az_shooter

The day after Thanksgiving I found myself in a familiar situation in an unfamiliar territory. Myself and a good buddy, who has never killed a deer with a rifle, were unsuccessful in drawing the tags we wanted, so we found ourselves sitting in the morning darkness on a tall ridge staring into a deep canyon with thick brush and tall peaks. He and myself both whispering while also gasping to catch our breaths at the same time because of the long steep climb we just made to get to our spots before first light. As soon as it was light enough to see, we start pounding the canyon bottom and drainages glassing for deer and it's not long before we both start finding them, and in plenty. 20 minutes after first light we had two bucks on a far ridge and smiles on our faces. It seemed to go on like this for most of the day, the only problem was that all the bucks we were finding just wasn't what we were looking for. That went on for the first two days of the hunt when finally I glassed up a group of bucks that had one buck that my buddy would be happy with shooting. We were running out of light and we had a long distance to travel to get into any decent shooting position, so we set off down the steep canyon and then right back up the other side. We made it down and back up in what seemed like no time at all and right away got set to start glassing for the bucks again. In no time I found the bucks and picked out the shooter and got my buddy set up for a 723 yard uphill shot. I doped the scope and with no time to spare he laid behind the rifle and sent the round hurling towards the buck. Miss, just a slight wind adjustment sent the round a foot and a half to the right of the shoulder and the bullet just about brushed the bucks nose. With dirt and rock sprayed all over the buck, they took off up and over the ridge and with no light left we backed out of the canyon, sure to return in the morning. On the morning of the third day we were right back in the same shooting spot as the night before glassing the same hill side we missed the buck on. As fate would have it I picked up some bucks in the exact same spot as the previous evening and it just so happened it was the same bucks as last night. I immediately grab my kestrol and rifle and start doping the scope getting my buddy set up for the same shot that he took once before. I ranged the buck at 700 and the game was on. As the first shot rings out, I catch no vapor trail in the binos and the buck seems to be unharmed. I tell him to reload and shoot again, boom, another miss, still no vapor trail and now the buck is headed down hill still unsure of whats going on. This happened two more times and then by chance the buck stops. I take a quick range and I make a small adjustment on the scope for 650. I tell my buddy to breathe and squeeze the trigger. Boom, I see the bullet make a solid hit and blow hair off right behind the shoulder. The buck ran five steps and piled up right there. Perfect shot, we cheered and my friend finally had his first rifle kill, with a 650 yard shot. Now that he got his buck, it was now time to start looking for mine. I have killed three bucks in the previous years so this year I was holding out trying to break that 100 inch mark. The whole hunt we were finding good numbers of bucks, Just nothing I wanted to pull the trigger on. My friend and myself weren't able to hunt everyday during the week so I made it out by myself for a morning hunt and a couple evening hunts during the week, the whole time finding bucks but still nothing I was looking for. Before I knew it I was down to the final three days of the hunt and still haven't seen a buck over 75 inches. On the second Saturday we hiked deep into a new spot where I found a buck that I would like to try and shoot so just like an instant replay of the Saturday before we head down a steep canyon just to go right back the other side to try and get into a good spot to shoot with the light fading fast. This time we were unsuccessful in finding the buck after getting to the shooting spot and the night fell on us and time was up. With one day left we hiked right back into the same spot only this time to not find anything other than a few does. The final day came and went with no luck and all in all after passing on about 20 or so bucks I find myself writing this feeling fully successful on filling one of two tags and knowing that we worked our buts off the whole hunt. Now the only thing left to do is get ready for archery and try and get some meat in the freezer. I told my buddy, who has never killed a deer with a rifle, only a bow, that this may be a switch year. That being that I have never killed a deer with my bow, so maybe this will be my year. Thanks for reading my adventure, hope it wasn't too long. Oh and here is a picture of a dead head I picked up in one of the canyons we hunted.

Thanks every body, it was a really good hunt. Sherman - I will send you a picture of the mule deer my friend shot. Robert - I will have to swing by sometime, I was over there a little while ago but I had just missed you guys.

Man that sucks, I didn't tag out either so I'll be chasing them with the old stick and string in a week also, good luck to ya!

Great job, I saw the same thing on my late November hunt, we seen lots of bucks but nothing with quality, my buddy shot a low to mid 70's type deer and I didn't kill anything so congrats on getting it done!

Matte, I just never liked the silver look.

+1 nets are for fishes! Great buck and congrats to you on a great trophy!

The dodge was mine and the ford is my buddies truck. Thought it would be cool to take a pic with all of them.

This may have been posted already but I didn't feel like browsing through all the topics to find one. I have been wanting to try the heart of a deer but have not done so yet, I've tried the tongue and liver before but never the heart. I've heard many things about eating a deer heart before so I thought I just need to try it for myself. So the big question here, what do you all think is the best way to cook a heart, who has a recipe that they are willing to share? Let's hear 'em!

Wrong section there bud...but I don't know anything about those deer so I am of no use to you.

Congrats to your sister, great buck!

Very nice, congrats.

Don't try and go cheap with the wife! She will always know! Haha bud not bad though

Looks like a whole bunch of fun you had there TJ. A buffalo hunt would be way cool to go on.

Way to get it done.

These all sound like great recipes and I'm sure to try all of them, but here is something I threw together real quick this evening and it came out great. I am now a fan of deer heart. First I started by slicing the heart down the middle to open it up and get inside to clean out the heart. Second I cleaned the heart of all the blood and cut out all the veins so I was left with a clean piece of muscle, it almost looked like a regular venison steak when it was all cleaned out. After that I took a whole apple, quarter of a yellow bell pepper, a thick slice of a spanish white onion and layed it out inside the butterflied heart. Once the heart was full I closed it up by bringing the two ends together and to keep it closed I used some toothpicks to hold it all together nice and tight so the slices of vegetables and fruit wont fall out. I finished it all of by wrapping it in aluminum foil and cooking it for 35 to 45 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven. Then to add a little char to the outsides by throwing it in a hot skillet with some butter and salt. Just long enough to give it some color on the outside. It was a medium rare when it was all said and done and now the heart is one of my favorite things to eat from a deer.

The Kawasaki side by side is really nice, I don't have one but my buddy owns one and we use the polaris rangers at work so between those two, the Kawasaki Teryx is really nice and I believe you can get it with a 700 motor.

I like the plain old bino harness from Sportsmans warehouse, it's fits snug and works great for me. I don't know anything about the two you mentioned.

Kings desert shadow is my top pick, the max-1 is good too though. I only buy/have those two camo patterns, well, nevermind I have a kings mountain shadow long sleeve shirt that is nice to. In shorter words I like kings camo the best, and very inexpensive.

Haha! Us hunters are such horrible people, why can't we just eat our meat without killing the poor animal?! Haha I can't believe the stupidity of some people.

Great job on that buck! Awesome shot too, those long range shots sure are fun!

Anyone else heading into 35B this weekend? Looks like we'll have some decent weather this weekend so good luck to everyone hunting. If y'all happen to see a red ford and a white dodge with cwt stickers feel free to stop in and show off your bucks. We're getting all our stuff ready for what should be a great weekend!

A little update, killed a nice 2x3 on Sunday morning, still looking for another buck. Have been seeing a good buck to doe ratio just nothing that we've wanted to shoot at. So far a good hunt. Hopefully everyone else in 35B is doing well. Will post story and pics when hunt is over.

Maybe G&F will let hunters kill lions in that area without a tag, yay! That will never happen...

Awesome buck, congrats to you.

Yes sir, that was us. Was headed home through the fort. Had a good weekend, got one buck down and still looking for one more.