My Sidekick Closed Out The Year Strong

[rossislider]

With Draysen playing his first year of high school football, and miraculously drawing an early archery bull elk tag, we knew it wouldn't leave much early season time to hunt deer. So we threw up a "Hail Merry" and applied his two bonus points towards a late December whitetail hunt. With the year we were blessed with, I really shouldn't have been surprised when he drew it. 

This past September for his 15th birthday, we bought him his first big game hunting rifle, an upper end Tikka, chambered in 7mm Mag. He saved up his skull cleaning money and topped it with a Vortex Viper HS LR 6-24x50. In short time we had his load dialed in, and he was shooting groupings inside a quarter at 200 yards. 

I had a funeral to attend on Thursday, so we decided to head down to our unit around 4:00 AM opening morning from the valley. We were towing our Ranger and had to stop for gas, so were a little behind when I had hoped to be to the mountain. I like to be in glassing position well before first light. We just about ran up the mountain cutting our normal hike time to this spot almost in half. I have to admit that I was pretty pleased with myself. Draysen is the athlete these days, but I put a lot of time and work this spring and summer into dropping 50 pounds and getting into my best shape since my early 20s. I got a little pleasure in listening to Draysen suck wind and really have to work to keep up behind me. He says it is because his pack was heavier than mine. Nonsense! 🤣

We reached our spot just as it was about to become light enough to glass. I threw the binos up and on the tripod right at glassable light. In seconds I found a group of about 10 does and fawns 500 yards on an adjacent ridge. I quickly called Draysen's attention to them as I scanned for antlers. While picking through the does, Draysen spotted two bucks coming up behind our herd and shouted in a whisper "There is a shooter!" We did a quick swap, me in his binos and him throwing his rifle and Claw combo on my tripod (it is the bigger more steady tripod). I called out the distance "482 yards, but he is moving away. Dial 13 clicks to 500." Seconds later, BANG!!! His buck flopped and rolled about 15 yards down the steep hill before coming to a stop. I estimate this all went down in about 3 minutes of me first looking into my binos. We have had short hunts before, but nothing like this! 

He head down and across the canyon while I stayed put to direct him to his deer. There was a rough 4wd road near the base of the opposite side of the hill his deer was on. All we would have to do for the pack out was top out about 20 yards above his deer, and it would be downhill all the way to the Ranger. Once he was within about 100 yards of his deer I started packing up to make the hike back the opposite direction to get the Ranger and drive to the previously mentioned spot. Then my phone rang, Draysen was on the other end frantic! "Dad, a buck just jumped up in front of me and is running away, is that my deer?" Of course, I had cased my binos and put away the tripod. I had watched his deer lay dead in an unnatural position for about 30 minutes, and was sure he had bumped another buck. But Draysen was about to have a meltdown as I relocated his buck. He was dead as ever and hadn't budged. I reassured him and watched him the rest of the way to his deer before heading back to the Ranger. I think the buck Draysen had bumped up was Draysen's buck's buddy we had seen earlier. He had likely bedded by his buddy and we hadn't noticed. 

Meanwhile, as I headed to get the Ranger Draysen posted a teaser picture on Facebook. A couple of member "friends" from here wanted to know when he would post a real picture. To which he replied, "When my dad gets here" so I could see him first. Of course the JERKS, you know who you are 😉, and Draysen had a great time making jokes on Facebook about my slowness. Of course my punk kid never bothered to tell them that I had gone back for the Ranger, and allowed them to believe he had left me in the dust and gone ahead. Hiking up the backside of the hill to Draysen was nasty. It was much steeper than anticipated, and being the north facing slope, was thick with Mesquite brush and prickly pear. Eventually I made my way to him. About the time I reached him I realized my new cell had fallen out of my bino case somewhere between the deer and where I had left the Ranger. Fortunately, we have a family tracker app on our phones that led us straight to it a few hundred yards back. We got back to the buck, took a few hundred pictures, and I directed Draysen a bit as he capped and processed his buck. It was a challenge on the steep hillside, but we eventually got it done. We eventually made the descent back to the Ranger falling (both of us) many times down the steep rocky thorn filled slope. I had loaded the cooler into the back of the Ranger, so we were quickly able to get everything on ice. As early as it was, we decided to take the Ranger and explore some new country for a bit, and turned up a couple more spots that have huge future hunting potential. 

While short, it was a pretty great morning with the boy. I titled this post "My Sidekick Closed Out The Year Strong" but the line that defines who is in fact the "Sidekick" is pretty blurred these days. As long as I get to be along for the adventure, I don't really care. 

From 500 yards across the canyon. We didn't have time for pictures before the shot. 

Coming out heavy! 

There was a pretty good debate on the drive home and into the afternoon about whether to do a shoulder mount or euro. A good friend offered a great deal to shoulder mount. But in all the hundreds of deer Draysen has euroed, he has never done one of his own, so that was the scale tipper. He is hard at it this morning. 

[CatfishKev]

That's a stud!

[lancetkenyon]

Wow!!!  Awesome Coues!!!

[Explorer]

Gorgeous buck! Congratulations

[Arizona Griz]

That’s a dandy. Congratulations.

[trphyhntr]

nice. how come you zip tie the tag on

[rossislider]

5 minutes ago, trphyhntr said:

nice. how come you zip tie the tag on

It really wasn't necessary, but we had the last two tags on our elk rip off in the wind while in the back of the truck. This went straight into the cooler once at the Ranger, but he wanted to be safe. 

These new tags AZGFD are using are crap! 

[Outdoor Writer]

Very nice buck. Way to get it done, Draysen. 👍 It sure seems worthy of a shoulder mount to me. But what do I know. 🤷‍♂️

[rossislider]

Draysen found something interesting while cleaning it. He appears to have broken his nasal bones and healed up at some point in the past. 

[Zeke-BE]

Im tired of this Kids Success!!!!   Hes making me look really bad

Congrats, well done.  Great looking buck

[Markleo21377]

Great job 👍

[rossislider]

1 hour ago, Zeke-BE said:

Im tired of this Kids Success!!!!   Hes making me look really bad

Congrats, well done.  Great looking buck

We could start a club! 

[HyNoon]

Great job guys.  Nice buck 

[AZHunter1]

Looks great, interesting nose break!

[rossislider]

We're got several hundred pounds of ground elk burger. So with the grind meat from Draysen buck, we had a sausage fest! 😂