Leftover Muzzy Coues...

[huntscout]

It has been a tough year for tags. I apply in most western states for as many species I can apply for and I usually draw a couple of tags somewhere, but I didn’t draw a single tag this year. That’s why I love Arizona! There are always additional hunting opportunities. With OTC archery tags and of course a variety of small game and waterfowl, I knew that I would be hunting something this Fall. When the leftover permit list came out, I jumped on the opportunity for picking up a leftover tag.

 

I had spoken to a good friend of mine, Todd Smith, who is an incredible guy and a great hunter. He has harvested some nice Coues over the last few years. He had mentioned to me that he hunted unit 29 last year on the October hunt and had a great experience. He had also picked up the tag as a “leftover” permit. He told me about some canyons that he and his buddies had hunted and they all came home with meat for the freezer. So, a couple of friends and I secured some tags and started planning for a quick weekend hunt in the Chiricahuas.

 

I decided to try and use my muzzleloader to hunt this year. I have harvested a few bucks with my rifle, but I wanted to get a Coues with a muzzleloader (and eventually one with a bow). My buddies would be using rifles so I thought it would be a good mix and a lot of fun.

 

We headed out of town on Thursday night before the opener. It was quite a long drive and we made it to the head of the canyon at about midnight. We broke out the tent and jumped into our sacks for a few hours sleep. I had already picked out some ridges that we wanted to hunt and we had some GPS coordinates picked out to navigate our way in the dark. We woke up about an hour before light, strapped on our packs and headed up the ridgelines. As it got lighter, we started to see the kind of country we were in and it looked great…. Except for the pumpkin patch of hunters we saw crawling around the canyon below us and the 6 other camps that were staggered around ours at the head of the canyon.

 

 

 

But, it was a public land hunt and it was a leftover tag, so I was just grateful to be out hunting. We spent the entire day moving up and down the ridgelines from glassing point to glassing point. We saw quite a few deer and some smaller bucks in the morning. As we were heading back down towards camp in the late evening, I glassed up a nice buck across the canyon from us. He was a bit out of range for my smokepole so one of my buddy’s took a couple of shots across the canyon at the buck and it looked like he had missed both shots. We detoured over to where the buck stood to make sure there was no blood and confirmed the clean misses. Right at dark we swung into the canyon below and checked out a water tank I had seen on the map. Of course, there were some hunters sitting on the tank and had been there all day so I felt bad that we had even thought about checking it out – I should of known better with all of the hunters and camps that were in that canyon. We bumped into the same guys later at their camp and apologized again for wandering in to their “stakeout”. They were nice guys and it sounded like they were there for the entire hunt. They mentioned seeing a ton of hunters that day and we weren’t the first to wander into the tank. Hopefully, things quieted down for them mid week and they were able to connect on something.

 

After a strategy session that night, we decided to move further up into the canyon and go farther into the mountains. The challenge was that it was a lot thicker further up and glassing opportunities would be limited.

 

 

We knew though, that a lot of other hunters would stay away from that terrain because of the steepness and thickness of the country. Morning light found us glassing where we could from high atop a small ridge in the back end of the canyon. We picked out a few small bucks, but nothing we wanted to shoot at. As mid day rolled around, we thought about checking out a spring in the back end of the canyon so we hiked in to it. We found a small tank with some fresh sign and decided to sit on it during the heat of the day. My buddy Chris is a mountain goat and he is not much for just sitting around. So, in usual fashion, he found the highest peak and steepest mountain around and headed up. As I was sitting on the water tank, I kept an eye on his progress as he ascended the slope. He said that he found some neat spots on top including a small spring that looked awesome. He also found a great skull on his little trip.

 

 

Late afternoon, he decided to come back down the mountain towards the tank we were sitting on. I watched his decent through my glass and when he was about ½ way down the mountain, he kicked up a bunch of deer. As I watched the deer scatter across the mountainside, I saw a great buck and some smaller bucks head into a small bowl on the north side of the ridge. The deer calmed down and it looked like they were going to stay in that pocket for the rest of the day. We threw our packs on and headed up to a ridge top across from the pocket the deer were in. We were about 300 yards across the canyon from the deer so we set up to wait them out. We spent the rest of the day watching a leg here and an antler tine there as the deer spent a lazy afternoon in the thick oaks. There were a few openings that we were hoping the deer would step into and I ranged all of them. I was using the Knight Long Range Hunter (.50 Cal) with a Nikon Omega scope. Now, I know that is hardly considered a “traditional” type muzzleloader, but what I can say is that it is a ton of fun to shoot. I have practiced a bunch out to 300 yards and have taken antelope and deer at some of those longer ranges so I felt very comfortable taking a shot if it presented itself. Right at dark, I had my opportunity. A small 2 point fed out into an opening that I had ranged at 300 yards. I was considering taking a shot, but I was hoping to shoot at least a 3 point. A couple of minutes later, I had my chance. A small 3 point moved into the same opening and I took my shot. When the smoke had cleared, my hunting buddies said the deer had dropped like a rock. The problem was that there was a huge canyon in between us and the deer and it was almost dark. Because of the “ankle turning” nature of the terrain and how long it would take us to get to the deer, I decided to come back at first light and recover my deer. It was a good thing I did. We had a hard time finding the exact spot where the deer had fell the next morning because the terrain was almost straight up and down and it was super thick. I felt like I had made the right decision and we recovered the entire animal (the meat was in perfect condition).

 

 

After some high fives and pictures, we packed the deer up and headed out.

 

 

What an incredible hunt! Great friends, great weather, incredible country, and steaks in the freezer. Not bad for a leftover tag. Now, I need to start focusing on my biggest challenge… an archery Coues. Come on January!!!!!!

 

[stanley]

Muzzy coues! Cool!!!! Nice job getting it done with the smoke-pole at that distance!

 

S.

 

[Coues Sniper]

Congrats on a nice buck. Sorry about being friends with Todd though, thats a bummer . Tell him the Kearneys said hello.

[huntscout]

Sounds good... I will pass it on...

[shortpants]

Congrats on your muzzy coues that's awesome!

 

Did your friends ever tag out?

[CouesWhitetail]

Nicely done!

 

thanks for sharing your adventure with us!

 

Amanda

 

[Coach]

Great Job, Bry! Nice buck and way to put that long-range hunter to work! Awesome write-up. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[SDHunter11]

Nice Coues for a smoke pole. I hope to get onewith my muzzy soon.

[huntscout]

"Did your friends ever tag out?"

 

Nope... we only had the weekend to hunt. But, I am going to give them some steaks and snack sticks as soon as I have them made up.....

[Coues Archer]

great job.

[leland]

Todd smith, i would of ran the other way. ha, just kidding, hes a riot though. congrats on the buck

[ScottAdams]

Great job Bryan!! Very nice buck on a tag that no one else wanted. Way to get it done.

[huntscout]

 

Thanks Scott! I have a few more small ones to get under my belt before I graduate to harvesting one like you did!!! Holy cow, that was an awesome buck. Congrats again!!!!!