Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Best buck to date

It's not a huge buck but I was happy with him. Here goes the story.

As many might know this year Utah changed the units for general deer hunting. This year was also one of the first years where everyone who put in for our unit drew out, four in total (we did each have multiple points). I was really excited for this years hunt because my wife drew her first deer tag. By the time the hunt rolled around only my dad and I still had a tag. My wife and I were surprised with the news of another baby coming to our house, due Nov. 6th, so we decided to turn her tag back in. Later my brother also had to turn his tag back in as he was going to be out of state during the hunt.

I am currently going to pharmacy school, so in the weeks leading to the hunt I made sure I studied hard in hopes to pass my test on Friday, the 19th. Doing so would give me an extra day of hunting and I figured Monday would be my best shot at filling my tag. My hunt almost quickly came to an end before it even started. First off, while reviewing after the test I was sure I had missed the pass score by one question. This meant I would have to be back to school on Monday to re-take another test. My emotions were running high as I was mad/bummed about what this meant towards my hunt. To make a long story short as I picked up my results I learned that they had thrown out a question that I had missed. This put me in the passing category. Talk about a swing of emotion. I hurried home, packed and left for our cabin. Next, came the second scare. Shortly after reaching our cabin I was informed that my wife had fallen down the stairs and thought she may have broken her water. We decided that I would stay down there until we had confirmed at the hospital what had happened or didn't happen. Lucky for us she and the baby were ok and my hunt would begin the next day.

I hadn't taken a buck in 8 years in the hopes of harvesting a monster muley. This was my 3rd tag since then; I wanted some meat and decided that I would be happy if I could just take my best buck to date. On opening morning we reached a spot that we commonly hunt. I was disappointed at the lack of deer we saw. In fact the whole hunt found us coming across less deer than we normally would. Opening day came and went only coming across one buck (this was a spike with three inch horns that stopped in our headlights on our way back to the cabin).

Day 2, wasn't much better than day 1 to begin with. So we decided to switch areas halfway through the day. On the way to another spot a deer caught my eye out in the sagebrush. As we watched we noticed that there were two bucks (both spikes) in the herd. We sat and watched them for 15 minutes before my dad decided he would shoot one so at least we would have some meat. We got the buck cleaned, hung, and skinned with time to spare in the day so we headed back out to where we initially were going. As it was getting dark I noticed a nice buck on the skyline. He disappeared as quickly as he appeared, but that gave me a game plan for the next morning.

Day 3, before light I made my way up the mountain to get to where I had seen the buck from the night previous. I had nearly made it to the top as morning was approaching when I noticed a buck starring at me in the skyline. Quickly grabbing my gun I realized I was breathing too hard to hold a steady rest. I got down on the ground and told myself that as long as he didn't bolt I would be fine to take a moment to catch my breathe. The buck never flinched and continued to stare in my direction. I could only see his neck and above, I'm not sure he really could see me as I probably wouldn't have seen him without the aid of the skyline. I took off my pack, laid down on the ground and got a steady rest. As I looked at him through the scope I wasn't sure how big he was but knew he would be my best buck so I decided to take the shot. One shot to the neck with a 165gr barnes tsx from my 300 wsm and he was down for the count. I was thrilled to find out that he was a descent 4 point as I approached him. He taped out at 21" wide and beats my 3 point as my best buck to date. My only regret is that I didn't take more/better pics, but I think he will make a nice euro mount.

congrats

Very nice buck.. and good luck in school

Congratulations!

That's a good lookin deer Gledeasy.

Heck yeah! Nice buck. Congrats.

Agreed! Nicely done and congrats!

Nice buck...and good shootin

Nice job and buck!


ddj

Nice buck!

Nice deer.

Thanks guys, I am certainly happy with him and glad to have some meat in the freezer. My new Borden rifle was sure a treat to carry and shoot in the field. Great animal to break it in with.

Good job.
How's mom-to-be?

But I wouldn't want to be the guy in the valley on the other side of the ridge when someone's shooting at a deer on the skyline...

Nice deer man

Congrats on a good buck! Not too many taken like that on the general hunts. What part of Utah?

Congrats! I liked that part about resting the rifle on your pack. It's nice to have a steady rifle rest when the adrenaline is pumping because you're about to shoot a good buck.

Seems like a very good hunt to me!

Guy

Good deer. Congratulations.

Nice buck. Congrats.

Great buck! Congrats!!!

Nice buck, Congrats!