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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/02/2019 in all areas

  1. 10 points
    Hey CWT community, I posted up some of these pictures previously in another post about some bullet issues I had on my hunt, but since I have spent the better part of the past three weeks up in the mountains chasing bugles (or lack of), I really haven’t had a chance to tell much of our story. To give a full accounting would honestly take a post the length of a full novel (it was a mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting, but fantastic three weeks), but I would love to share a few highlights. I am sure it will be plenty long anyway. When credit cards started getting hit for elk tags early this year, I about fell over when my card was charged $135 by AZGFD. I use a combination of credit/debit cards for the draw, one for each family member, so I know who gets the tags. I had applied for two premium hunts that I did not have the points to draw. I had 9 points. Drawing my first choice, 3A3C early rifle bull elk, would have been like the Powerball odds, so I assumed it would likely be my second choice, 3A3C archery bull elk. Knowing that I likely won’t have many more premium elk tags in my pocket, I knew I wanted to do everything I could to give myself the greatest opportunity to kill a true giant this time. In 3A3C, NOOONE has a hand in killing more giant elk than my buddy Shane Koury. Over the past few years Shane and I have talked many times about doing this hunt together once I finally had this tag, so I was on the phone with him within 30 seconds of the card charge to make sure he didn’t book any clients. To my shock, about 5 days later, another one of my credit cards was hit for $135 charge by AZGFD, this time it was the card used for my son. I had put him in for the same hunt choices, but he only had 2 bonus points. When results, finally came out about a week later, I was even more shocked to learn that I had drawn the early rifle bull tag, and that Draysen had drawn the archery bull hunt that started the following day after my hunt ended. A lot of preparation and details went on over the next several months to get ready that I won’t go into detail on, but some of the highlights include: Getting my diet and cardio on point. I knew that if I wanted to give myself the best opportunity to kill a giant, I would have to be ready to move fast and hard over long distances. By the time my hunt rolled around, I had dropped 55 pounds and was at my lightest and leanest since I was a teenager. Draysen broke and reinjured his wrist in a combination track and football injury that required surgery late in the summer. Hunting with a bow would be impossible, so we had to get permission to use, get access to, and practice using a crossbow. With his broken wrist, Draysen (14 years old at the time) lost his spot as linebacker on the JV football team for the season. Determined to remain a part of the team, he got his doctor’s approval, took up kicking, worked hard to get good at it, and by the start of the season was the starting kicker for PATs, field goals, and kickoffs. He couldn’t punt since he could not catch the snapped ball with his wrist in a cast. With his position on the football team, he would not be permitted to miss practices or he would not be able to play in games that week. We would largely be limited to long 3.5 day weekends (Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and half day Mondays). I arrived for my hunt the afternoon before the opener and hooked up with Shane to go scout a couple of bulls. That evening, just before dark, we were able to stalk into a bugling giant bull and his cows and watch him tear up a tree about 50-60 yards in front of us. I was pumped and the following morning it would be game on! The next few days were pretty awesome and intense. Shane and I had talked and agreed that early in the hunt we would not be considering pulling the trigger on anything below the 380. The rut was still far from in full swing and bulls were only bugling for about an hour in the morning and evening at best. From Friday morning through Sunday evening we put a lot of miles on the boots (averaged anywhere between 10-20 miles per day). Despite the bugling challenges, we looked at a lot of great bulls, passing on at least one 360+ class bull each day as well as many smaller in pursuit of our giant. My wife was able to drive Draysen up after football practice on Friday, so he was able to hang out with us for much of the weekend before he had to head home Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening, after Draysen had headed home, we got into our first really good bugling. We gave Draysen a hard time telling him it was his leaving was that brought our good luck. We snuck into a little valley with several bulls going nuts bugling around a group of cows. We assume one of the cows in the group must have been pretty hot to get them going like they were. We looked over about 6 different bulls in the canyon, but none of them, including the herd bull, was what we were looking for. With about 30-45 minutes of light remaining, we bailed out of the canyon, back to the truck and shot up the road a little ways to listen for more bugles. It was extremely dry up there at the time and so we were hitting a few of the tanks still holding water. We stopped about 400-500 yards short of a large tank and hit the bugle. No reply. But we did hear an odd sound, splashing! Shane said, “They are in the tank, run!” We made a dash to get to where we could get a visual of the tank. Shane threw up his spotter from about 250 yards out and immediately said “SHOOTER!” I threw my rifle up on the sticks and stared down a monster bull through my scope. Even with my heavy breathing from the jog, it only took a second or two to settle my crosshairs on the target. I flipped my safety, at 250 yards the bull was taking his last breath. I a was about to squeeze my trigger and heard Shane say “Broken G1! Don’t shoot.” This bull was a giant! Incredulously, I replied, “I can get that fixed (speaking about the broken G1), are you sure???” Shane replied “Don’t shoot, we can do better.” I though about it for a couple of seconds. My tag, my decision. I flipped the safety back on and I incredulously watched the bull slowly work his way out of our sight. I think I was in a little bit of shock about what I had just done. This was the biggest bull I had ever put eyes on. He was gorgeous, long beams, ridiculously long tines, everything I wanted in my dream bull, and I let him walk away. About this time Shane got a text from Todd, one of his guides. Todd and hunter had been chasing one illusive giant since opening morning. They had finally put him on the ground. We headed back to the truck to meet up with them to lend a hand getting him out in the dark. As we headed out Shane could tell that I was in an incredulous stupor about what had just happened and decided to get my emotions on video. I believe my words (jokingly of course) were “Shane Koury either just became my best friend or worst enemy for convincing me to pass on that bull.” As the night went on, and I looked over and put hands on the other giant that had been shot, I really began to second guess myself and question my decision. Shane could tell. It was a short night, as we didn’t get the other bull out till close to midnight, and we were back out and after it at about 4:30 AM. Earlier in the hunt we were looking for a giant bull several miles to the north of the big bull we had passed the night before. We had only seen that bull’s top ends in the trees, but based on those, believed he had to be a monster. We got into the area and listened to a few pre-dawn bugles in to dark. As it slowly began to get light we picked one of the closer bugles and set off after and see what he looked like. After following this bugle through the trees for about a mile and closing in, we came to a drop off. On the opposite ridge (162 yards across) we spotted cows and herd a bugle just below where we could see in the bottom of the drainage. Knowing the bull would likely be coming up the ridge, just behind his cows, I threw the rifle up on the sticks and got ready. Seconds later he walked up and pushed the cow we had been watching. The second I saw him I knew I was shooting this bull. Shane confirmed my decision with the words “Shooter!” As he stood broadside at 162 yards, I flipped the safety, centered my crosshairs, squeezed the trigger, and “CLICK!”. Nothing, the bullet didn’t fire! I slammed open the action ejected the bullet and chambered another round. I think the first shot had me a little rattled on the second. I knew the second I squeezed the trigger that I had pulled the rifle and the bullet wound be a miss. Without needing Shane to confirm the miss, I immediately grabbed for my bullet pouch at my waist. My big Remington Sendero 300 RUM only holds two rounds in the magazine. I slammed in another round, and to my luck, the bull hadn’t yet moved, but was looking right at us. This gave Shane time to get his PhoneSkope on the spotter to record the next events. I quickly reacquired my target just as the bull began to take off. BOOM!!! This shot felt good and looked good! My bull jumped forward, but only on three legs. The front shoulder was hanging limp. The bull rushed out of view on three legs, but we were confident he was down in the trees just beyond our sight. Shane turned to me and said, “You know that was the same bull we passed last night?” I didn’t tell you because after last night I knew you would shoot him even if I suggested not to.” Shane was 100% right. I think I felt it might be the same bull, but certainly wasn’t certain. Not a chance he was walking away a second time! Overnight he had taken his cows and moved a few miles to the north. We gave him a few minutes and watched the video of the shot to confirm what we knew. Right behind the front shoulder and into the vitals. We made the short walk over to where we last saw the bull. To my horror, he was not where we expected him to be. Worse, there was about three drops of blood and then nothing! Over the next hour or two we did our best to stay on his tracks, but it was tough. The area was loaded with elk tracks. After about 600 yards of tracking and three different spots where we could tell he laid down, we found about a teaspoon of blood in the third bed, we decided it would be wise to back out and come back in about 4 hours later. Clearly something hadn’t gone as expected with the shot, and we needed to give this bull some time to lay down and expire. My stomach was in knots and I was sick with worry over those four hours. What had I done wrong? Did I just shoot, wound, and lose the bull of my dreams? I called home and talked to my wife and son. They tried to fill me with confidence, but it didn’t help. I sent them the video, we sent it to several members of Shane’s crew, I sent it to several buddies, etc. Everyone said the same thing, “The shot looks great, this bull should be dead!?!” About 1:00 PM we headed back out to look for my bull. We returned with a crew of 7 guys so we could fan out if necessary. As we drove in, I looked at the thick gathering clouds and began to feel even sicker. Moments later rain started falling. Not a super heavy rain, but enough to ruin any blood or fresh tracks. We reached the final bed we had found with the blood in it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before we had completely lost the tracks. We fanned out and began to look. I headed south while much of our group stayed closer the bottom where we thought the tracks had headed. After probably an hour of searching in the light rain and not seeing anyone in the group for a while, reality began to settle in. I was walking back to find the group and honestly felt that I was about to break down in tears over wounding this beautiful bull that I would not be able recover. I reached in my pocket to retrieve my phone to call and tell my wife we had lost him. As I looked at the screen I saw that I had missed a call from Shane. A little hope??? As I fumbled at the buttons to call him, my phone started ringing again. It was Shane. “Hello Shane?!?” I exclaimed! “We found him!” was the reply. “We bumped him up, he is hurting, but still moving good. Where are you?” not knowing the area well, Shane described a near meadow I was familiar with where I would meet him while others stayed on the new tracks. Lungs burning, I ran as hard as I could till I saw Steffen and Skyler, Shane’s sons. Moments later we were back on the tracks! The rain that was earlier my nemesis was now my savior. The bull, was now digging into the soft wet dirt and making a very distinct track with the wounded leg. He had a good lead on us and was still moving fast. We all set after him. We would be right on the tracks for a while, then would lose the tracks when he would enter a thick area with lots of pine needles or rocks. When that happened, we would spread back out and move in the direction he was going until we picked the track back up again. This went on for probably a couple of miles. It was at one of these spots, where we were trying to relocate tracks, when we heard some cracking in some really thick willow type brush maybe 60-70 yards ahead of us. It was him trying to hide in the thick stuff. We told the group to stay on the tracks and Shane and I bolted in the direct of the sound. The bull must have heard us hot on his trail because he began to put a lot of distance on us again. We never saw him, but the tracks were deep and we could see several places where he stumbled on the wounded shoulder in his effort to stay ahead of us. We were hot on him, and went as fast as our lungs would allow us this time. Conditioning before a hunt is a good thing! Had I not dropped those 55 pounds in the prior six months, and literally worked my butt off, I might have been in trouble. After a mile or two of this high paced action, Shane and I monetarily lost the tracks again in some rocky stuff. I looked to the left while Shane went up into a wash bottom 40-50 yards ahead to look for tracks, the rest of the group was quite a ways behind us. Shane relocated the track and called me over, as I rushed over I scanned the trees ahead of me and noticed a butterscotch patch tucked up under some trees about 100 -150 yards ahead of us. I excitedly motioned to Shane and asked, “Is that and elk?” He rushed over, whipped up his binos and exclaimed “That’s him, shoot him!!!” I already had the rifle on the sticks. BOOM!!! With a loud thump, the bullet reported the impact as my bull rocked back and dropped. Exhausted, I dropped to the ground, again near tears, but this time for good reasons. We heard excited shouts in the distance on the hill behind us, and then I hear Shane say “He’s getting back up! We need to hit him again!” I slam another round into him, again he dropped. Three rounds from my 300 RUM! We (my son and I) had previously never shot an animal with this rifle using these 210 grain Berger VLDS, and not had it drop instantly. This bull was tough! Once we collected ourselves, we decided to approach the bull cautiously. He was still fighting to get up, so we approached African safari style with Shane holding the sticks as I inched forward with him in my scope. At about 50-60 yards, my bull made one last attempt to stand and run. I put one more round into his chest, head on, and he was done. As we talked about what happened with this bull and these bullets we agreed, and later proved, that these Berger bullets were not penetrating. As good as they were on smaller animals (mule deer and smaller), they weren’t getting the job done on this tank. The first shot hit right where we thought (location seen in pictures below). But the bullet appears to have grenaded on impact with a rib. While breaking the rib, it did minimal damage to the vitals. The consensus is that the final HARD push that Shane and I put on him completely exhausted the wounded, but possibly not mortal wounded, bull, and that he was trying to hide it out up and under the trees where I spotted him in. Were in not for that hard exhaustive push that wore him down, I don’t know if we would have recovered him. Sometimes you experience ground shrinkage as you walk up on an animal. My beautiful bull was a 180 degree opposite. The closer we got, the more he grew! There was a lot of gawking, school girlish shrieking, and unrestrained joy! The tines on this amazing bull are ridiculous, as are his beams. The combination of these had given the deception of him being smaller than he was. With the exception of a small kicker on his left side, his tines are almost perfectly symmetrical. All intact points G1s through G4s go over 20 inches, most over 21. His G5s measure 15 inches, and his long beam is right at 57 inches. We green scored him without the broken G1 at 385.5 inches. The intact G1 is 21.5 inches. Given his symmetrical points, we believe he would have been right at 407 intact, and will be once my taxidermist molds the intact G1 to fix the broken one. I know not everyone believes in fixing points, I get it. But my bull, my decision. This hunt was amazing. It was tough. At times tougher than I expected, but I was able to harvest the bull of my dreams, and not everyone can say that. To this point, as we broke my bull down, Shane jokingly said to me, “You can now say something few hunters can. You can say you passed on a 400+ inch bull!” Yes, Shane took a lot of grief from all of us over telling me to pass on a 400 inch bull. We can all laugh about it now! I stayed up on the mountain for an extra day after that to allow the meat to cool and help spot/locate for another hunter. I got up at about 3:00 AM Wednesday morning (9/18) to drive home, arrived just as my kids were headed to school, and spent the next 12 hours butchering the massive bull. With one more bull elk hunt, three deer hunts, and two javelina hunts still to come this fall, I headed to Lowes Thursday morning to buy ANOTHER freezer. Got it all set up, repacked all my gear, bought more food, went to Draysen’s JV football game, and immediately after, headed back up the mountain. We arrived around 12:30 AM for Draysen’s opener, just a few hours away. That is its own story… Hope you enjoyed the write up. It ended up being quite long. Enjoy the pictures. A blind bull we came across. He appears to have broken off his antlers while still in velvet running into things. He was called into AZGFD. The second shot that "missed" my bull, didn't miss the tree. Spot of blood in the third bed. The round that misfired. When I collapsed to the ground after putting round number two into my bull. This picture shows the shot placement from round number one. All other shots were from the front or other side. No pass throughs. The tree I ran up to try to get a cell signal to call my wife after getting to my bull. I am up there near the top.
  2. 5 points
    What a hunt! We busted our tails since the opener. From finding crazy things out in the hills to a bunch of close calls, it was an amazing adventure. One to stick in the memory bank for sure!! I am so dam proud of my wife. From nearly wanting to quit archery due to shoulder issues, learning to shoot left handed, etc., your persistence is incredible!! I was able to call this bull in from a burn and pull him right in front of Lorie, where she made a perfect 17 yd double lung shot....he went 60 yds and piled!! Congratulations!!!!! I’m sooo proud of you!!!! Beautiful 6x6 bull from last Saturday.
  3. 3 points
    If I can find a coues in 6a this year, I'm gonna tag it and take it to the power lines for an awesome pic. 😄
  4. 3 points
  5. 2 points
    I call BS on some of the findings. I went from a 28" to 22" in my 6.5SLR. Both 1:8". 28" 140 HVLD, 43.0 H4350, 2940fps 22" 130 OTM, 43.4 H4350, 2888fps The numbers don't lie. 10gr less bullet weight, .4gr more powder, and still lost 50fps with a 6" shorter barrel.
  6. 2 points
    Just wait until they find all the dead unit 9 bulls...
  7. 2 points
    They will be in the picture with the hunter, not the trail cam pics.
  8. 2 points
    I see no powerlines....
  9. 2 points
  10. 2 points
    On Saturday I drove past Centennial Park. Whenever I go past there I pause in my mind to reflect on the passing of your brother. Never met him, but I did hear about the case and it sticks with you- the sad, senselessness of it all. A few days ago we got the first wave of snow covering the mountain tops. Everywhere you go the scenery is gorgeous, especially with the fall colors. The simple beauty draws you back in and you feel rejuvenated. I wonder if your brother had the same feelings when he looked up at the Chugach Mountains. If you ever want to come up I’ve got a place in Anchorage.
  11. 1 point
    After a few years of accumulating points, I finally decided to burn them for a mid tier unit, with plenty of public land and go hunt. I had never been super excited about Antelope in the past, being a Mule deer junkie and all..... However, I will say, I had an absolute blast, and got to spend a week with some great friends having a ball. I went several days before the season to scout, and this guy was one of the 2 best that I could find. Relocated him on opening morning, made a fairly long stalk on foot, and managed to make it count! Enjoyed a few days of world class trout fishing afterward, and even called in a few 'yotes..... Not bad for the first hunt of the '19 fall! Can't wait to do that one again. Wyoming 3 Wyoming 2 Wyoming 1
  12. 1 point
    No problem do it all the time just need to keep your eyes open and flashlight 🔦 on
  13. 1 point
    Tagged out on my last available day to hunt on a tough hunt. Pics and story coming. Not the big bull I was dreaming of but I went into this hunt with the reality I would shoot the first bull I saw. When I first found out I drew my first archery bull tag I was surprised and excited. I only had one bonus point besides my hunter safety and my loyalty point. Right away I told myself i would be scouting like a mad man and dedicating all my spare time to making the best of it. I work six days a week and scouting was slow on my only day off but I found some good elk activity in spots I already knew of and felt confident. Then the sheridan fire started. My top 3 spots were shut down to entry . Well good thing I still had plan D and a few more spots I had hunted on previous cow hunts. Opening day my plan D spot had a couple hunters working it over so I went to plan E. Plan E turned out to be where half the cow tag holders were hunting and only half the tanks in the area had water. Monsoons sucked this year. After a few days of searching and only finding old sign and multiple hunters getting to water earlier and earlier to beat the next guy in I decide to go back to plan D. A couple hunters for competition beats a dozen. Went home on wednesday night to take care of some business and was back to the hill Thursday night. I woke up Friday morning to the first sounds of the rut I had heard all week. Tried multiple times to close in on the action throughout the weekend and either got busted or they were moving to fast. Sunday night I was kicking myself for not taking my only week off work on the second week of the hunt instead of the first. My hunt was pretty much over accept for the last sunday of the hunt. Spent the week grumbling at work and thinking about my sons junior deer hunt coming up. My reason for not taking two weeks off for elk, I wanted my second available week off to give him the whole hunt to get his first big game animal. Well thursday came around and my boss found out my hunt was a three week hunt and not a two week hunt and told me I could have a two day weekend. Go hunting he said! Thanks boss!! Saturday I hit the woods and spend some time doing recon to find fresh elk sign after the big rain storms we had. No fresh sign found. Slightly discouraged I park my truck and decide to head into an area i had a blind set up on a trail at a fence crossing. Ten minutes into my trek as im slowly moving and looking for any sign of elk still being in the area I see something out od the corner of my eye. I turn, its an elk . I Can see everything but the head. Then it lifts its head to take a break from eating acorns off the scrub oak and I see horns. No time to range! He is looking right at me. He is not running away. He lets me knock an arrow, still not running away. He lets me draw! Still not running away. He is farther than 20 yards but not farther than 30 yards i tell myself as I set the 30 yard pin on his third rib and aim for the opposite shoulder for the quartering away shot. Release and thump!! He takes off. I just shot my first achery elk!!. I cow call a few times and hike back to my truck. Gotta give him an hour at least. Call in the buds to help haul out and sneak back in while they are getting geared up to come meet me. Track good blood a hundred yards and find him on the ground..with his head still up and he is looking right at me. Not what I wanted. He didnt try to move so I stuck him again and he stood up. Stuck a third arrow in the boiler maker and he walked about ten yards and did the drunken merry go round and hit the dirt. My first archery elk was down! Friends arrived and we gutted and loaded him and headed out with an amazing sunset. All three hits were vital hits. Was surprised that the elk was so tough. But, I was dissapointed that my first shot went through both sides of the elk but didn't completely pass through at a range of 25 yards. Im going to do some more thorough research on what im using before my next archery elk hunt.
  14. 1 point
    pwrguy, I'm not certain that your history with your Cabela's card should provide you with that much comfort. All Cabela's credit cards were moved to a different company (due to the Bass Pro merger) a year or so ago. So, you're dealing with an entirely different credit card company now than you have during those years.
  15. 1 point
    Never a problem with Chase
  16. 1 point
    My friend Steven drew an archery antelope tag in New Mexico so we spent the whole summer shooting and getting prepared for the fall, his focus on goats and mine on coues. His hunt went very well and he killed a buck opening day at 10:30am, which left me a few weeks to get ready for the early archery deer here in AZ. Opening morning came and I had two forks at 38 yards when I stood up from my glassing spot, but it was only an hour into the hunt and I wanted to keep glassing. Ended up putting one stalk on a bedded buck that morning but he caught my wind once I got within 40, from there it was sitting water. That evening was short on bucks at the water but I was happy to at least have seen a handful of deer, this was also the first time I've sat water for any longer than an hour. Next day I hiked into a new basin and was glassing above a tank that was 500 yards below me. After seeing a few groups of small bucks I found a 3x3 leaving the water hole below me and another heading towards the water. My buddy John and I gathered our stuff and ran down to the tank. We set up our stools between some bushes and sat for 20 min, and in that time had a 2 point and some does come drink. we quickly began building a brush blind and does were coming in while we were doing so. John Decided to go sit a different water for the rest of the day and left. Not long after he'd gone, I look to my far left at 52 yards away were the 3x3 I saw coming down and his buddy. I draw and realize I didn't trim the blind out well enough on this far left side. At full draw I begin to stand and lean out of the brush to get a clear shot. I shot and the buck turned away from the shot and I watched the arrow skip off the dirt behind where his shoulder was, all I could do was laugh. Ending up seeing over 30 deer that day on water but no bucks bigger than what I missed that morning. The next weekend we went to check out a spring we used to hunt around a lot. Had some deer come in but the most excitement came from my first run in with chiggers. Next day we stayed low enough to evade the chiggers and ending up finding a big 3x2 crabclaw coues with a fork muley buck and 6 mule deer does, the stalk was on. I got to some rocks and cut the deer off moving up the drainage. watched as they filed through, coues buck at the back. Ranged a barrel cactus they all walked by at 88, set my sight for 85 and when the buck walked into the gap I was already drawn back and gave him a grunt. Shot felt good and I watched the arrow impact his shoulder (sounded like i shot a wet brick wall) and he did a mule kick before running off. I watched him run for a ways and pulled back to watch him in the glass from the original glassing spot. Went to the last spot we saw him after waiting an hour and tracked blood for over a half mile before we lost it. I saw that my arrow didn't get much penetration, I had pushed the shot just a touch right and hit bone just an inch or two forward from a heart shot. Spent the next day looking for him and watching for birds but found nothing. My hopes were that he recovered and is still out hustling muley does from the muley bucks. Now the final weekend of the early season and I had returned to the hill I started the season on while John was nearby sitting. I glassed 4-3x3s a ways out before the sun had come up, the bucks were determined to not let the sun hit them directly. I watched as they worked down into a canyon as the shade line chased them. One buck was 90+ and other others not much smaller. John wanted to get up and move around so we could maybe see them but I told him to stay sitting while I glassed another hour, hoping to find a bigger buck. Didn't find anything bigger so I circled around to the north, hoping I would have a good perspective of the canyon and possibly catch the bucks feeding on the north slope. I made a rookie mistake and peaked over the hill then quickly set my glasses up, only to find the largest of the bucks 250 yards straight across and hes already got eyes on me. He slowly worked over the hill and I thought he had gone over for good. I continued glassing while John made his way over, and found another one of the 3x3s I had seen earlier. Once john got there, i acted quickly because I liked where the buck was located and felt confident I could make something happen. I dropped into the wash and followed it down until I was able to peek around the corner to see the tree the buck had bedded under. I ranged at 150 yards. I backed up and began crawling up the side hill, hoping to get to some rocks above me. I get to the top of the hill and to my surprise the buck is up and next to him is another 3x3 that appeared from thin air. I realize I had busted a doe and she got the bucks up from their slumber. I look at the two bucks and decide the new buck is bigger. I get to a good shooting position and range him at 88, with no way of getting closer without exposing myself I set my sight and start judging the wind. I sat on my knees and began to calm myself down. After a minute or so I felt focused and relaxed. Shot broke cleanly and arrow went right where I intended it and he was down in seconds and went 20 yards. Right after I shot, that bigger 3x3 that ran over the hill must have come back over and he spooked less than 50 yards from me, I never even bothered looking that direction during the stalk, figured he was gone! Oh well hahaha John got to watch it all go down from a few hundred yards away. He's been my archery mentor so it felt good to show him how much he's taught me. I reminded him that I likely wouldn't be out there sweating my butt off, dodging snakes and dodging lightning strikes just to be chasing coues with a bow if it weren't for him taking me under his wing. He's a beautiful buck and I couldn't have dreamed of a better coues to take with a bow. And to kill him by spot and stalk made it even that much sweeter. Archery coues has been my goal for the past few years and it felt awesome to get it done after all the work that was put in over those years. I was blessed to get him on my 7th day of early season deer hunting and couldn't be happier with the outcome. Yes this was long winded but that's just how I do it on here, thanks for reading This is the buck that busted me then came back over just to do it again My buck Trusty Outdoorsmans pack going on year 7 loaded up with my bucks head and boned meat
  17. 1 point
    Price dropped.
  18. 1 point
    Now everyone is gonna want to borrow it from you
  19. 1 point
    i thought this was a RIP thread.
  20. 1 point
    Restricting access to your personal, deeded land is one thing. However, restricting the access to public lands by their rightful owners (citizens) is something totally different. To hold public lands hostage behind gates on private checkerboards is nothing less than theft of the American people in my opinion.
  21. 1 point
    If people are serious about getting a group together PM me I would be interested.
  22. 1 point
  23. 1 point
    we should all pool our money together and buy it
  24. 1 point
    Here is an opportunity for CWT members to put in some funds and have a place to themselves.
  25. 1 point
    WOW, that would be Amazing to own! Good luck with the sale.
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