger. After fighting the wind for a half hour, I tried to move closer. The next vantage point was approximately 850 yards from the bucks. When I arrived at the next vantage point the bucks were up out of there beds and had me busted. I got a better look at the larger buck as he was sneaking away and decided that he was probably a shooter. When they dissappeared behind a large hump, I moved quickly to get into a shooting position if they came out the other side of the hump. I was about 500 yards away when the first buck came out close to where I expected them to be. I started to set up for a shot. then the second buck came out (these were the two smaller bucks). Right as the third buck came out from behind the hump, a thick fog/cloud blew in over the top of the mountain, obscurring him completely. Then it began to snow heavily. The rest of the day was pretty much a blizzard. I think I saw the larger buck two more times during the season, but every time I got within 1200 yards of him, he would slip away, leaving the two smaller bucks behind. Every time that I saw him, there was absolutely no cover between us and there was not a feasible way to get any closer. In case anyone is bored yet, it will get better, and eventually there will be pictures [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]
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Follow up on the 'Once-in-a-lifetime' Trophy Deer Hunt
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