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Old 05-19-2019, 04:00 PM
  #7  
hardcastonly
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Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: texas
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I got invited on an out of state mule deer hunt in northern california, in the warner wilderness the following year,It was about 1971 or so I forget the exact year, SAL and AL had gotten together and called me and we had arranged a mule deer hunt to take place in the edge of the Warner wilderness, in MODOC ,we all put in the required area hunting license forms and confirmed dates and AL and I got air line tickets to San Francisco,
where SAL lived at the time.
AL had never hunted mule deer before and started reading JACK O'CONNOR and decided he needed a Remington 700 in 7mm mag with a 3x9 scope,
I suggested he get a 270 win, but that was the 1970s and ALMOST EVERYONE seemed to be 7mm mag addicted,
I had purchased a ruger number 1 in caliber 25/06 and a spare extractor for a ruger number 1 falling bloc in cal 7mm mag and sent the rifle off to SHILLEN to be re-chambered to 257 WEATHERBY ,
Id purchased a baush & lomb 4 x 12 scope,for the ruger falling block.
Id also had a custom heavily reinforced and internally padded aluminum dual rifle case built to protect my rifle in shipping , that I had deeply die stamped with my name and address and phone number (never thinking those might change over the years) AL and I spent a good deal of time at the range working up loads and sighting in the rifle, I found the 120 grain Remington bullets over a stiff load of phoenix 5010 powder was a decent load,
but it was not as fast as Id hoped it would be, at only about 3180fps .
I had my rifle case painted like a barber pole in bright florescent, orange,green and purple alternating bands hoping to make it so obvious that it could not be ignored or misplaced by the airline baggage handling gorillas,
but as we were in the air port waiting to board the baggage was being loaded and there was a powered conveyor belt being used to move luggage from the baggage train to the cargo hold and I see some obvious anti-hunting moron taking suit cases and my gun case and literally throwing them onto the conveyor belt, and my gun case hits and flips off and falls several feet to the pavement where this moron picks it up and proceeds to pitch it 6 -7 feed onto the conveyor belt a second time looking like he was loading s**** wood in a dumpster rather than packing over $1800 in 1981 dollars worth of rifles into a planes cargo hold.
I protested, but the air line personnel response was simply,"if its damaged file a claim"
this made me sick! but luckily only the case was scratched up (I doubt a flimsy case would have survived.)
well we arrived in San Francisco, where SAL lived at the time. and got our luggage and SAL met us and we went for a ride in his rented truck up to the MODOC AREA in norther California.
we checked into cheap motel the night before the season, in Redding to get some rest and drove the rest of the way to the hunt area the day before opening day to set up camp.
we set up a nice camp with several individual 2 and 3 man dome tents.
SAL had scouted the area a few times during the summer and located a remote sage brush meadow of several thousand acres of BLM land surrounded on three sides by very thick wooded areas, mostly conifer and mixed aspen, and very steep hills that was packed with mule deer according to SAL and the lower edge of this meadow bordered a ranch that didn't allow hunting, it was about a 2 mile walk in from our closest allowed camp site, and SAL was sure it was lightly hunted if at all, because he saw no roads or even trails into the meadow, he had found by accident while scouting. We got up opening morning before dawn and got our gear together,put on back-packs and started walking into this supposedly prime area. dawns first faint light showed us faint moving shapes moving up slope toward our location (groups of deer) but just as dawn started to lighten the eastern edge of the sky some total idiot started a generator at his camp site on the lower edge of the meadow , we could just see this clowns 4x4 truck as a faint speck over 1200 yards away down slope ,
but in the clear mountain air we could catch the slamming car door, generator and flash of lights! there was no vehicles allowed in the hunt area, by state law, yet, this jerk was clearly either trying to screw with the hunters or he was a total moron,
when he started playing a radio and we could see he was camped just inside the ranch fence far below it was obvious he was trying to screw up the hunting!
needless to say were were pissed off, but there was not much we could do but change locations so we hunted the upper heavily wooded steep ridges above the meadow and about 3pm we were sitting under a large conifer, in the shade about 200 yards in from the edge of the meadow discussing where we should move to and looking over area topo maps when we heard running deer, each of us looked out, in different directions as it was difficult to locate the source, of the sound.but it quickly became obvious that a group of several deer were doing that pogo stick bounce and run up the edge of the ridge from the meadow and as they got closer SAL said Ill take the LEFT side buck, that left me the right side as AL was still not ready, as the deer ran up hill they were running directly at our location, SAL stepped out of the conifer branches and the deer spotted him, he fired at his buck hitting him in the center chest but high where the throat and chest meet, the 257 roberts slug at about 45 yards staggered the deer but it spun ran, and then fell and slid, to a stop, and almost like an echo to his shot my 257 weatherby cracked,... but my buck having seen SAL stand up, where as Id shot from a sitting position still under the conifer branches and in the shade, had spun and by the time I fired, having seen SAL. my buck was only about 35 yards away but heading away from me so my slug entered near the last rib, angled forward into the lungs and heart and basically turned the vital organs to a stinking mess.
SAL and AL got busy dragging SALs buck over to a aspen to hang and dress , my buck had flipped and slid down the ridge a bit further but had slid up next to a large aspen so I got out my mini-block and tackle, and soon had him hoisted and dressed out.
both deer were rather average 4x4 mule deer, mine was about 22" wide SAL,s was about an inch wider but mine had a bit more mass.
Al hunted for several more days but didn,t connect that trip, and decided to call it quits after about 5 days of hunting, we encouraged him to keep hunting as we had the venison from the two deer we had shot packed in two large coolers and packed in dry ice, and the outside temps rarely got over 50F and were well below freezing most nights. a simple trip into the local town by one or both of us,every other day on a, food, beer and dry ice run made the trip rather pleasant and we could have gladly helped him hunt for several more days with no problem as we were enjoying lounging around camp and basically wandering thru the area helping AL glass for deer.
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