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CouesPursuit

Poor Man's Sheep Hunt

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I've seen a few whitetail on the edges of sheep country in recent years. Always trying to hunt outside the box, I decided go in with intent to fill my '23 archery tag or get my butt handed to me and let go of the idea the terrain is worth hunting.

Yesterday, I didn't even get to glass the more predictable deer country as a small 3x3 coues was spotted in the gentliest terrain on the sheepy side of the mountain.

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He bedded down at 730am right in the open. I decided to get aggressive under the cover of rain. I turned 1000 yards into 66 yards in 30 minutes and picked the perfect rock outcropping to pop out around.

The rain had scent locked down and while I was comfortable to not be busted immediately, 60 yards is my coues limit and my gut told me this deer was not going to get up and feed towards me and the rock ledges. Turning 66 into 60 without cover took an hour and a ton of patience and frozen moments as he would snap his head in my direction. 

Finally, at 61 yards, he got up and as he shook off a gallon of water, I drew and released an arrow that went lower than I'd of liked. The soaking wet drop away felt significantly slowed my arrow prior to release.

Thank goodness for the Lumenocks helping me understand this quickly and when he stopped at 100 yards to understand what hit him, I put my slider on 130 and put him down hard. I ran up and put another one in him as quickly as possible. Not the greatest part of the story but one of my favorite things about this forum is reading lessons learned. 

With everything soaking wet, this will go down as one of my heaviest pack outs of all time, in sheep country!

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Way to go man! Interesting I just posted a question about bow hunting in rain and was wondering how much the wet string's affected the arrow drop.  That's a heck of a shot congrats

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1 hour ago, az41mag said:

Well done!

What's your setup for the umbrella in the first picture? (at least it looks like an umbrella)

Thank you. Just a cheap amazon umbrella I bought a few years ago for my real sheep hunt so I could scout in the summer and keep the sun off me. It sticks into the top of my pack if needed but I used it to protect the lenses of the 15s from getting wet and over my stuff any time my pack rain fly was off. I knew there weren't any breaks in the weather yesterday, it was one of the best pounds I carried.

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1 hour ago, CouesPursuit said:

Thank you. Just a cheap amazon umbrella I bought a few years ago for my real sheep hunt so I could scout in the summer and keep the sun off me. It sticks into the top of my pack if needed but I used it to protect the lenses of the 15s from getting wet and over my stuff any time my pack rain fly was off. I knew there weren't any breaks in the weather yesterday, it was one of the best pounds I carried.

I've been trying to figure out an umbrella system for the exact same thing, but haven't found one I like yet. I appreciate the insight and will have to try one with a longer handle to go down in my pack. Thanks!

 

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