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Arthur Gonzales' opening day buck - December 2003
Last year was the first year my wife, Joe, Matt,
and I had drawn whitetail tags, which was for the first October hunt. All four
of us tagged out with Michelle's scoring 98"+ and Joe's at 107". (You can read
the hunt story from last year, by
clicking here). Needless to say we were addicted. This year three of
us got lucky and drew the same unit but for the December hunt. The only
problem we had was it was a good year for tags as my brother and I drew
archery elk and archery antelope tags also. We knew our scouting time was
going to be limited but we figured we had it good if our only problems were
getting to many tags. In September I took a antelope that will score close to
80" and a bull in the 270" class in the late November archery hunt.
Our November archery bull tags took all of our time that we planned on
scouting for deer, so we were not able to scout until two days before opening
day.
During the two days of scouting we found deer
absolutely everywhere we looked. We didn't see anything big but we figured
with the amount of does we had found the big ones wouldn't be to far away. We
did manage to glass up a big male bear and a big mountain lion, which my wife
ended up missing three times on the 8th day, two days before the hunt. This
year I wanted to find a buck big enough to rule the household once again since
last year my wife's first deer was blew my deer out of the water. I also
wanted to get a buck worthy of a story beside my wife's and brother's story on
Amanda's website.
Opening morning was almost perfect. It was
freezing cold, snow on the ground, and after the fog lifted clear skies. The
only problem was I didn't see a single whitetail deer. Talk about opening day
blues. We decided to move to the small mountain range that we had seen the
mountain lion on. My brother wasn't so sure we should be hunting these hills
after he seen the mountain lion. He thought the lion would have the hills
cleared of good bucks. Boy was he wrong.
My wife and I reached a rocky peak we'd climbed to
glass for the evening around 4:15. Around 4:30 I spotted a decent buck coming
around the backside of another hill about 1500 yards away. I turned around to
explain to my wife where the deer was and when I looked back through the 15x56
binoculars I saw this great buck following the first buck. From that distance
I couldn't make out exact dimensions but I knew he was a shooter. He looked to
be real wide and heavy but I was unsure of how many points he had. My
wife continued watching him as I literally ran up and down a canyon in between
us and the deer. When I got to the closest point I could find I set up the
binos and started looking for him again. The sun was starting to set and I
knew light would be a factor soon. After what seemed like and eternity I
finally found the buck but when I tried to range him the furthest my
rangefinder would mark was 454 yards. I had been practicing out to 500 yards
with my .308 shooting 150 gr. ballistic tips bullets. I knew if I could get
him broadside I would be able to make this shot. Even though the buck was
slowly feeding with a few other bucks I was having trouble finding him in my
Leupold 3x9x50 scope. I was switching back and forth from my binos to the
scope trying to find him. When I finally found him I waited for him to walk
out from behind a mesquite tree. When he came out I felt surprisingly calm and
held my 500 yard mark on his back. Unfortunately when I fired he trotted about
30 yards and started looking around. I figured I hit low since he was looking
around not sure of what just happened. Fortunately he starting feeding right
back to the exact same spot I'd shot at him. After another round of switching
from the binos to the scope I settled my cross hairs just a little higher than
the first shot. This time the bullet found it's mark in the spine and dropped
the deer in his tracks. I didn't have much time to get to the deer before it
got dark so once again I took off running across another canyon. I had my wife
guide me into where she last saw the deer and I was able to find him just as
it was getting dark. The mountain I was on was very rocky and steep so I tied
the deer to a mesquite tree and my brother, wife, and I returned the next day
to take pictures and pack him off the hill. On the way up we tried ranging the
shot again and came up with a distance of close to 600 yards.
My opening day buck is my second and biggest
whitetail. Not bad for my second year hunting these beautiful animals. My deer
has and outside spread of 19 1/2 inches and a couple of extra small points to
add alot of character. His antlers get heavier the further down the main beam,
which are over 17". The deer should gross a tad bit over 105". I'm very
pleased to have taken a nice coues buck unguided on public land and look
forward to being able to hunt these deer again. My wife also took here second
deer a few days later. Here deer will score 85+. Her buck had a body and head
that to me looked gigantic for the usually small coues deer. It took alot to
pack her deer off the mountain whole. Unfortunately the third hunter in our
party had only a few days to hunt but did have a shot at a big buck and a few
decent shooters. Of the three animals I took this year, by far, my favorite is
hunting the coues whitetail.
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