My Henry Mountains Hunting Adventure
a_bow_nut
10/17/10 11:25pm
Now that my hunt is set to start in just a few days I thought that I would start a thread now to drag the story for a few days.
This story starts back on April 23rd when I got the following email.
Dear ALLAN :
Thank you for your recent applications for the Big Game Drawing. Your results are:
Appl # Hunt # Result
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
219571 971 ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT UNSUCCESSFUL
219570 003 BUCK DEER SUCCESSFUL for hunt 003 HENRY MOUNTAINS
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the shock of the email everything was kind of a dream until this showed up in the mail.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/nanieanderson/Henrys%20deer%20scouting/IMG_0756.jpg " alt="" />
After being called a multitude of names for drawing my tag early I got to work finding out as much about this hunt as I could. Then when the deer had some antlers that were worth looking at my brother (who has a bison tag), my friend Gary( who drew a muzzy tag for this unit also), and I heqaded down to start our scouting to get an idea of the size of the animals that we would be chasing this fall.
Had a little trouble getting in to set up camp.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/nanieanderson/Henrys%20deer%20scouting/DSC_8421.jpg " alt="" />
A storm had rolled through a couple of days earlier and the washes in the low lands were still a little soft so it took some manuvering to get through the next couple of draws.
The rest of the scouting story can be seen here.
http://www.muleymadness.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10914
More to come soon.
Thanks for reading.
This story starts back on April 23rd when I got the following email.
Dear ALLAN :
Thank you for your recent applications for the Big Game Drawing. Your results are:
Appl # Hunt # Result
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
219571 971 ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT UNSUCCESSFUL
219570 003 BUCK DEER SUCCESSFUL for hunt 003 HENRY MOUNTAINS
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the shock of the email everything was kind of a dream until this showed up in the mail.
After being called a multitude of names for drawing my tag early I got to work finding out as much about this hunt as I could. Then when the deer had some antlers that were worth looking at my brother (who has a bison tag), my friend Gary( who drew a muzzy tag for this unit also), and I heqaded down to start our scouting to get an idea of the size of the animals that we would be chasing this fall.
Had a little trouble getting in to set up camp.
A storm had rolled through a couple of days earlier and the washes in the low lands were still a little soft so it took some manuvering to get through the next couple of draws.
The rest of the scouting story can be seen here.
More to come soon.
Thanks for reading.
22,945
good luck!
Will add both sets of tire chains to the list of hunting stuff to load up.
THANKS. :not-worthy
Thankfuly as the end of September rolled around I was able to get somewhat of a fix for this terrible addiction of mine by going on my friend Gary's muzzleloader hunt to help out.
What an awesome time we had out camping and hunting with good friends and family. I spent most of my time looking for back up bucks in the event that Gary couldn't close the deal on the current buck that he was after. But by the second morning he had his buck down.
So I beat feet over to where they were to lend my strong back and weak mind in the effort for cleaning and packing that beast out to the truck and then back to camp.
We were blessed enough to have Gary's dad come down with us for the hunt.
Gary and his long time hunting partner Doug.
After we had the meat slicked off and cooling on ice it was time for me to practice on my taxidermy training and work on caping out the head.
We stayed an extra day to rest up a little from the previous days activities and to do a little more scouting for my hunt. We made our way over around the Horn and went onto the southwest side to look around and saw a couple of nice little four points feeding up into the brush to bed down. As we were having a snack ourselves we saw a huge three point that had to be around thirty inches wide and was nice and tall also make his way up out of the bottom and head over to join up with the other buck.
As with any hunt like this my time was up all to soon and it was time to head back to pack up camp and head on home. :>/
I would like to say thanks to Gary for letting me tag along for this hunt, it was just the fix that I needed to keep my from pulling out what little hair that I have left waiting for my turn to go down and play in this amazing sand box that they call the HENRY MOUNTAINS.
As always thanks for putting up with all of my blabbering.
Allan
This was before my gun before (spingville shooter) set me straight.
And after.
I would like to thank Mr. Springville for showing me the lighter side of the muzzle break world. That little thing turned this hand howitzer that was just miserable to shoot into a little pussycat that I acutaly like to shoot now.
It never fails to impress me just how much energy that a bullet carries down range. This is a peice of half inch steel plate that I shot at 150 yards.
It almost made it all the way through.
Now that the gun was squared away and a few rounds of practice are under the belt this last weekend was the time to load up the the final bunch of bullets for the hunt.
I decided to go with the Barnes Tipped TSX bullet in 150 grains loaded with 90.5 grains of Hodgon's H1000.
I'm taking fifty rounds with me so I hope that I have enough ammo to harvest one buck deer. :))
I will take a few shots when I get down there to make sure that it is still hitting where it is supposed to and if I get lucky while scouting maybe I can pop a coyote. xcrossx
Time is getting close and sleep is getting harder to come by lately as you may be able to tell by the time of the last couple of post times. But I still wouldn't change it for anything in the world right now.
I think that I should just go back to work and get the last ten hours out of the way and start my adventure even earlier. It's not like I've really been thinking about work at work for the last week now anyway. (hope that the boss doesn't read that part)
Allan
Koby
Thanks and if I'm not back before your sheep hunt starts then I wish you all the luck in the world at finding one of those big old rams.
This whole summer has been a rollercoaster ride for me. From the high of getting the tag to the lows of being so burried at work that it seemed like I was never going to make it today. It seemed to drag as it was going by but now looking back I don't know where the time went and there was so much more that I wanted to accomplish before my hunt but like my friend says "Sometimes that how things go out here in the west".
After another day of suffering through work I have finaly made it home and have been packing up all of my goodies to take with me.
Oh that's just the start.
Now we are getting close to all of it rounded up.
As I sit here and look at those pictures I feel a little guilty about getting after the wife when she packs like this when we go on vacation. :)
One last thing.
To everybody that is heading out hunting this weekend I hope that everbody will have as much fun as I will and may you get a animal that makes you happy. Be it the trophy of a lifetime or a tasty load of meat for the freezer.
Regards Allan
People keep saying that there is a hidden image in the photo but I can't find it for the life of me. Can you guys find it for me?
as my daughter would say "i spi, with my little eye, some shadow that looks like antlers" lol
cant wait!!!
Sorry the hunt was so short that I have to drag this out a little.
I sure wish that it was as wide as you say also. It only tapes out at 28 1/2 wide though.
To pick up where I left off I headed out Thursday afternoon to set up camp and hopefuly start scouting.
The spots that I had planned on setting up camp in had been claimed by other people by the time that I had got there so I kept looking till after dark. Not having found a suitable spot I decided to sack out in the truck for the night and resume my search when it was daylight. At around five in the morning it started raining and didn't let up until around two in the afternoon. Since the rain wasn't letting up I decided to head back into Hanksville to meet up with my friend Gary and get back to looking for a place to camp. This proved one of those times that thinking it was much easier than carring this task out. The BLM had graded the roads a day or two before I had got there and now with the rain the roads were a sloppy gooey mess and it took chaining up just to get down off the mountain.
After I had meet up with Gary we headed back out to a spot that I had camped when I was down on my bison hunt. We had decided to camp way lower than I had originaly had planned and would drive up the mountain each day.
Finally camp is set up.
Now it was time to head out for a couple of hours of scouting. We went into an area that was supposed to hold a real nice 4x5 that was real tall. We set up and started glassing and after about twenty minutes we had found the group of bucks that had this awesome buck in it. We didn't have the time or the light to get any pictures of this buck but he was about only 24 to 26 inches wide but he was at least 24 inches tall with awesome forks on both front and back. As we watched this buck and the light was fading we got to see him bed down for the night so we were stoked at the thought of getting back in the morining to stalk in on this buck.
as it was with us on that night it will be a long and fitful night of trying to sleep to see how thing will turn out the next day.
Stay tuned. We are almost to the climax of this section of the story.
After all the planning and getting ready of course we ended up leaving camp later than planned and the race up the mountain was on.
We get back into where we had watched the big 4x5 from the night before and there are a couple of people on their fourwheelers glassing. We pull up and start talking to them and they were scouting for their friend and they were watching a buck but they were moving on because it wasn't big enough. They show us the buck that they are looking at and it's a small four point that is only two years old. Thankfully they hadn't seen the bucks that we had been watching and it was time to set up and start glassing.
Even down in southern Utah the snow was pushing its way down the mountain.
Here is a look at where we were watching for the deer that we had found.
It only took a few minutes to start picking out the bucks out feeding in the morning sun. We start looking the deer over and then we see the big 4x5 just poking his head out of the trees and even as far away as we were he watched us the whole time that he stood there and after about a half hour he turned and headed into the trees. A couple more of the bucks made there way into the same grove of trees and the plan was set to go find them and to put one down.
I made my way over to a ridge just above the trees and start picking them apart looking for parts of deer. After looking for about ten minutes I moved to get a different view and hear a deer taking off after it busted me. The trees were so thick that I never got a chance to see it but my friend Gary saw it and let me know which buck had took off and kept an eye on where it went.
After two hours of playing cat and mouse with these deer in the trees and the draws I moved over to where the first buck had took off to and snuck up over the ridge to see if I could find him again. I moved over the top and could only see a couple of does and no sign of the buck.
This is the point that everything explodes into action. I moved up to get a beeter look into the draw and deer start blowing out of the brush and running up the other side and there goes the buck! I whip my gun up and settle into shoot when I see that it's a small four point that wasn't the buck that I was looking for. Then out of the corner of my eye I catch movement in the trees and swing around to try to get a shot. He made it over the top before I could get on him so now the race is on the get to the next ridge to find him again. My friend Gary moved up to get a better vantage point to help keep an eye on this buck for me and I came over the ridge at the same time and there he was out in the open for the first time in three hours and that was his last mistake. The first shot was a little low and went through his brisket and hit the far lag. He ran up into some oakbrush and limped out the other side and stopped again. I was shaking so bad that I could have swore that the second shot went right over his back and he took off like a rocket and now I'm just a mess. I chamber up the next round and get him back in my sights the buck now turns and starts running straight towards me and I give a quick thank you to the lord above for this blessing and wait for the buck to stop for another shot.
When he did slow down I could tell that he was done for and it only took a moment before he was down for good. I had to sit there for a few minutes to get my composer back and for my legs to stop shaking enough for me to stand up and start collecting my thing to head over to the buck.
My friend Gary without whom none of this would have been possible. Thank you.
Loaded up and ready to go.
Back to camp.
Would like to say thanks to everybody with all of the help from the pointers from fellow members (notenuftags and sewing and the rest).
A huge thanks to my friend Gary for his help and to my wife for keeping camp squared away and the food flowing freely keeping us fat and sassy through our hunt. You are a godsend.
Now all that's left is my brothers bison hunt in a couple of weeks. I can't wait.
After talking to a few people they said that the storm that rolled through on Sunday night really made a mess of the roads and travel almost came to a stop.
So the answer would be yes I wish that I was still hunting but the signs were telling me to get done and get out so I heeded the warnings. However I have absoultly no regrets about the buck.
Thanks,
It was a chance that I was willing to take to get the feild photos that way without having my orange on. The first ones are the most important and I didn't want the vest on in them. A hunter has to have his prioritys straight.
Awesome adventure and even better buck! Congratulations sir, and thanks for sharing it with us all. :thumb
good for you !
super cool post you put up here, deffinatly had me checking as much as i could to look for an update :thumb
great buck also, super forks. congrats and thanks for sharing!!
Bowtech43,
I had nine points going into this years draw so with this years application I had ten chances.
Lucky I know.
I'm sure that there is a large amount of error in my measuring but it gives me an idea of what I'm looking at.
That was very nice of y our wife to be there for you at camp.
CONGRATS nut on a BEAUTIFUL BUCK!!! Great write-up and pics too! LOVED IT!