sixgunner455

How fun! Congrats.

I grew up in a state where you could always get doe tags, so I usually just hunted them. Whenever I did try for a buck, I never saw one, and wanted the meat anyway, so it didn't bother me to just hunt does. When I moved to Sierra Vista almost 12 years ago, I was surprised that ere were no doe tags available. I've hunted Coues several times, learning a lot about gear, techniques, glossing, and preparation each time. I always find deer, but have never found a buck during a season when I actually had a tag. My 16yo boy and I decided to try hunting deer this year. It is his first deer hunt. He's hunted javelina and dove before. We put in for and got Coues tags for 35A for Thanksgiving. Friday, we drove out past Montezuma Pass and hunted the west side. We hiked in, sat on a ridge, and saw three groups of does, and a lot of hunters running the roads. One hunter hiked in from the road to the first hill he came to, and glassed for five minutes, then left. A group of does snuck around him in the brush. Didn't seem to see them, but I don't know. Saturday, I woke my boy up, but he didn't feel good. He's been sick, so I let him sleep and took care of some things around the house. Around noon, he said he wasn't going to go and I should just go try on my own. Since it was late to be going out, I decided to stay on the east side and went up a canyon I'd seen some pretty good bucks in before it got scorched during the Monument fire a few years ago. There were some hikers in the canyon, but it seemed like there were no other hunters. I parked at the trail head, and started up toward Miller Peak (all those canyon trails pretty much lead there eventually). I saw some dried blood spatters on the trail, and a group of hikers who'd gone up to Miller that morning told me that a guy was dragging a buck down the trail that morning when they were going up. I almost just left to go somewhere else, but decided I didn't have enough of the day left, and it's a big area, so there had to be more deer. I went in a couple of miles and sat down on a ridge to glass for the rest of the afternoon, but I didn't see anything. Found a cool old cartridge case, though: a .351 Winchester Self Loading, that was only chambered in the 1907 Winchester rifle. I hiked out pretty slow, glossing and checking, and a few hundred yards from the trail head, came across a few deer right off the trail. I spent about twenty minutes playing tag with them, trying to see if one was a spike, but they were all does. I got down to the trail head, and there was a hunter there glassing the hill across the canyon. He was on a pair of bucks, but said they were too little for him - a 3x3 and a forkhorn. I told him I just want to put some meat in the freezer, so he helped me find them. One ranged at well over 400 yards, and the other was 290. It was late, and I debated letting it go, but I had a solid rest, little to no wind, and a clear shot on a feeding deer. Besides, says I, it's only 300 yards - I can get there in ten minutes! So, I took the shot on the closer buck. It was a solid ht, he dropped and kicked for a minute, and lay still. I finally connected! And I was only a few steps from my truck. I dumped all my excess great in the truck, and hoofed it for the clearing, but it got so dark, I stumbled around in the light of my headlamp for a couple of hours without finding him. I had no cell coverage, so I called out on my HAM radio through the Mule Mountain EARS repeater and got a guy to call my wife to let her know I was okay. Then I hiked out. It was cooling off a lot, and I figured if I was back at first light with some help, I'd get him in in time for church, and he'd be okay because of the cooler temperature. Well, that's exactly how it worked out. Two buddies agreed to go with me, one an experienced hunter, and the other a friend from the Army. I set one of them up where I fired from with a pair of nice binos and a tripod, dialed in the clearing, and told him exactly where the buck should have been. Once we were on the hill, I checked back in through my binos, and he'd wave his arm with a lit flashlight to signal directions, and walked us right to it. He said when I picked it up, he'd thought it was a rock. Did a gutless quartering on the spot, hauled it out in an old Alice pack, stuck the meatbags in a cooler full of frozen water bottles, and did actually make it to my speaking assignment at church. But I am one tired old dog!

Sounds like a great, tough hunt. Congratulations!

Thanks, guys. Hopefully, I've got quite a few more years hunting in me.

Mhayez: If the hunters are following the four rules of gun safety, the they shouldn't be shooting randomly just because they are excited. Good luck on your hunt!

Oh, cool. I'm going spotting in one of the canyons early tomorrow morning. That gives me another idea for something to do if I don't find any animals to look at - hadn't even thought about looking for sheds.

That's the thing that lots of people don't get - hunters *do* admire and love animals while they are alive. We have to. Otherwise, we'd never find them to hunt them. Hunting and killing animals is not the same as exterminating all of them, or thinking that all of a certain species have no right to live. An objection that I have heard to hunting predators is that "Mother Nature" will control the numbers - when there are fewer prey animals, there will be fewer predators, so why do you have to kill them? The thing is, that's true. But Mother Nature's predator control method is starvation: the predators eat all the prey animals, and then starve to death. This is actually a healthier control method - hunters keep the lion numbers down to a healthy level, the lions keep the deer herds clean of diseased/weak animals, hunters get to hunt deer and lions, and lions that are pursued but not killed (most of those that interact with a hunter and his hounds) are reminded to stay away from people, which leads to keeping lions and non-hunting people (hikers, campers, runners, livestock producers) safer from each other. There is no negative to taking a few lions out every year. I buy a lion tag every year, but all I usually see is tracks and scat. I'm going to get more serious about it this year, and we'll see what happens. Congrats to the OP. That is a cool hunt.

That's cool! I picked him out pretty quickly, because the line of his back didn't look like a plant, but other than that, he's practically invisible. What a cool cat!

Amazing shot, sir.

I've applied twice for elk cow tags in AZ. I just want to hunt, I don't really care where. At least not yet! Got a cow tag in 7E Peaks last year, and 2A/2B this year.

Wow, some of you guys carry a lot of stuff. I have hurt myself humping too much stuff up and down a mountain. I'm not doing it again. I don't see how a guy can carry 80+lbs of gear up a mountain and then carry it all and a deer back down. Not as lean and mean as I used to be, I guess. My pack is a Camelback Mule. I won't use a bigger one, because if I do, I'll carry too much crap. I know me. I won't be able to help myself. I carry a first aid kit, emergency overnight kit, some lightweight, high energy food, 3L of water, extra ammo, game bags, small dual band HAM radio, small GPS, compass, map sheet for the hunt area, 1pr extra socks, a knife, a diamond hone, and if the weather is looking lousy, extra heavier clothes. If I'm going super lightweight, I put a 642 and 5 extra rounds in my pocket. Otherwise, I put a .357 on my belt. Yeah, that's under 20lbs. If it's not, I unpack it all and start eliminating things I really don't need until it makes weight. I use an aluminum treking pole, too, but I don't count that or the pistol in the pack weight. Then I have to add a rifle - Savage 11 .243, Bushnell Fullfield II. No sticks, no bipod. If I need a rest, I'll use the pack.