Dec WT

[youngbuck]

Well I guess this story starts about the same time as last year. I helped my buddy Justin tag out on his very first coues; a buck just over 90" w/ only a 9" inside spread. It was a killer looking buck. As soon as we got done back to town I asked him, "so going back to muleys?" He replied "Not for a while!" Well I'm pretty sure he was hooked. Well the lucky dog drew back to back December tags. This year he said he was holding out for a 100".

 

Fast forward a few months and he wasn’t changing his goals. He was set on a 100" buck. Justin, his dad, and my dad were glassing opening morning, as I was at work. I got a call saying that Justin's dad passed on a 90-95" buck with a busted g-2. I was kind of disappointed. That is a hard buck to pass up. After work on Friday I rushed to camp and hoping to find a stomper at first light. We were about 20 deer into the day with a few bucks when Justin found him. We got the spotting scope out and had a look. I couldn't see brow tines, or tine length, but we saw mass and main beam height. Well the chase was on. He was about a mile off and we had a little to tracker that would take us most of the way their. Justin and I headed off after him and left my dad and Justin's dad as eye in the sky. We get about a third of the way to him, and ran into a problem. There was a giant tree blocking out path. We get out to see what we can do about it, just as we hear the radio in my pocket crackle, "why did you stop?" "We got to get around this tree" we replied. "Lion! Lion jumped him out of his bed!" We ripped my gun out of the scabbard and got set up, as I ranged. 1028. That ended that plan. The lion was never seen again and the king sized whitetail buck disappeared after a non stop run of about a half mile. We slowly got back into the ranger and moped back up to our glassing spot, heartbroken. That was the biggest buck I had seen while hunting. We glassed the rest of the day and Sunday and found an insane amount of deer. One afternoon we were up to about 40 when we stopped counting. Plenty of bucks were seen, pleny of good bucks, just nothing we saw got our attention like the "lion buck" did. Justin and I were able to hunt Monday as well after my dad and Justin's dad left. Well Monday was the day of bucks. We saw 3 bucks around 90, a couple around 80 and a few spikes. Justin held true to his word, "100" this year!" Well our opening weekend of December came to a close with no shots fired, and a lion beating us to the buck we wanted.

 

The second weekend came very quickly. I again, came up Friday after work. Saturday morning we found the buck again that Dave had passed on opening weekend. With work commitments this was his last weekend to hunt. We made our move. We climbed up a hill and topped out in a low spot in some brush. Dave set up for the shot at 440 yards with the deer above us in elevation. I told him to put the 400yard line right on him. The deer held up behind his does for a few minutes. He was going to step out into a small opening before getting into the brush and out of sight. I told Dave I would try to stop him in the opening. The buck took a few steps and I bleated at him. He stopped at looked right at us as Dave squeezed the trigger. Boom!!! "Did I get him?" he asked. "You smoked him! He’s piled up right were he was standing!" After all the high fives and hollering we headed up after him. Perfect high shoulder shot with the 180gr accubond. We saw a .30 entrance whole, exit whole was about the size of a dime, and everything in-between was jelly. I’ve seen this combo produce these results time after time, it still amazes me. Got back to camp with our prize and stretched a tape on him. 90" and change with a broke G-2 that would be good for about 3 inches. If he wants pictures up he will let me know, I'll post them if he does. The rest of that weekend was focused on finding Justin his 100". We kept looking for the lion buck with no success. We tried another spot in the unit with our lack of 100"ers found. Well we failed to find anything he wanted bad enough. We only had one more weekend to close the deal, the pressure was on.

 

After Christmas morning we were on the road. We got to our glassing spot with about an hour and a half of light. We did pretty well. We found about 12 does a few spikes and one buck in the mid 80's. I insisted to Justin his tag did read "any antlered whitetail". He was still wanting to join the 100 club. Well Friday was over fast and we were greeted early by Dave Saturday morning. He found time to help us for a day. Saturday morning was cold, very cold. I was very thankful for my new wool lined henley I received for Christmas. We found plenty of deer at first light, but no good bucks. At about 830 I went out on a Limb and glassed across the canyon for the lion buck. "I got deer; set up that spotter!" I talked Dave into the deer with the spotter. I saw antlers from about a mile away in the 15s. I thought it was too good to be true. I was so excited I shoved Dave off of his own spotting scope. (sorry Dave) "That’s him, the lion buck! Its go-time!" We left Dave to make sure he wasn’t going to follow his half a dozen does out of sight. We headed off just as before, this time with the tree cleared, and hopefully the lion occupied. We got as close as we could and started to hike. We set up on an adjacent ridge that may have offered a shot. It was worth the 20 minute climb to prevent an hour trek for a better shot. It was almost time for the buck to bed down or feed out of sight. Our gamble did not pay off. We descended down the hill and crossed on the mountain below the buck for a better shot. About an hour later, we finally got to a spot where we could shoot; 330 yards extremely uphill. The shooting position was less than ideal. We were on the same hill as the buck, in about 4-6 feet of brush and had a small window to shoot through. My bipod is set up for prone and sitting. Justin had to stand. We set up his tripod for the front of the gun and mine for the butt. The buck was standing broadside with the doe in the same position, blocking everything but the shoulder and swollen neck of the buck. We waited and waited and waited for either to take half a step. With out exaggeration it was bout 10 minutes of waiting for Justin. He was cramping up after hiking all over this mountain, his eyes were failing after looking through a scope. He was rarely looking, but found it hard to take his eye of the buck that already got away from us. We talked about a neck shot. We both knew the gun would do it, and so could Justin; easily. He did not like his set up on the tripods and wasn’t comfortable with the shot. He decided to wait for a step. Well it finally happened, but not the step we were hoping for. He turned away from us and walked straight away. As soon as the buck offered the slightest quartering shot the gun went off. We immediately saw the doe run off without the buck. Shortly after we saw the buck rolling down the cliff/mountain we were on. We were ecstatic; yelling, hoopin’ and hollerin’ and high fivin’. We just smoked the big one, the one that had gotten away. We knew Dave heard us across the gorge that was about a mile off, because we could hear him yelling too. We sat down to get a drink and rest. We were acting like contortionists for the past 10 minutes. After a short break we climbed the 330 yards to the buck. This took us at least 20 minutes. I wish I had a latter. We had never gotten a great look at this buck. Neither of us saw the brow tine length, or really any tine length. We could see height and mass. We knew he would break the century mark but not by how much. We finally got to Justin’s buck. This was the buck he wanted; heavy, tall, long tines, gnarly, bladed everything, Great looking buck. We get to pictures then cleaning and caping. We finally loaded up our pack and headed off the mountain. This was no small task with packs over 60lbs. We had all the meat, half body cape, tons of water, food, tripods, cameras, tripods, gun, and all the normal stuff that has eventually gotten to be a lot. Well we made it off the mountain back to the ranger around 230 and ate. We had not eaten a thing all day yet. That is not the norm for either Justin or I. We are both good for about 3500 calories a day. More when we are hunting. I’ve never had a muffin that tasted so good. We drove back to Dave to show him what we had done. Six and a half hours later we were done. We took a few more pictures and headed back to camp. As soon as we were back to camp we got the meat on ice and I rewarded myself with a calorie rich Blue Moon. I got the tape out and got to stretching. Guesses welcome. Don’t guess if you know.

 

 

 

 

[TAIL CHASER]

Great buck he definantly reached his goal of a 100"er congrats to all involved.

[FlyingW]

Good story and a pretty buck !!! Congrats

[ruffcountry]

Nice buck , your perseverence paid off !

 

111

[bonecollector]

Thats a nice buck and good job on the write up.

[azryan]

I cursed out loud a couple times that buck is big! Congrats to you guys

[deercrazy]

Thats a great story, and a real nice buck. Something to remember for a lifetime.

[king4wd]

That is a jaw dropping buck!

[firstcoueswas80]

Thats an awesome buck!

 

Can you post of the buck with the 9" spread from last year?!

[tjhunt2]

Great story and congratulations to everyone on an awesome buck.

 

TJ

[Ernesto C]

That's an immpresive buck!! Not giving up it pays off!! Now tell us, what's the score? 108, 110?

 

Ernesto C

[Brian Payne]

Great deer! Way to hold out for the big one. I think the folks that have already guessed are pretty close. 110" range.

[Coach]

What an amazing buck and a great story to go along with it. I would guess 113 conservatively, maybe 117"??? That is one great looking buck. It obviously took a lot of patience and work, but it was clearly worth it.

[Coach]

BTW, great job on the photos. I love it when hunters take the time to pose their deer respectfully in the field. Kudos on one heck of a buck, story and pictures for us all to drool over.

[azcoues33]

Awesome buck good job!