Though I haven't hunted deer with a centerfire rifle in some odd years (I'm gettin old, can't remember exactly how many) I still enjoy hunting with friends that do. Opening day, I made 2 happy hunters on my archery/ML stomping grounds.
The day's first deer. After getting skunked outta my favorite public land spot by a hunter walking in 10mins before shooting light (dozens of deer cross from private to public land, every morning, over the fence he thought looked good to walk by) we ate some breakfast and still-hunted the hills I roam the most. Wandered on this guy at about 150yds tucked back in the finger of a bluff.
It's his first decent buck and I was glad to help a friend get it instead of neighbors or cars (even though I wanted it with a smokepole...why do you think I wanted to go to public land first??
). Group B was on their way. They'd only seen a couple in their whitetail hunting spot. Conveniently, we were able to drag the buck a few hundred yards to a road, wait 10 mins and they met us. Saved us a lot of walking.
So we headed to my 2nd spot and had glassed our way into the property, and paused at a good spot to glass the big bluff. One of them was skylined, and we waited around an hour, discovering more deer in that time. They were eventually into position so she could walk up a hill and be in a good spot. The wind was absolutely howling, but she made a perfect shot at 227yds that had him down in seconds/yards.
He didn't flinch at the shot, but a few seconds and he stumbled, then fell down about 10 ft onto a boulder. Game over. We were done by noon.
1 week later.
My buddy from laramie came down for a day of hunting. He had an antlerless and either sex tag. So we started the day off pretty open minded about what we'd shoot. Scooted out to my hidey-hole, and worked our way down the bluffs, checking fingers when a few schlickheads gave themselves away. One of them was chasing a coyote around, which was pretty neat. We waited about 20 minutes for them to tuck away so we could approach. Went after them, about half a mile, which wasn't far, but a bit rough terrain. He whacked one at around 150yds, dropping it. We dragged a ways and then used mechanical means to return it home. Decided it was eatin time, so we enjoyed a nice long lunch break.
Then it was off to my other hidey hole. We pulled in to my usual parking space, when something unusual happened. About 15 deer ran past the fenceline into the property we could hunt. We then saw a pickup driving along the opposite side. Neighbor lost his chances by hunting the easy route in a pickup it would seem. We hurried our way up a few steep hills where we could see the lay of the land. The deer by that point had split into at least 2 groups. We saw a couple does at first, so we stalked them and gave them our attention from around 200yds. Shortly after we saw 5 more about 600 yards off. Deciding that the buck wasn't hidden where we were, we wrapped our way through the hills seeing several more lone deer hidden in a few draws, and got to where we last spotted the big bunch..but they were gone. So we continued still-hunting the hills. Finally spotted our group around 900yds off from our newfound position. There was no way we could get up on them, so we decided to go to a different vantage point and wait. They didn't have many options on where to go. We watched, and watched this group. They couldn't make their mind up on where to go, but finally headed our way. Finally they ended up 350yds straight in front of us. But the wind was howling, and on a dangerously steep sidehill, we had to wait hoping they would keep coming to get a shot. Yet again, we were disappointed when they headed back to our left. However, this time they cut into the a bluff's finger to get out of the wind. After our game of chase for nearly 3 hours, we had them where we wanted them. A couple hundred yards of stalking and they were 100yds away from us in the bowl. Done deal. Again.
Rifle deer. Updated pics
