Homeless Hunters

Well Doreen and I went on our last deer hunt of this year. My job is in jeopardy and I get to take a week a month off from work as my employer tries to save the company. Oh darn it!!!! What terrible luck!!!! Well we had Utah tags and hunted the extended mule deer archery season near Vernal for does. We got there and it was slightly colder than it was here in Mesa,Az. We've got good equipment and lots of firewood so we were comfortable. I mention that because, us being senior citizens, I know that you are all concerned. The rut was starting up and we saw enough bucks that I was feeling bad about having celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends and knew we should have come when it was still legal to shoot them! We found one larger group of does and decided to hunt them. We soon discovered that the boss of the group was a gnarly old doe that would pick us off in this open country everytime we got within 200 yards of the group. To make matters worse most of the few trees were shorter than we were. We kept bumping into bucks we could have shot easily. I had to bite my thumb alot. I decided then to kill that old doe. She was a real problem. She would see us and stare at us for 15 to 20 minutes sometimes while the others fed blissfully around her. She obviously had all the senses of the old smart bucks, who obviously weren't very smart at this point. On the last day I saw her roughing up some of the other does (they were fighting alot for dominance) and when they disappeared over a mesa I jogged the 1/2 mile to it and quickly climbed and circled it. It's open country with some cedars 4 to 5 feet high and I worked very slowly around it. I was standing there in disbelief wondering where they went when I heard a ruckus in front of me and she came around some cedars with her ears laid back. Fighting again. She saw me and it was then I realized I didn't have my rangefinder. I did it the old fashioned way and put an arrow right at the joint of the front leg in the heart area. It musta been 33 yards. Not bad a bad guess for an old guy with glasses. I went to look for my arrow and couldn't find it. Found lots of blood though, so I decided to go to the edge because it was open country and I was hoping to see her. She had stopped about 100 yards below and was in the process of falling over when I saw her. The little 100 grain G-5 Montech had opened her up pretty good. You could actually see some lung hanging out the hole. I went across the little valley to get my truck and drive up the trail to the base of the mesa. I found my arrow on the drive back. It was stuck right next to the trail!! It had completely penetrated her and gone up and over the top and about 300 feet down the other side!! I took her back to camp and found she had few teeth left and was dry. She was ancient and very well educated. One of the harder trophies I've come by actually. We broke camp and went home. On the way in one of the small fast food places we stopped in I saw the lady manager eyeballing us as we walked across the parking lot. When we went to order we talked a bit and I could tell that she sized us up as homeless folks dirty and down on their luck (we don't wear camo usually). We had all our stuff in the truck and told her we'd been camping because I'm never sure how people feel about hunting. I guess she figured nobody in their right mind would go camping on purpose in December. She wouldn't take our money and I finally told her we weren't homeless to which she smiled and replied "Of course your not". I just thanked her, wished her Merry Christmas and shut up, because sometimes the more you talk the worse it gets. All you guys can relate to that one !!!! :)) Our next trip is for javelinas here in Az january 1st. Here's some photos.
Mark