Successful First Hunt For Friend

[CouesHunterAZ]

This past year I got one of my roommates into hunting and had him put in for hunting. He got drawn for mule deer and needless to say he was excited. Here is a long write up of our eventful hunt.

 

We went out opening morning to be flooded with other hunters, I have never so many people in one area in my life. Every single ridge had a group of hunters on it and the deer were running "wild" as they were getting spooked into us from every direction. Around 10 am we heard shots from around 2 ridges away and I pulled up the binos to see around 7 does and two average sized bucks cresting a hill moving right to left. I immediately devised a plan to get to a small hill that I believed they would be at. We walked over 3 ridges and were about to crest the hill when we heard a shot and what sounded like a hit from the other side of the hill. We quickly crested and I saw a hunter on the other side of the "canyon" looking to the north where the "canyon" bowls out. I pulled up the binos to see the deer almost cresting that hill around 370 yards away. I saw both bucks trailing in the back and one went and stood under a tree. No shot was presented for my friend but he got to see the bucks through his scope (first time he has seen a buck through his scope). The deer crest the next hill but I never see the one buck leave the tree, it just vanished.

 

We go and meet up with the guy who just took the shot and the previous shooter around 140 yards away from the tree the buck was last seen at. The initial shooter says he hit the bigger buck in the back leg, and the guy who just shot says he hit the other buck good. I tell the last shooter that I never saw his buck leave the tree, but he tells me he saw it run over the ridge. We all decide to break off in different ways with the last shooter planning on following the blood trail. He goes running to crest the ridge and I pull up my binos to see a deer head laying down under the tree. He runs 5 yards past it and yell at him that his buck's down and he passed it. Right when I do this the deer gets up and starts booking it in between us hunters. It goes over the next hill so we go one why and the other guy goes the other. After around 10 minutes we hear a shot 200 yards to our right and see the buck trotting right into us. The buck gets into an opening 38 yards away and my friend fires. I still have no idea what in the heck he was aiming for but he missed around 3 feet high and 1 foot right of the whole buck, which was slowly moving. He reloads and drops it. I could tell the guy hit it again in his last shot and that the deer would have died in the next 1000 yards or less. We signal the guy over and I tell him that it's rightfully his buck, we take a photo and leave. My friend was excited but also depressed, as I told him that that might be our last opportunity of seeing a buck with all the hunters. Here is the Pic of him and the buck.

 

 

 

After that we didn't see any more bucks on friday but heard a lot of shots. We go out saturday and sunday until 2 on each day and only see does. Hundreds of does. So many does. Nothing is more frustrating than glassing up does. After does. After does...

 

We both have school and work, but decided to skip it all for one last ditch effort on wednesday. We got up at 3:45 and were at a good glassing hill by sunrise. At around nine am I spot a group of deer trying to bed at the top of the bowl of a ridge around 1100 yards away. We worked our way over and at around 300 yards glassed where they last were and couldn't find anything. Miles (Hunting buddy) slowly started to walk up the ridge and after around 25 yards I spotted a doe under a tree. We sat down and started glassing by the doe. Miles spots 2 deer bedded behind ocatillo at 215 yards, and I put the spotting scope on them and saw that one was a little 2x2. I immediately got pumped and coming from an impatient family I wanted to move to where we could see his body and take a shot, but after reading all your guys stories we decided to wait until he stood up to take a shot. Well after two hours and almost losing all impatience a group of cattle started walking right at the deer which stood the buck up. One quick shot later and the buck was dropped. I could tell these won't be Miles's last buck from his reaction. (His yell when seeing his dead buck brought over a hunter from the next ridge).

 

 

Thanks for reading and good luck to all the hunters this next week!

CouesHunterAZ

[lancetkenyon]

Awesome story, good lessons taught to a new hunter about ethics and courtesy. Congrats.

[CouesHunterAZ]

Thanks lancetkenyon, rereading that part made it sound like we were angered with the hunter. I want to say that I was head over heals happy for the other hunter, who I could tell was ecstatic himself. We kept congratulating him as I could see in his eyes that this buck was a trophy buck to him. No hard feelings to the other hunter and I wouldn't have done the exchange any other way. We ran into and talked to 8 different groups of hunters in the week, one even helped us by driving us back to our truck when packing the buck out. This was by far the best encounters I have had with other hunters as all were very courteous and wanted each group to down some bucks. It made the hunt more enjoyable and added emphasis onto why I love hunting.

[Will K]

Very cool. Congrat's.

[DNS]

Congrats. Good lessons taught and a successful hunt.

[lancetkenyon]

I was sincere in my statement. It is great to aid other hunters in the field. That seems like a dying sentiment in a lot of younger hunters, just like common courtesy is dying in society.

[CouesWhitetail]

Congratulations on getting a new hunter into the flock! love the statement "His yell when seeing his dead buck brought over a hunter from the next ridge"...LOL!

[rcdinaz]

Good job!

[bigorange]

Awesome first hunt and first buck...agree with the sentiment of teaching him proper ethics in that situation. We could all learn from that.

[capoeirajosh]

Awesome story. Congrats.

[218buck]

Thanks for sharing congrats to the hunter on his first deer

[randyolson]

Great! Congratulations!!

[goinhuntn]

Good job and way to get a newbie started in hunting!!