Our hunt took place in NW CO during the 2nd rifle season. A buddy and I drove out there and trailered my Rhino. (Hence my handle here.)
We were hunting in a higher portion of our unit right after a big storm where we received about 6-8" of snow in the morning. By the afternoon the sun was out and the deer where all piling up on the South facing slopes to soak up the sun and get warm. We were using my Rhino to drive from one South slope glassing area to the next to glass. We saw 94 deer and about 8-10 bucks that day. My hunting partner shot a real nice 5x5 that afternoon using this tactic.
During the afternoon of the next day we took his deer to processor and stopped for a quick shower at the local rec center (it had only been 4 days). From town we then decided to head out to a different area that we hadn't seen yet to check it out. lightbulb While on the way there we were just putt-sing down a dirt road on the way to our destination. We had about a dozen other trucks come roaring up on our *** and I would then just steer to the right and wave them on. What a hurry they were all in. Anyway, we just kept putt-sing along and I'll danged if I didn't spot this ol' buck standing about 15-20 yards from the road in some thick stuff. Right where everybody else was racing by him.
When I saw him I just let off the gas and rolled by him and stopped over a little hill out of sight. I got out, got my gun and went back after him. He knew something was up because he haved moved off farthr back into the thicket when I spotted him and he was walking away. All I could see was his rump and his rack...and he looked pretty darned wide walking straight away too! Way bigger than anything we had see yet during our hunt. I pulled down on him off hand but I didn't want to perform a TX heart shot on him. He started angling to his left behind a large bush which would have put him out of my sight, probably forever. It was now or never. I was standing with an off hand shot and only had a mili-second to decide-so I'll pulled the gun a little to the left of his rump and sqeezed. He dropped like a bag of sugar. When I walked up on him there was no ground shrinkage at all.
As mentioned earlier I shot him with my new-used .257 Weatherby Accumark with a 117 grain Sierra Game King. My shot hit him in the neck and there was no exit wound! From the size of the huge puddle of blood it appeard that my bullet when in, hit the spine, and exploded like a small hand grenade in his neck. In all my years of hunting I have never seen that much blood. And the distance...an incredible unbelievably long 52 yards!!! I wished he would have been on one of those snow covered south facing slopes at 500 yards plus during the previous day but he just wouldn't cooperate. Oh well. The bucks are where they are...what can I say.
It was fun hunt though. We both shot nice bucks and got home safely.
Rhino Hunter
