Brandon's Utah Paunsaugunt Mule Deer
10-25-2009, 11:11 AM
#1
Spike
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Central Utah
Posts: 21
Brandon's Utah Paunsaugunt Mule Deer
After 14 years of waiting my brother Brandon drew out for Utah's famous Paunsaugunt. With the new 2009 hunt dates pushing the hunt back 10 days later in October I felt the hunt had great potential. I have been fortunate enough to draw 2 tags on the unit, 1992,1997. The unit gets into your blood and when you leave you can't wait to go back.
We hunted 6 days seeing a good number of bucks in the 22-26 inch range. On day 5 of the hunt we came real close to sealing the deal on a 27 inch 185-190 class mule deer. He had 9 lives I guess. The Cedar, Pinion and Juniper Country of the Paunsaugunt can be a hunters worst nightmare. The older bucks become ghosts when they want to be.
On day 6 we passed up a thin horned, 27 inch 5X4. We were seeing a lot of deer. As we approached a water guzzler we spottted Brandon's buck. I could see he was a solid box framed buck and with only a couple of days left in the hunt we decided we better take him. Brandon hit the buck in the lungs at 150 yards. The buck went about 30 yards and was down for good. The buck was 27 inches wide. This was a long awaited hunt and very memorable. We held out for a quality trophy and it paid off in a big way.
Brandon used a Browning A-Bolt .270 Winchester, Leupold VX-3 Scope and handloaded Nosler Ballistic Tips at 3060 fps. The bullet combination has proven to be awesome on these large mule deer. Great expansion and immediate results. Congratulations to Brandon on a great buck! I look forward to our next hunt together.
We hunted 6 days seeing a good number of bucks in the 22-26 inch range. On day 5 of the hunt we came real close to sealing the deal on a 27 inch 185-190 class mule deer. He had 9 lives I guess. The Cedar, Pinion and Juniper Country of the Paunsaugunt can be a hunters worst nightmare. The older bucks become ghosts when they want to be.
On day 6 we passed up a thin horned, 27 inch 5X4. We were seeing a lot of deer. As we approached a water guzzler we spottted Brandon's buck. I could see he was a solid box framed buck and with only a couple of days left in the hunt we decided we better take him. Brandon hit the buck in the lungs at 150 yards. The buck went about 30 yards and was down for good. The buck was 27 inches wide. This was a long awaited hunt and very memorable. We held out for a quality trophy and it paid off in a big way.
Brandon used a Browning A-Bolt .270 Winchester, Leupold VX-3 Scope and handloaded Nosler Ballistic Tips at 3060 fps. The bullet combination has proven to be awesome on these large mule deer. Great expansion and immediate results. Congratulations to Brandon on a great buck! I look forward to our next hunt together.
