The six long months after i drew my first december rifle tag, my hunt had finally arrived. I decided to spend the opening day of the hunt at the range just to be sure I would be ready if I had to reach out a little further. The first weekend I glassed my eye balls out only to find alot of does, a few bucks, and some hotter than usual weather. I went back to work early that week feeling a little frustrated about the weather and the fact that i was hunting on my own as my hunting buddies had other obligations. After an hour hike that friday morning I was back behind my 15s and feeling a little better because of the small storm system that had come through and cooled things down.
Right away I started seeing a few better bucks, but nothing worth pursuing this early in the hunt.
I spent the rest of the weekend seeing more younger bucks and looking forward to the arrival of my long time friend Scott.
Scottie is pretty good at glassing up bucks, but most importantly added alot of humor and jokes that I needed to pass the time sitting behind the glasses.
After a long hike sunday morning we were finding deer right away but decided the give that spot to the two guys on horse back and the 14 hound dogs that must have rode in to do a little lion hunting. We decided to go to another area monday morning that would require a little more hiking but i knew there would be some good bucks in there. the sunrise that morning alone made the long hike worth it.
The morning silence ended with scottie saying, there's a buck. He was a long ways away but we could see he wasnt to bad. we watched him for a little while and then noticed a doe being chaced out of some brush by a bigger buck. The two bucks ended up close to eachother and we got to watch a pretty good, but short fight. the bigger buck ended up running the other off and disappeard down the ridge and out of sight. after a couple hours of hiking to get a better look we had found the smaller buck beded down. after getting even closer we could see he was a decent 3point but not a shooter.
we spent the rest of the afternoon looking for the bigger buck only to find a few more smaller ones.
Scott Had to go back to town for a few days to take care of some things so i spent the rest of the week hunting on my own. I saw alot of bucks, and quite a bit more rut Activity.
After christmas i was back out looking for a good buck. Once again I was seeing deer but nothing great and it seemed like the rut was slowing down a little.
At that point I was getting a little dicouraged, wondering if I was gonna get that chance to put my december tag to good use. Finally scott showed up monday night and we got a plan together for the next day. tuesday came and went with only a few incounters with some small bucks, to make things worse we saw that a big storm was gonna roll in and bring rain, snow and worst of all a lot of wind for the next few days. Against the better judgment of our wives we decided to stay and try to get in a good morning hunt before the storm hit. After the hike in and about a half hour in to glassing light i hear scott say, I got a buck! he's not real big but he's a decent 3 point. As soon as I saw him through the glasses I ranged him and was looking for a good place to get a rest to take a shot. 538 yards. I dialed my turret to 525 and settled in for the shot. the buck stood there facing us for what seemed like forever. finally he stood broad side and as soon as he did he layed down right in the open. I put the cross hairs on him and squeezed the trigger. I heard scott say you got em! the buck never got up. after a long hike up and down a few ridges and plowing through alot of scrubb oak i finally got to put my hands on him. he wasn't the monster i was hoping for, but I was more then happy with him.
thanks to my good friend scott for helping me on this hunt and thanks the my good friend clint for helping me get my rifle shooting like it should.
