Pair of nice bucks for my boys.

[AZ RANGER]

I haven’t shared a story in a while, been trying to find the time to write this one up and finally taking the time today. 
I didn’t draw a tag this year but my 2 youngest boys did. 

 My 16 year old, Rusten found a spot he wanted to hunt and made a couple trips in there and scouted it pretty well. He found where we could get water and got a good lay of the the land but never found any big bucks. 
The first few days of the hunt we decided to go to an area we were already familiar with. 
After a pretty brutal hike we set up a quick camp and started glassing. 
We quickly found a cool 2x3 buck bedded at 600 yards but while we were trying to decide if one of the boys wanted to shoot him, he got up and disappeared into the brush. 

By then it was mid-day so we decided to drop into the canyon and filter some water to get us through the next couple days. After filling up we made our way back to our glassing point. 
At around 2pm, Rusten glassed up two bucks bedded at 800 yards. We took a good look at them and thought the bigger one might be close to 100”. My 14 year old Camm, decided he wanted to shoot the bigger of the two bucks so we made a plan.  

Rusten stayed on the hill while Camm and I moved closer.  While we were getting into position the bucks got up and started feeding.

We got to 415 yards and found a big boulder to get into a semi-prone position. He was able to make a great shot and put down his 3rd coues deer and his biggest buck yet at around 97”. 

By the time we got him broke down and back to camp it was 830 and we were pretty  exhausted.

We got Camm’s meat cooled off and hanging in the shade and we were back at it the next morning looking for a buck for Rusten. He had his sights set pretty high on an only shooting a big buck. He has been lucky enough to kill two bucks around the 100” mark already. One of them was on the same hill that camm just killed his buck on so we were hopeful of finding another good buck.

Unfortunately, the next 2 days the wind picked up big time and we only turned up some small bucks and a bear. 

We decided to pack Camm’s deer out and move camp to the area Rusten scouted  

After a few hours at home we were back at it the next morning in a new area with high hopes  

Monday we found around 10 bucks, nothing big, but that evening we saw a couple that were too far out that looked promising.
 

Tuesday morning we glassed close to camp at first light but by mid-day we were over were we saw the bucks the previous evening. 

We were on top of a the biggest hill in the area looking down into some shaded cuts. 
At around 2pm, I found a buck up feeding about 600 yards below us. As I was trying to point him out to the boys, he disappeared behind some trees. We were waiting for him to come out and another buck appears that was noticeably bigger.
I wasn’t sure how big but I could see he had long beams and decent point length. 


Rusten decided pretty quickly he wanted to shoot him. Normally, I would help my boys find a place to shoot from and get the rifle set up for them but this time I just told Rusten to make it happen.
We weren’t able to get any closer because of a big bluff below us so I gave him the dope for 613 yards and he knocked him down. 

I was pretty surprised when I walked up to him to see that he was a better buck than I thought. This is Rusten’s 5th coues deer and also his best at close 106” 

 

We were beyond blessed on this hunt. My boys impress me so much with their willingness to put in the hard work chasing these deer in the backcountry. We had a lot of laughs especially trying to stuff the 3 of us into a 2 man backpacking tent. Good memories for sure.

 

[azbow]

Very well done family hunt! Great hunt and memories made. Thanks for posting this!

[azbow]

Oh, both bucks are really nice!

[mc68]

Very cool. Congratulations and thanks for the write up. 

[Will K]

Good to see. Congrats.

[GreatWhiteBuffalo]

Stud bucks

[Tropicalmulch]

Great story thanks for sharing.  I love that Last pic of your boys taking a break on their pack out. Good times

[CatfishKev]

Now that's what I like to see!

[forepaw]

Thanks for sharing that story.  What barrel is on your m700?  Also, is that a VX-5 or VX-6?  CDS or turret?  Lucky kids right there!

[briant_az]

Congrats to your boys and you! Awesome bucks!

[AZ RANGER]

3 hours ago, forepaw said:

Thanks for sharing that story.  What barrel is on your m700?  Also, is that a VX-5 or VX-6?  CDS or turret?  Lucky kids right there!

Barrel is a fluted Bartlien 3b in 6.5cm. 
VX-5 with turret. It used To be my dad’s rifle and was chambered in .243 win. 
My buddy Clint (Stomp442) at Neff’’s custom rifles re barreled it for me and it shoots lights out. I kept the old wood stock for character and nostalgia. 
All 3 of my boys have each killed a cow elk with it and a pile of coues deer. 
 

[OpticNerd]

Heck yeah great stuff! Those are some very nice bucks and some tough kids. Looks like you've raised those boys to be some great hunters. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

[Coach]

Great job guys! Been fun watching those guys grow up. Two great looking bucks there and a fantastic write-up! Congrats, and thanks for sharing.

[Roosevelt Mark]

Good work guys, Congrats, ...

[firstcoueswas80]

Great job boys!