'09 Muley Pics Finally
sneekeepete
1/21/10 9:41am
Well ladies and gents I finally got all my pictures from my Dad. I will start working on my story right now and do my best to get these posted by the end of the day.
6,150
We were able to find a lot of deer mostly small bucks and does but had a couple larger bucks patterned too.
In the 4th pic there is a decent 4x4 buck but it is hard to see. Picture was taken through Spotting Scope.
Well the rays of red and yellow sun light began to peak through the high timber and reveal the high basin below me. I soon noticed the distinct swagger of a buck picking his way through the bitter brush about 300 yards in front of me. The ol boy had picked up to younger buddies as well. I put my binos on him and in an instant knew he was one of our mature bucks we had scouted. THUMP thump THUMP thump my heart began....
As I watched the bucks I knew that they hadn't Winded me yet and they were headed up over the skyline to their North Face bedding area!!! As I tried to move subtley along with them to try and bed them down the ol' boy caught my movement and without another glance began trotting. I was still within 300 yards so I set my pack on the ground laid prone and looked through my scope to try and find them. RED and Yellow Dots filled my eye as I jerked away from my scope. I had looked through my scope just to see the sun come directly over the point of the mountain. ](*,)
So I met up with Derrick and Jimmy at our determined meeting point and let them know that their "guide" had blown their opening morning. As we sat in that high basin above the horse trail we watched 15 other late hunters come up the same trail they had come up. That was just too crowded for us so we moved off and decided on another plan.
As worked on another plan we watched the other two hunters jump the bucks out of their beds without even seeing them. The bucks ran right back over skyline and into their original basin! :thumb
So we were back to square one. We slowly made our way to the basin and spread out. I figured with all the pressure these bucks would be hanging tight. So we began to do a slow steady push to the western end of the basin towards my original spotting point. When we were three quarters of the way through I looked out across the bowl and saw a face staring at me. He was a decent buck for sure but with all of the brush around him all I knew was that he was around 25 inches wide.
"THERE HE IS" I hollard at them. Jimmy was above me and couldn't hear me over the wind. Derrick was below me and couldn't see over the brush.
The buck headed strait for the dark timber below us but didn't see, wind, or hear Derrick. He bounded right in front of Derrick at 30 yards. I watched as the buck folded and then heard the boom Thwack a second or so later! Talk about a front row seat!!! Derrick had his first Mule Deer on the ground at 9 AM opening morning! He was a very unique buck with great brown tines and some stickers right above his hair line!
What a great morning considering all the hunters we had had to work around. We got Derricks buck cut up taken care of and began the three mile pack out. :thumb
We had struck out on our evening hunt opening day but were still in high spirits from Derricks success. The second morning had come and gone with out anything more than a big bull elk found recovering from the rut.
After our morning hunt we had to head down to town to participate in a family dinner my in-laws had planned. Who plans family events during the hunt #-o
Anywho the rest of the day we spent socializing in town. We ended up staying at the house that night and getting up early to head back up the the hunting grounds.
Day 3
As we began up the mountain I was somewhat discouraged after already missing half a day of the hunt and limiting our 3rd morning hunt so much. So when we reached a certain spot where I have always seen some 25" forky's in the past I decided to get out and push a small draw towards a knoll next to the road. I told Derrick and Jimmy to go set up on the knoll and spot and if we were lucky one of the big forky's offspring would have taken over this area. So I began my short 1/8 mile push and didn't see so much as a bunch of dry turds and old tracks. Just as I had come out of the last patch of trees I looked up towards Derrick and Jimmy.
There he was... A buck... 30 Yards away broadside. He looked pretty tall but that is all I could see. Without a second thought I pulled up and shot. Down he went without a twich!!! had just taken the best buck our party would end up taking! He was taken right next to one of the roughest parts of the mountain there is but still less than 700 yards off of the road!!!! Unbeleivable :thumb
Both my buck and Derricks buck had close to 3 inch thick fat all the way down their backs and a ton of fat everywhere else as well. It must have been a good spring and summer for them for sure!
This morning we were back in the high country looking for the other bucks that had been hanging out with Derricks buck. Jimmy was starting to get discourage because he still hadn't seen a buck until it was on the ground.
Jimmy being from East Texas definatley wasn't prepared for the western hunting experience like he should have been. I had tried to convince him he needed to train but he thought it unnecessary.
Well we got him on a good looking 3x3 that morning but he was breathing so hard he couldn't hold still and that three point walked into the dark timber and out of our view forever. After another high country hunt and only a few days left to hunt Jimmy's standards had dropped to anything leagal.
He was worn out, his pants didn't fit him anymore, and he was ready to give up. So we talked about all of our options and decided to pull up camp and start getting ready to head back to North Carolina. We could still hunt in the Pinion and Juniper country around town during the mornings and evenings anyways.
On our way down we went through some of the fields and spotted a forky in the edge of some woods. We headed strait home got everything unpacked and everything in the freezer. We ate a good lunch and called the property owner. He said we were fine to hunt on his property as long as we didn't shoot his water pipe which had apparently happened three times in the past.
So we headed back out to the field with Jimmy hoping to fill his tag with any leagal buck.
While we were gone another forky and spike had moved in with the other one and they were out playing and fighting one another. We pulled up without any sneaking involved. Jimmy got out rested on the fence and dropped his first Muley in its tracks at 40 yards lol
He is proud of this buck no matter how much we joke with him and I am happy that he was able to take something on his first hunt out west.
For being so out of shape he didn't give up and hung in there.
This year I was able to make a couple months worth of memories on the mountain and am still kind of in a daze from everything. I hope you all enjoyed the story.
Nice set of pics. Good looking Mulies.
M. Bird