Any opening day success?

I was feeling sorry for myself because I have to work the weekend and my hunt doesn't start until Monday. Until I saw the rain. The cold weather might help though. Post up some good opening day stories, I can't wait to hear'em!
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bowtech43 don't feel bad, I went up to the panguitch lake area with a general archery elk tag, and could barely get around! There were so many stinking people up there you couldn't get away from them. I got so frusterated, that I cut the day short! The thing that really bothers me is the poor people who drew LE Elk tags, you have a possible once in a lifetime hunt, and to have to compete with that is wrong! Hopefully for them though the next couple of weeks hunters hunting up there will slow down for them!
Good luck monday to you enjoy your hunt!
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MuleyMadness
No dice here, no shot either. Did find a few in AM, couldn't seal the deal on them though. Closest I got was about 92 yards or so and they pegged me. Tricky area, but I will try again. :)

Had fun though, at least I saw some and one of them was pretty big I believe. Tall with big back forks. I might have a crummy picture to pull from video camera later that my brother filmed, will have to look and see if it's worth the effort.

Hope a few tagged out.
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MuleyMadness
Here is/are the bucks I was after, poor video quality photo from across the ridge.

But those top 3 are all good bucks and shooters. The biggest is the one on the right near the tree stump. Closest I got was about 92 yards and the smaller bucks pegged me. To many EYES etc. :)

But I will be back. :thumb
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Brent - Those are great looking bucks! Keep working for those. Doesn't look like you got much rain down there.

Rotorhead - I was sorry to hear about all the pressure near Panguich Lake, is that real close to a road? I always feel like I have to get in the backcountry to get away from people. Well worth it in my opinion.
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my brother in law shot a 32" 5 x 6 that scored 205.
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swbuckmaster
Utah Le unit or public utah?

sounds like a stud cant wait for the pics :not-worthy
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Utah LE.
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9er
:not-worthy 10sign: =D> very nice

it was cold, windy, little snowy, rainy day for me!!! great weather for a duck

9er
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MuleyMadness
muley hunter,

AWESOME buck, I think I know which buck that is. Thanks for posting the pics, lets see more when they become available. 10sign:
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Nice buck! No luck for me either my brother shot just over the top of a good four point Saturday morning. That was about as exciting as it got. Alot of people.
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As much as I hate to admit it, I missed a 4 point this morning. He was 46 yards up hill according to my bushnel arc rangefinder. I got buck fever so bad i was shaking. I rushed the shot in fear that the deer was going to bust me. I would do anything to have that opportunity all over again and this time make it count.
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MuleyMadness
BowtechAdmiral

Sorry about the miss, but heck that sounds fun. :thumb
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BONER
OTC general Archery starts this Friday 21st in AZ
I got a knobby jacked up buck in mind. =D>
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DeadI
muley hunter,

Tell him congrats on a stud of a buck. Very nice.
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ridgetop
Isn't that the same buck mdattic showed in another post? http://www.muleymadness.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8858

205" WOW, who would have thought.
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swbuckmaster
looks like the same buck to me
boy was I way off in field judging that one. Still a nice buck
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sneekeepete
Congrats on a beautiful buck there! Good luck to the rest of you who are still chasing em :thumb
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hoytshooter
taged out 1/2 hour in to the hunt, shot him from 12 or 13 yards genral spike or cow elk :thumb
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DeadI
nice job hoytshooter,

what was the equipment you were using. my guess is a hoyt bow, but what about broadheads, how far did he go.
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hoytshooter
ya lol. my good old hoyt. magness stinger buzz cut brodheads.

i sat my tree stand up fryday night befor the hunt on a trail. i had never hunted out of a tree stand befor so i was kinda iffy on the whole deal. so i fliped a coin on it and it said to hunt out of the tree opening morning, so i did. well i got in the stand befor light and got ready. as soon as it was light enough to see my pins i had elk walking past me. the first groop was behind the trees and i didnt have a shot. about 5 min after that here came a big groop down the same trail i walked in on. about 15 cows and the last one was my spike they walked right past me 12 to 13 yards and when i had a clear brod side shot on the spike i let it fly, hiting him right in the sweet spot! the arrow loged in the far sholder blade so my fletchings were sticking out like 6". he dident even flinch, he just stood there looking around then he saw that a arrow was sticking out his side and started to smell it. i didnt know what to do so i got a 2nd arrow and shot him agin. this one passing all the way threw! then the elk busted out of there. i gave it about 20 min befor i started to track him knowing i had 2 good shots on him. he went about 200 yards and layed down and expired. i could not understand how he went so long with one brodhead in his lung and heart and the other in his lung! i was pumped! it was way fun.

o ya and thank goodnes for friends with horse's. i went back and got my buddy's and we took 4 horses back in to get it. 10sign:
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DeadI
THAT IS MORE LIKE IT. JUST LIKE A STORY IS USLESS WITH OUT PICS, A PIC IS USLESS WITHOUT A STORY.

AND TO THINK YOU WERE ABLE TO SHOOT HIM TWICE. NICE JOB.
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So true, great story! :thumb
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CodeRED
Awesome story hoytshooter - My opening day was horrible. We got to the stand around 5am and set up. We saw a HUGE bull Moose come in but no Elk… Then the unthinkable happened. It started to hail so bad that we had to leave the stand and head back to camp. It didn’t let up for about an hour and then everything was drenched. It was cold until about Monday afternoon and the only other animals I saw were a Doe/2 fawns and a small spike buck that was probably 120lbs soakin wet! No Bulls or Cows, Im hoping we see more activity the coming weekend. I thinking ditch the stand for now, then start hiking the canyon looking for tracks. Hope everyone has much better luck than I’ve had so far!
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NotEnufTags
Muley Hunter, tell your friend that is one killer buck and congrats.

Hoyt Shooter, congrats very cool story and pics. Thanks for sharing with us.

Code red I think we've all been shut out by weather at least once. This weekend is supposed to be good. So good luck to you.
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Muley Hunter - Sent you a PM. I've got quite a bit of video of your brother-in-law's buck. If he would like it... I'd be happy to get him a copy. You can reach me at don@oxiball.com.
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"whipknot" wrote:Muley Hunter - Sent you a PM. I've got quite a bit of video of your brother-in-law's buck. If he would like it... I'd be happy to get him a copy. You can reach me at don@oxiball.com.
 Hey Whipknot,

that is a super classy thing to do. It would be awesome to have live footage of a trophy buck that you've harvested. I know I'd love to come across some live footage of mine.

You must be a stand up guy :thumb
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here is a picture of the 205 buck that i kill opening morning on the paunsaugaunt. Definitely the most exciting hunt of my life thus far.
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DeadI
Heck of a buck, congrats.
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MuleyMadness
bow hunter jables,

What an AWESOME buck! 10sign: 10sign:

Thanks for sharing, that is impressive for sure. Lets here the story. Several other guys were trying to kill it also right?
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What a trophy! Good job, lets hear the story.
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When I learned that i drew for the Paunsaugaunt hunt this year i could hardly believe it I have been bow hunting for about 10 years and wanting to hunt there for about 11. So needless to say very excited for the opportunity. We went scouting down there about the second week in July to find the best places to hunt, and that's when I first saw this buck he was very nice but still had about a month to grow and that's what he did. We arrived at our camp the night before the hunt and instantly went out scouting to see if we could formulate a plan for the morning. It was some nice scouting we saw this buck and four others that I decided that i would shoot if i got the opportunity. After not sleeping very well due to excitement the morning of the hunt was here we headed up the road just before light. along the way we passed several groups of bucks but none of them were big enough to go after. When we got to the site where we had previously saw this buck we saw another group of buck after looking for just a brief minute we saw him in the midst of six other bucks it took us about 2 seconds to decide that we were going to go after him. We continued down the road about another 400 yards to where there was a small wash. My dad dropped me off and then went back to continue to watch the bucks. I hike up the wash to stay out of sight because there was no cover only sage brush, after hiking about 800 yards up the hill i started to head back towards where i thought the bucks would be feed too. As i approached where i thought the bucks were headed i spotted two does. not wanting to spook the does i knelt down under a pine tree to hide and wait. From my position i could see a very small two point about 100 yards below me after about ten minutes of waiting i noticed the group of bucks heading my direction, they seemed very antsy. I thought that they might have caught my sent as the wind was very swirly where i was kneeling. The bucks then headed up the hill where the does had previously been standing, this was about 50 yard away from me just up a little ridge. From my position i saw the buck that i wanted to shoot at but only caught a small glimpse at him before he put his head behind a tree out of sight. all i could see through a small hole in the branches was his body partly quartered away from me. I drew back and put my fifty yard pin on him, it is probably good that his head was hidden from view or i would have been shaking wildly. When i let the arrow go and heard it hit i knew that i had hit him good, as he ran away once again I didn't get a good look at his horns I was mostly focused on where i had hit him and it looked good. Once my dad had hiked up to where i was we began tracking at first there were only small drops of blood but as we followed further we found more and more after about 120 yard we spotted him the first picture is how we found him. the first good look at his horns that i got was then and we were both in a bit of shock. The pictures were a bit blurry because we only had my cell phone camera and my dad was so excited that he couldn't hold the phone steady enough, I couldn't do much better. Like i said definitely the best hunt of my life so far, I am great full that i could share it with my dad.
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this is what we saw when we found him
how we found him
how we found him
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there were several other people hunting him, we ran into a few shortly after we found him. They were a bit upset that they didn't get him but excited to see that I did.
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mapleton archer
congrats on a fine buck :thumb
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hoytshooter
WOW you really piled him up finding him like that! nice job that is a huge deer.

nice shot
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sneekeepete
Bow hunter jables Great story and awesome buck! Congrats 10sign:
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NotEnufTags
Bow Hunter Jables,

What a pig of buck. Congratulations. You must be on cloud nine. Is that buck your first trophy. If it is I can immagine what your feeling. The last year has been awesome for me as I got a good buck last year. Taxidermy, swapping stories, and sharing photos has kept the excitment up all year. I hope your year is as great as mine has been.

Maybe you should start elk hunting because it's going to be difficult to get a set of anlters any bigger than that buck. 10sign:
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Great buck man! Great shot too! :thumb
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MuleyMadness
Bow hunter jables,

Thanks for the story, more photos the better. :thumb

Great job, my cousin was one of the guys hunting or wanting to kill the same buck also.
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Nice. Thats sweet. Thanks for sharing.
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huntenfever
Awesome buck congrats on a HUGE archery buck. :thumb
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The Ox
"rotorhead" wrote:bowtech43 don't feel bad, I went up to the panguitch lake area with a general archery elk tag, and could barely get around! There were so many stinking people up there you couldn't get away from them. I got so frusterated, that I cut the day short! The thing that really bothers me is the poor people who drew LE Elk tags, you have a possible once in a lifetime hunt, and to have to compete with that is wrong! Hopefully for them though the next couple of weeks hunters hunting up there will slow down for them!
Good luck monday to you enjoy your hunt!
it was way crowded on pang lake i have a le elk tag and i just put in the extra miles and was able to get away from everyone but it is still very frustrating that the dwr would screw the archery le guys like that we already have to deal wiht general deer hunters let alone throwing in unlimited archry spike/cow tags! pretty screwed up imo i just hope all the extra stress and strain on the cows doesnt delay the rut.
kinda weird the le rifle hunters get to use a rifle and hunt during the peak of the rut with no other hunters! pretty one sided imo .... i think they should have waited 5 days to start the spike hunt. i have already came across 2 guys with cow calls that were spike hunting i think its gonna get messy when the rut starts i hope dont get to educated on bugles and not answer to them.
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Congratulations to all that did it. I spent 8 days in hot dry weather in the southeastern unit and we saw some bucks and I passed on some smallish ones. Got to within 62.5 yards of this one and got busted. Took a photo with my pocket camera when it looked like I would get no shot. It's just another B.S. story without pics. I'll go back in 2 weeks and try again for a week. Had a great time though. So didn't the wife. Thank God for these wild places!
Mark
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sneekeepete
Pretty cool pic M Gardner. Good luck with the rest of your hunt!!!
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MuleyMadness
Chased this guy around Saturday morning, tried to sneak in from on top of him but he put the slip on me. Would have arrowed him had I got the chance, not unhappy though as I've seen a couple bigger ones in the area. But only saw 2 deer this AM.
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Nice buck.
Keep up the hard work and you will get him or even a bigger one. As bad as it sucks trying to out smart these mule deer I cannot think of anything I would rather do week after week then try to get one.
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I like him! Good luck.
Mark
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DeadI
Congrats to all that have let the air out of a buck ( or bull ) so far. I am heading out for the first time this friday morning. Hopefully will be able to put a stalk on something.
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Some very nice pictures and stories. You guys are making me jealous. :thumb =D> :not-worthy
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Was a good opener to the Archery season. This trip we saw alot of animals. After 2 hard days of hunting, spotting, glassing and many miles on the leather, I was able to connect on a beautiful 6x6 with matching 1 1/2" cheaters on either side and some great fronts and awesome mass. Saw this buck out feeding and after a long hour long stalk I shot this buck at 21 yards. He ran down the trail about 35 yards and I watched him stop and stagger like he had been hit by a heavyweight fighter. He took a couple steps to the right out of sight. I knew it wouldn't be long before he went down. After giving him a good half hour, I began a slow check for blood and to look for my arrow as it was a pass through. As I walked 20 yards passed the where I had shot him, I found him lying in some brush. What I didn't know was that I only had a 10-12 inch window through the pine right in front of me and my arrow had just barely clipped the tip of a branch which made the shot a little back. I had shot him through the liver. As I approached and saw him just lying there, he was still breathing so I knocked another arrow to shoot so he would not suffer. As I took one more step he immediately jumped up and took one step and turned and looked at me at 7 yards broadside. The staredown began, I slowly pulled back the string and let another one fly right behind the shoulder. He ran about 40 yards and was down for the count.


http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o52/ ... G_2903.jpg
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crousebow
Those are a couple of fantastic bucks and that elk should be great eating and will provide memories for a life. Goat T - good story but the link isn't working for me. I too am most jealous!
Heading out to Colorado Saturday morning for a week of chasing Muleys. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of a good buck to share with everyone. I'll post up a recount of the hunt at any rate. Good luck to you all that are still chasing!
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