MuleyMadness Hunting Forums

Very enjoyable thread you have Ridgetop, you're documenting this perfectly. Looking forward to more.

hello Ridge I need my fix. come on man I need it bad!

Ok ridge, spill the beans already!

Sorry guys. I've been really busy with work, family and the hunts. I also think there's been a few locals following my reports and going into our area lately. Which is a risk I won't probably be making in the future and I now think the "lookout" buck might now be out of the picture for good. Either he's left the area and is miles away or lion killed or another hunter took him.
Back to the hunt.
Toms buck took off after he had stood up, so Tom went to help Paul get his buck out. My daughter and I went to our camp to drop off our gear and then went in the direction of Paul to help. By the time we got over there(which was about a mile from camp). Paul, Tom and Corby were already heading back. Here's Paul packing out his 160" class buck.

I am sorry if someone is scalping your post's I do not remember you ever posting an area though. I hope this is not the case I love reading your post's.

Back to the story....
Aug. 25th
I got up right at first light but my daughter wanted to keep sleeping awhile longer. So I hiked just a short distance from camp and looked into a very deep, rough canyon we have named "the hole". I spotted the cactus buck I've seen around for the last couple years. He's not very tall but has huge bases, with 10 or 12 points on each side. Instead of waiting for it to bed, I felt I needed to get back and check on my daughter and see if she was ready to go back and look at the buck with me. After she was ready to go, for some reason I felt like we should quickly look into a canyon to the south before going to the north to look at the cactus buck again. Within seconds of looking into the canyon to the south, I spotted a very big buck bedded in the pines. After looking through my spotting scope, I discovered it was the buck we named "forky". I called Tom, Paul and Corby to come check him out and decide if Tom or Corby wanted to make a stalk on him. After watching the buck get back up and feed awhile and then bedded again. Tom made about a three hour stalk on it and shot it at about 35 yards after it got back up and was feeding again. We scored Toms buck in the low 190s. Boy I misjudged that buck from a distance, It was huge up close.

So glad you decided to look into that canyon! Thanks for spotting Forky, getting me on him and for helping me pack him out. Man, that sure sounds like I owe you one! Guess it's time for some payback.

Monday, Sept. 3rd

I decided to take some more water up to our remote campsite and meet up with my cousin and his wife which had been up there since Friday. I saw about a dozen small bucks while hiking in but was really shocked to get a report from John that they had only seen two small bucks in the three days they were up there. Where did all the nice bucks we saw two weeks earlier go? That's how it goes sometimes.

Sept. 22nd

John and I took some water and supplies up to our camp for the upcoming muzzleloader hunt. We jumped one real nice 4 point while hiking in. We never saw any other good bucks but I'm hoping we can get a better look at this one. Here's some video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4XJhuJbbyM

Sept. 25th

After working a full day and getting home, packing the rest of my gear. I was off for the mountain where I would meet up with Tom. John had already gone up to camp earlier in the afternoon. He had called me around 2:00pm a little freaked out because a lion had been in our camp just hours before. It had dug a hole just a few feet from our tents and you could see its tracks in the mud from the morning storm. By time Tom and I got to camp, it was a little after 10:00 pm. The full moon made it easy hiking in the dark. John hadn't seen anything good that afternoon but I was still really looking forward to seeing the lookout buck after he had rubbed off his velvet. This was really going to be a great hunt.