2015 Paunsaguant Hunt
JBird
12/7/15 3:58pm
It's a little late but I enjoy hearing/reading stories anytime of the year.
When my dad called me in February and asked what my thoughts were on putting in for the new premium Pauns tag I told him he ought to put in for a muzzleloader tag, knowing he had 11 points I thought there was a good chance he would draw it. He responded that what fun was one hunt when he had a chance to hunt all three? I couldn’t argue with that, but in my mind I was sure that we wouldn’t be hunting the Pauns at all for another few years.
Much to my surprise I got another call from him in late May, he was looking at his credit card statement and had a charge that corresponded to a premium limited entry tag. I couldn’t believe it, and with all the moisture we were receiving here in Southern Utah I knew it was going to be a great fall.
As the summer progressed my dad, brother, friends and family all started game planning and scouting. Hardly a week went by that we weren’t hearing about a big buck popping up somewhere on the unit. As the end of June approached things started to heat up as the bucks were finally developed enough to get a good idea of what we were looking at. We began hanging cameras and making scouting trips as often as possible. The first few trips we spent learning a portion of the unit we weren’t as familiar with. We found some good bucks and one giant. He was a giant typical that I figured was an easy 200”. It was three weeks before the bow hunt, the bad news was my dad has a bad shoulder and wouldn’t be able to hunt him till the muzzleloader hunt.
To be continued…
Here’s a couple of pics, unfortunately I did a terrible thing a couple of weeks ago and deleted everything off my SD card in the camera and I hadn’t backed them up…moral of the story always get your pics/video off the SD card ASAP. Anyway here’s a couple of pics from way early in the summer.
When my dad called me in February and asked what my thoughts were on putting in for the new premium Pauns tag I told him he ought to put in for a muzzleloader tag, knowing he had 11 points I thought there was a good chance he would draw it. He responded that what fun was one hunt when he had a chance to hunt all three? I couldn’t argue with that, but in my mind I was sure that we wouldn’t be hunting the Pauns at all for another few years.
Much to my surprise I got another call from him in late May, he was looking at his credit card statement and had a charge that corresponded to a premium limited entry tag. I couldn’t believe it, and with all the moisture we were receiving here in Southern Utah I knew it was going to be a great fall.
As the summer progressed my dad, brother, friends and family all started game planning and scouting. Hardly a week went by that we weren’t hearing about a big buck popping up somewhere on the unit. As the end of June approached things started to heat up as the bucks were finally developed enough to get a good idea of what we were looking at. We began hanging cameras and making scouting trips as often as possible. The first few trips we spent learning a portion of the unit we weren’t as familiar with. We found some good bucks and one giant. He was a giant typical that I figured was an easy 200”. It was three weeks before the bow hunt, the bad news was my dad has a bad shoulder and wouldn’t be able to hunt him till the muzzleloader hunt.
To be continued…
Here’s a couple of pics, unfortunately I did a terrible thing a couple of weeks ago and deleted everything off my SD card in the camera and I hadn’t backed them up…moral of the story always get your pics/video off the SD card ASAP. Anyway here’s a couple of pics from way early in the summer.
46,329
looking forward to the rest of the story.
I work as wild land fire fighter and about this time I got really busy and spent a couple weeks in Oregon. My dad and brother kept at it but didn’t turn up anything else that really interested us. One night a couple of days before the bow hunt started I got a call from a good friend of mine asking if we had found anything we were planning on hunting I told him about the couple of bucks we had in mind and he proceeded to tell me that he had turned up an absolute giant buck, and wanted me to go take a look at him, being in Oregon that wasn’t going to happen, and my brother and dad were unavailable due to work and my brother’s bow tag. I told him we’d have to go when I got back and asked how big he thought this buck was, he said “I don’t know, I don’t think I should tell you, but he’s way North of 210” maybe 215” but he’s in the velvet so he’s probably only 210”. I couldn’t believe what he was saying I knew the area the buck was in, a mix of public and private, thick juniper and pinon and one good spot to glass. He also informed me that the buck was on the down low but there were a few other guys around that knew about him and were going to try and kill him on the bow hunt. We chatted little longer and then hung up. I couldn’t believe it. 215? That would be one of the biggest bucks I had ever seen on the unit, that wasn’t on Heaton’s ranch, and way bigger than anything else we had turned up. I called my dad and relayed the info to him. He was excited and worried that we wouldn’t get a chance at him. I told him not to worry, but I was just as worried if not more.
Opening morning came and went every chance I had I was checking the social media outlets for pics of one of our boys but none of them ever showed up. Luckily it appeared they had made it through at least the first couple of days. When I finally got home I got in touch with my friend and checked out some film on the big buck. I couldn’t believe the size, he was big in every aspect, width, mass, tine length, he was a dream buck.
As the archery hunt drew to a close we were excited to see that all of the bucks we were watching had made it through the hunt and were now just waiting for us to take a crack at them. We spent the week and a half between the hunts fine tuning the muzzleloader and keeping track of the bucks, the big buck proved to be very elusive now that he was hard horned and we only spotted him once before the hunt started.
Finally the day came, unfortunately for me I had a biology exam at 10 AM and would miss out on the action, fortunately for me there was very little action that took place. My dad and brother had made their way into the big buck’s home and were greeted with three other groups of hunters doing the same and no sightings of the buck; they did turn up some other cool bucks including a gnarly 3x4 that was just neat as could be. I joined up with them for the afternoon hunt and it was even less eventful than the morning hunt, with only one small buck being spotted. But we weren’t discouraged we knew the buck was there and we had as much chance as anybody to find him.
As the sun broke over the hills we began seeing deer, lots of deer. In the first few minutes of day light we had seen 20+ bucks with three that were over 180”. Soon I spotted what I thought was the big typical heading down a draw with three other bucks. We hurried to get in a position to cut him off, but when we got there the group was nowhere to be seen, so we split up to cover more of the draw. I had been working up the draw for about 15 minutes when I spotted another group of bucks. I recognized one of them immediately. He was the extremely tall 4 point from the pictures above. I had not seen him since I took the pic and was impressed on how much more length he had put on. The other large buck in the group was a good buck but I didn’t pay him much mind at first, but after a second look and a little math I decided I better get the other guys on the radio and have them come check him out.
It didn’t take them long to show up and we gave the buck a good look over. It didn’t take my dad long to decide that even though it was a good buck (I was thinking 190”-195”) he didn’t want to shoot him, small eye guards, not enough trash he said. So we kept hunting. I was a little worried about the decision, I knew we had basically two hunts to go, but I knew there were only so many chance to harvest a 190” buck too. The rest of the morning was uneventful.
That afternoon we went back to look for the big buck. We hunted hard for him but with no luck, it was a similar story to the night before, few deer, fewer bucks, nothing big. We ran into a co-worker of my dad’s that was helping a friend of his on the hunt. He has been a guide on and off for years so we asked him his opinion on the buck we had passed that morning. He confirmed that it was a 190-195 type buck but we shouldn’t worry cause we had plenty of time. I was still sick to my stomach about passing that kind of buck.
The rest of evening came and went, and all too soon the sun had set. We were heading out to the main road when we came to an intersection and out of the corner of my eye I saw a truck parked off the side of the other road, I thought I saw antlers sticking out of the bed, but they didn’t appear to be special, we turned around to take a look and offer congratulations. As we turned around and the head lights hit the rack, giant back forks, with matching in-lines and cheaters, my heart sank, there he was, dead. We got out to take a look, he was even bigger than we had guessed. The lucky hunter was Chad Mendez (those of you who follow the UFC know who he is), he and Jeremy Chamberlain of Color Country Outfitters had bumped the buck before first light that morning and had watched him bed, snuck within 100 yards and waited all day till the buck stood up just before dark, and then made the shot. We shook hands and gave congratulations. To say I was disappointed was an understatement; my dad on the other hand seemed to be happy because he “didn’t have to worry about killing that buck anymore”. The buck ended up going 218” and was 31” wide. Congrats again to Chad and CCO.
More still to come.
Video of the tall 4
Video of the buck we passed.
Chad Mendez's buck
So it was back to the drawing board so to speak, we still had the big typical and the cheater buck that I had seen once this summer and we had yet to hunt him. We decided to give him a try Friday morning. Bad idea. It appeared we were not the only ones looking for him, and it was a very unproductive morning. Being out of ideas and wanting a little break from people we decided to try a spot that afternoon that was either going to produce or make for a very long afternoon. To our surprise it was fairly productive, we encountered more deer than we had planned, we didn’t find a shooter but we knew where we would be in the morning.
As the sun came up Saturday morning we were in position and began glassing, it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that the deer weren’t there it was strange, draws that had deer in them the night before, had nothing, an hour and a half of glassing and we only found one doe. We packed up and headed to back to camp a little disappointed. As we were bumping down the road a doe ran across the road followed by a buck. As I threw my binos on him my heart started to beat a little faster. It was a pretty dang nice buck. He had great mass, a couple of cheaters on each side and a big in line between his G4 and eye guard. The only problem is he wasn’t stopping anytime soon, as we scrambled to get out of the truck he made his way up and over the ridge, we raced to a glassing point to try and get eyes on him, but we never could relocate him.
We gave it another try that afternoon but we still couldn’t turn him up, we saw a few other good bucks in the area but nothing great. I found out later that there was a non-typical shot in that same area on the rifle hunt that was just over 200’’ and had a big inline, I don’t know if it was the same buck or not.
Sunday was break day and Monday I had to return to school. My dad and brother continued hunting with the same results lots of smaller bucks and a few good bucks but still nothing that made my dad want to pull the trigger. I was able to make it back over to the unit Tuesday morning and it was decided that we’d go hunt the big typical one more time. As luck would have it we found him. But as is usually the case he was in a bad spot, in the bottom of draw making his way towards some private property. We made a hurried sneak on him but didn’t make it before he made the safety of the fence.
That afternoon we got a tip of a good buck hanging out in a part of the unit that we were not familiar with at all, but decided to give it a try. We didn’t see any deer but there was plenty of sign and zero people. The next morning while I was back in school I got a text from my brother saying they had found the deer and there were a couple of good bucks, a couple 180”+, but still nothing that really stood out. At this point I decided to skip the class the next day and hunt the last day with them. I left Cedar at 4:15 the next morning and at daylight we were glassing to awesome looking country, but to no avail the only bucks spotted were a giant 2x3 and cactus buck that had bases as big as coke cans. About mid-day we drove out on a point we were more familiar with and hiked out on the end to glass some familiar country if for no other reason than to look for sheds and see if the deer and begun to migrate yet. I had been glassing for about 15 minutes when I spotted something that got me excited. It was a buck, and a big one at that. The only problem was he was already dead, even from 2+ miles away I could tell through the spotting scope that it was a pretty big dead head. With nothing better to do we decided to get a closer look. When we finally arrived I couldn’t believe what we were looking at. It was one of the coolest bucks I had ever seen. After a few quick pics we GPS’d it and reported it to the DWR, we recently received the head back from the DWR. He scores 218” is 32” wide and has 40” of mass. As for the rest of days hunt it was uneventful, as the sunset we began game planning for the upcoming rifle hunt and hoping for some winter weather to make its way into the area.
Finally the day before the hunt arrived and I made my way over to Kanab to do some last minute scouting and finalize a plan for the next day. My dad, brother and I all split up and headed to three different glassing locations. I headed to an area that I had watched three great bucks the fall/winter before in hopes to glass them up coming down the migration trail, while my dad checked on another canyon and my brother headed to the very south end of the unit to see what may have already made it down there. My trip was for naught, all I was able to turn up was 8 different hunting parties and a hand full of does, my brother’s trip was even less productive, but my dad’s turned out to be very eventful he had turned up a great buck he said, a no brainer shooter is what he called him. Seemed as if the problem of where to hunt was solved, and did I mention that a giant storm front had blown in that afternoon and had dropped the temps and was promising to rain all night? Things were looking up.
The bad news, if you want to call it that, was my younger sister, and girlfriend and myself all had rifle tags on the Zion unit. I’m a dedicated hunter and wasn’t too concerned about filling my tag, but the girls on the other hand were just as excited to hunt. So instead of heading out with my dad and brother I took the girls, and headed out to the other side of the highway in hopes of filling at least my girlfriend’s tag as soon as possible. Well the story of that hunt is for another day suffice it to say that after some truck problems a torrential downpour a 6 mile hike to cell service in said downpour and a missed opportunity to fill both tags on two good bucks, it was quite the opening day for me and my two hunters.
Meanwhile on the Pauns, they were having the same issues with the storm. Visibility was poor and many of the roads were now running creeks. They hadn’t been able to turn up the big buck but had seen some other nice deer. We later found out from an acquaintance who had been glassing the area from above and watched the big buck my dad had seen the night before sneak right out from under them on the opposite side of the ridge they were glassing from. But with no way of contacting them the buck made his way into the safety of the juniper jungle.
The next few days were very similar, lots of deer moving through the area but nothing special. The rain kept coming as well, which was good and bad. It kept the deer moving down, but made for some tough glassing conditions. Tuesday morning found my dad and brother back in the same location as the opener, but this time they had a good buck in the scope. As they made their way over to him they were pretty sure he was a shooter. They got within range and got set up for the shot. But after thinking about it my dad passed on him. It was a solid buck in the 28’’ range but had only average mass and weak backs. Tuesday afternoon was the same story we glassed up many bucks but still nothing that was what we were looking for. That evening I had to return to school for a test Wednesday, and planned to return Thursday. Things were looking good. The temps had dropped and we were still receiving rain the forecast called for cooler temps through the weekend and less storms. I was confident the last four days would be much more productive than the first four. I was right.
As a small side story my girlfriend was able to connect on a sweet 3x3 Thursday morning. After having missed a big 3 at 70 yards broadside a few days before she impressed me putting one through both front shoulders on this guy at 150 yards as he trotted through the aspens.
As we passed the knoll where I had wanted to glass the afternoon before I again mentioned that it would be a good idea to get up on there and glass, again my suggestion was met with a less than thrilled response. I didn’t know why but I felt like it was going to be productive. It was just me and my dad that afternoon, and I again suggested hiking to that knoll put he didn’t want to, so we went back to where we had been the evening before but made plans to be much closer to where I had been seeing the deer. We parked and began hiking into the bowl. We immediately began seeing deer or more precisely deer behinds, as it was super thick and they could hear us coming long before we could see them. Soon we made it to the edge of bowl and had a much better view of the area. We found a little knob that would give us a good view of area and began making our way towards it. As we neared the top I heard some movement behind and below us in the oak. I was following my dad, and I don’t think he had heard what I had. I stepped around the oaks and saw a smaller buck making his way down the draw, and standing just below him was a monster buck! It only took a split second to know I was looking at a giant of a buck, he was tall and heavy, but not terribly wide, he had a couple of cheaters off each side and one off the right side was probably 6”-7” long I quickly ducked back behind the oak brush and whispered/shout whispered “Shooter, shooter.” My dad got in position but the buck was nervous and started trotting. As he cleared a patch of oaks my dad touched one off…
It was a bittersweet feeling, having actually seen a buck of that caliber, but knowing we could have very well missed our best chance of killing a monster. Looking back there’s a few things that we wanted to do differently we definitely rushed the situation, but that’s always the case when it comes to the one that got away.
Saturday morning we were back in the same area hoping to catch a glimpse of him or another good buck, but it wasn’t ment to be. We did watch a nice 4 point walk over a ridge and get smashed, but that was about the extent of the morning, we hiked and glassed till lunch and took a little break.
Later that afternoon we were glassing one of my favorite places when I glassed up a good looking buck a little over a mile away. He had just stood up out of his bed and looked to be a shooter. We made a game plan and 20 minutes later we were less than 500 yards away from where he had been. The key word there is had. He was gone, probably slipped off into the thick junipers. We scoured the area the rest of the evening but again couldn’t turn up a buck that we wanted to shoot.
As we headed into town that night we were a little disappointed and a little discouraged. I didn’t even know if we were going to hunt the last day or not. The next morning as we were leaving church my dad’s phone rang, it was David Virostko, he runs North Rim Outfitters out of Kanab and we’ve known each other for a few years. He asked my dad if he had killed anything yet and my dad replied he hadn’t, David then told him that he had a buck found and wanted to know if my dad would be interested in hunting him. The reply was of course a yes. We changed out of our Sunday best and met David at his place and headed out.
As we headed out David told us that they had found this buck two days ago and had been hunting him with one of his hunters, and had missed him. They thought the buck had left the country, because they hadn’t seen him since, but that morning there had been a chain of events that worked in our favor. David’s hunter had called him in the early morning hours and informed him that due to some family matters had to leave immediately, so David and his partner Thomas had gone out for a look around anyway. As luck would have it they turned the buck up. They called the hunter but he was already half way across Arizona, that’s when David decided to call my dad.
We arrived at our destination and wouldn’t you know, it was the knob that I had wanted to glass off the whole hunt. My dad looked at me and I just shrugged, I wanted to give him I told you so but didn’t. We split up. My brother and I went on ridge to the south and David and my dad went on the North side of the knob to meet up with Thomas. After about an hour they called us on the radio and told us to come up with them as we had not turned up the buck. We had just started hiking over to them when we got a broken message that said stay were you are, the buck is in between you and us. So we held tight. A storm was blowing in, the wind was picking up and the temp was dropping. About twenty minutes later I thought I heard a shot but I wasn’t sure. We still hung tight. Ten minutes later we got the news, the buck was down! We made the hike up and over the knob and finally laid eyes on the buck. He was awesome. An almost perfectly symmetrical typical that taped at 33” wide.
Here’s what went down while we were on the other end of the ridge. My dad and David got up on the knob and started glassing, with no luck. They had sent Thomas up even higher and he still couldn’t find the buck. That’s about when they called us to come over there, and about that time Thomas had climbed even higher and had spotted the buck feeding in a draw directly between us and them. My dad and David snuck into position and set up for the shot. The buck was at 498 yards, my dad later admitted to be being real nervous when he got him in the scope, and completely pulled the first shot. The buck trotted up the hill and stopped at 505, the second shot nipped his tail, and the buck took off. Luckily they cut him off as he ran down the draw. The buck was going to cross the opposite side at 330, my dad quickly took a knee, squeezed off the shot and put it through the front shoulders. The buck dropped in his tracks.
I couldn’t believe it. Months of scouting, weeks of hunting, hours of glassing, and it came down to the last hour of day light on the last day. What a hunt. It was awesome. David called him the Walk-Off buck, because it was equivalent to hitting a walk off in the bottom of the ninth. A big thanks goes out to David and Thomas of course. They could have easily kept this buck a secret and hunted him this year. It’s not the non-typical my dad was hoping for but he says he’s happy he “settled” for a 33” wide 191” typical.
Congrats and thanks for the story. 10sign: