Dan Beck – California

Hello, I'm sending two photos for your web page. One is from the field and one is after he was mounted. He received an official B&C Score of 180 4/8 and for a Rocky Mountain Mule Deer from Northern California is just awesome. He is only one of nine Typical Mule Deer to score that high from the Golden State. I was hunting in zone X3-B in Sept of 04. Our part was seeing a lot of sign and we were anxious for Opening to come around. We had almost a full moon that lit up everything that evening so I went out really early Saturday morning. In the moonlight I walked to a vantage point and sat down to wait for the sun to rise. Sunrise came and after several hours I walked to a new location. I crept up over a small rise and spotted 2 deer one 2x2 and one doe. They were only 20 yrd away so I had to be very quiet and move slowly. They were just feeding in the shade of several small oak trees, then I another deer move from behind a larger evergreen. WOW....Now that's a deer...my heart began pounding, my glassed fogged up as I tried to position myself on the rocks without making a sound because they were soo close. I waited for about 5 minutes while the other deer got out of the shooting lane, that was the one of the longest 5 minutes of my life. I finally got the perfect shot thru the heart and he went 20 feet and was down. His mass didn't really hit me until I walked up to him, WOW...Again...Well, he is a beautiful creature that reside in our home as long as there are hunters in the family.
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  • Description: Hello, I'm sending two photos for your web page. One is from the field and one is after he was mounted. He received an official B&C Score of 180 4/8 and for a Rocky Mountain Mule Deer from Northern California is just awesome. He is only one of nine Typical Mule Deer to score that high from the Golden State. I was hunting in zone X3-B in Sept of 04. Our part was seeing a lot of sign and we were anxious for Opening to come around. We had almost a full moon that lit up everything that evening so I went out really early Saturday morning. In the moonlight I walked to a vantage point and sat down to wait for the sun to rise. Sunrise came and after several hours I walked to a new location. I crept up over a small rise and spotted 2 deer one 2x2 and one doe. They were only 20 yrd away so I had to be very quiet and move slowly. They were just feeding in the shade of several small oak trees, then I another deer move from behind a larger evergreen. WOW....Now that's a deer...my heart began pounding, my glassed fogged up as I tried to position myself on the rocks without making a sound because they were soo close. I waited for about 5 minutes while the other deer got out of the shooting lane, that was the one of the longest 5 minutes of my life. I finally got the perfect shot thru the heart and he went 20 feet and was down. His mass didn't really hit me until I walked up to him, WOW...Again...Well, he is a beautiful creature that reside in our home as long as there are hunters in the family.
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8 Comments

Guest

Were you on the Surprise Valley or Alturas side of X3-B. That is one heck of a buck for California, or anywhere. Congratulations!

Guest

Actually, we were hunting in the south central area of X3-B. It was about 10 miles NE of Moon Lake. There were some nice bucks taken out to that area. We had good luck on our side that trip. Thanks

Guest

To answere your question, I was shooting a Savage .308 with a 168 gr ballistic silver tip bullet. The bullet did a very nice job. My only concern at the time was where to put the cross hairs to calculate for the close range. He ran out of my sight and for a second I though that I may have shot too low.

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