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After waiting 7yrs for a December Coues tag, and watching my husband draw it twice!! I was excited to finally..... hopefully....... put my tag on a good buck, I had my hopes set on a 115 or better.

 

This hunt was tough...the first 3 days out we saw 0 deer, none, zip....and this was in areas we have always found deer in the past.

We waited out the weather for a few days and tried again in a new area, we had some glassing help for the day so dropped off Kevin Lawhorn to check out one area and Dale and I headed a short distance away.

Dale and I had just got to our glassing point when the radio went off...It was Kevin "Hey I have 3 bucks over here, but I fell and hurt my knee" I radioed back and said "Are you OK?" He said "I can't really move, I think I broke my kneecap, but I have 3 bucks chasing does all over, one of them looks pretty good."

So Dale and I packed up and headed over to Kevin, after I took a minute to determine if he had broken anything(he didn't, me being a paramedic has it's advantages) we checked out the bucks. Dale and I deemed the biggest of the 3 to be a 105 class deer and decided to pass as there were many days left in this 3 week hunt. Although, I kept hearing a friend Garretts words echoing in my ear "Don't pass a deer that you would be happy with on the last day" I hoped I had made the right decision to pass that buck.

 

We went out a few more times, not really seeing much then ran into the holidays, thankfully the Grandparents agreed to keep the kids till New Years so we could really hit the hills hard the last week of the hunt.

I texted Gino (CouesnSheep) and asked him if he had time and was willing to come hunt with us and he said sure! He asked how far I could shoot and I told him I had never shot anything over 150 yrds before. He said he had access to a long range rife for a few days if I was interested. I said I was willing to do whatever it took to get a big buck!

 

So out we went, We froze our a$$es off for days we had to build a fire one day to keep warm enough to keep glassing. (Dale even caught his pant leg on fire trying to keep warm). But the cold weather seemed to finally get the deer in our area moving around.

Gino glassed a decent buck up on the 27th and I decided I would try to shoot him. Gino got the gun set up while Dale and I tried to keep the buck in sight. Gino told me to get behind the gun and see if I had a good solid rest, well I just could not seem to get in position!!!! Dale looked over and told Gino "She shoots left handed she can't shoot from there" so he moved the gun but in the process we lost track of the buck. If the buck had offered a shot opportunity it would have been a 677 yrd shot. We continued to glass the area for an hour or so then decided to back out and come in from another angle that evening to see if we could locate the buck again. It didn't work out that evening either and so the hunt continued.

On the 28th we went back into the same area but only found 2 smaller bucks. The long range rifle that Gino had use of had to go out with another hunter, Kevin Lawhorn came through again meeting us at the top of the Young Rd the night of the 28th to loan us his long range gun! On the 29th Gino and I headed into a new area (Dale stayed home to get some work done in the shop) it was a pretty active morning we saw lots of deer, just nothing over 85, I was tempted by one buck but Gino wouldn't let me shoot.

The morning of the 30th was to be my last day, we had a storm coming in and I was ready to settle for any mature buck, rather than the dreaded "Tag Soup" We split up again with Gino being the "big eyes" over a mile away and Dale and I glassing an area and then moving to another to try and cover more country. Gino radioed us a said he had a couple small bucks in an area we had glassed yesterday so we moved down there to have a look.

Gino said the bucks weren't really moving around and he felt there had to be a bigger buck with a doe in the area. When we got to where we could see the hillside he was glassing we spotted one of the bucks lower on the hill, I told Dale that Gino said the smaller one was up higher so we looked up and saw a buck. Dale said are you sure the smaller buck was higher up, I said yeah, he said "I think you need to take a look at this buck"....I looked through the spotting scope and could only make out the main beams on the buck, but he looked pretty good compared to the other buck on the hill. He said do you want to try for him? I said yes.

We radioed Gino and he found the buck and kept his eyes on it while we worked our way closer, using the terrain and trees to conceal our approach. We worked our way in from 1200 yrds to about 610 yrds when we ran out of cover and had to set up where we were. I had some trouble keeping the buck in the scope when I would dial it in to 25 power, and the buck took his sweet time giving me a good shot opportunity, but finally he turned and I fired at 607 yards, I hit low just under his feet and got set up again, the buck hadn't moved and I fired again.

 

Long story short.... Thanks to an enduring Husband, a couple of good friends, a borrowed rifle, and some stubborn determination I finally got my buck.....he wasn't 115 or better but he did score 113 7/8" and I couldn't be happier!!!

 

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Congrats! My wife had a unit 23 December tag and our hunted sounded like yours. Saw about every conceivable animal but whitetails. This makes me feel a little better.

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Super nice Buck. Congrats.

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Great buck and story Heather. Way to stick to it and get that beauty. Nice to have Gino and Kevin to help you and Dale make this hunt so memorable!

Looking forward to see how you get it mounted.

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Guest akaspecials

Nice buck Heather! It was good to meet Gino and I've enjoyed our telephone conversations about my mount. Congrats on your buck!

 

-Eddie

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Awesome hunt and buck! Good that you stuck to your goal! You showed a lot of determination and it payed off. Congratulations on your nice trophy!

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Congratulations on a gorgeous buck! I love the way he carries his mass throughout his frame. That also looks like one heck of a rock pile he was in. Great write up, really enjoyed it!

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