Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Maggy’s hunt

The big bull.

Each year I take a youth on a western hunt. A hunt they otherwise wouldn’t realize life being what it is financially and otherwise. This year it was Maggy.



Maggy is a young lady who tagged along with her brother to the trap range when she was barely bigger than a whisp of grass. She has become an awfully good trap shooter and huntress. More than this a darn good young lady. I asked her to come west.
We spent some range time last summer and I got her comfortable with a Tikka .243 and 95gr ballistic tips. I got her license for Montana trophy deer, and a doe tag for her accompanying guardian. Out to the ranch the hunt was on, mid November.
Mule deer country:




One of the first days we worked down some tops and found a lion kill. First trophy of the trip.



I was focusing on trying to get her one of these two caught on camera before season.




After 5 days of looking over maybe 200 mule deer and double that in whitetails we set up a spot to intercept a buck we spotted the evening before in the alfalfa fields. That morning they came up but not where we figured after a too smart doe in the harem busted us. The chase was on. The deer moved west along the south side of a butte line, 1/2 mile north we hurried west along that side of the buttes.
We got to the end of the butte in time to watch the buck and 9 doe harem go up and thru a saddle 600 yards out. Away we went after them after the last deer went thru. The other side of that cut had a still rising sage flat I’d hoped they would stop in.
We got up to the base under the cut and climbed the 50 yards up to it on an elk trail the deer used. We peeked thru and the deer were milling around about 175 yards out in the sage. We slipped up and got down on a knee. I could see Maggy was shaking like a leaf. Luckily does we’re in the way and tho they were looking back at us they were calm. This delay gave me time to whisper calming words to Maggy, note this, can you see that and so on. After 15 minutes the does cleared and the buck broadsided standing. I quietly asked if she had the mark on the deer just back edge of the bucks shoulder. The gun answered my question. The buck bolted 30 yards across the sage, cartwheeled and down.
If you look over Maggy’s left ear in the picture of her holding the lion kill you can see the flat where she killed the buck.
Maggy was looking at the deer down when she heeled the gun and I saw it waiver so I grabbed it and she started to cry hard. She turned in to my shoulder still kneeling there and let it all out. After she composed herself she apologized, said she’d never been so happy. My payday right there fellas.





It was a terrific trip, we had a spike bull tag so we spent two days trying to fill it but the bulls were too big and Maggy didn’t want a cow. We spent an hour watching a group of bedded bulls where 1 was a 325 class, 4 that were 340-360 and one that’s been seen on the ranch and below is the picture if you can pick him on the left side. He was in front of the truck one morning and the guys figured him in the 410-420 range. He was an absolute tank laying among the others and what a great treat for me and Maggy to watch so long. We slipped back away.
We passed a lot of coyotes for fear of pushing deer, but Maggy played hel on a prairie dog town one day, she can really blow them up.
Maggy was loved on the ranch and encouraged to start applying for the trophy bull drawing. I look forward to that hunt with her. In the meanwhile I’ve chosen another young gunner for this upcoming deer season to hopefully give them their hunt of a lifetime. 50 plus years of guiding, I never knew it could feel so good.
Thanks for reading.

Osky