I never published this one.

Besides, the photos sucked.

I hope that you guys enjoy.

God Bless,

Steve


A GREAT ALBERTA DEER HUNT

The most memorable deer I ever shot was also my shortest hunt. It was an Alberta whitetail and I’ll never forget him. Funny, I never wrote an article about him; perhaps the story is too short or maybe it was simply too personal to share.

Let’s start at the beginning: For several years, I hunted with a small outfitter who lived near Water Valley, Alberta. For those familiar with the area, it was close to the Bottrell store. The area is a checkerboard of grain fields, hardwood lots, small creeks and a smattering of bush.

My usual guide was one of the outfitter’s sons, Jason. And, of course, my hunting partner was always my buddy Chub Eastman. Each year’s hunt was a delight, with both whitetail and mule deer on the menu.

We always booked for the opening week of deer season. In Alberta, the season commonly opened on November 1st, so we usually didn’t hit the rut, but at least we avoided the horrible cold that usually accompanies the end of the season.

This year was different, Jason called me in July and said with his Canadian accent, “Steve, I’ve got your buck spotted. He walks across Owen’s place, a few hundred yards east of the gas pumping station and saunters down into the grease brush to spend the day.”

About a month later, Jason called again and told me that the big whitetail buck was a massive four-point (ten-point Eastern count), that his G-2s were fully fourteen-inches long and that he had very nice eye guards. He was following the same path every morning and was showing up at the top of the hill right at dawn.

A little later, Jason called me and said that the field had been put up in round bales. After being bothered by the harvest crew for a couple of days, the buck was back to his usual morning walk. He’d slowly walk over the horizon right at dawn and veer towards the first big round bale. Then, he’d stand just to the east of the bale for a couple of minutes and eventually stroll down into the creek bottom and the grease brush.

Jason told me that on opening day we would set up down in the creek bottom well before dawn. Then, we’d wait for the buck to come over the hill and that we’d shoot him as he stood to the lee of the round bale.

Jason paced the distance several times and the distance between our shooting position and the place where the buck would stand was precisely 300 yards. We’d whack him within the first two minutes of opening day, so other hunting would probably not affect our “patterning” of the whitetail buck.

Just to make things perfect, I zeroed my rifle at 300 and did a lot of range practice at that range. Jason had cleared the brush in front of our shooting position and my shot would be from a bipod, so I worked from that premise; lots of bipod shooting. I also practiced various shooting positions and sling work.

By the time I hopped on Alaska Air, for my trip to Calgary, my .280 Ackley and I were ready. I was in shape, the rifle was perfectly zeroed at 300 yards with 140-grain Ballistic Tips and I’d done most everything I could do to prepare for the proposed “patterned whitetail.”

I arrived at Calgary Airport and it was about zero degrees Fahrenheit. It was snowing lightly and cold, cold, cold.

Upon arriving at the farm, Jason told me that he’d been checking on the buck every morning and he was still doing the same thing. He would walk over the hill and, for a while, all you could see was a big set of antlers skylined against the hint of a dawn sky.

Then, the whole deer would appear as a silhouette and eventually he would mosey down to the round bale. And he always lazed by the bale for a minute or two.

Jason did a double-check of the shooting position and all systems were “GO.”

I didn’t sleep a whole lot that evening. I laid in my sleeping bag, full of moose stew, and imagined the buck walking over the horizon and standing in the shadow-side of the field, by the round bale. Would I be able to see him well? Would he be positioned well enough for a high percentage shot? Would he even show up?

The next morning was absolutely frigid, -26ºF, clear and there was no wind. It was so darned cold that I dug into my luggage and put on just about every piece of warm clothing I’d brought.

We’d be laying still in the creek bed and I knew that I needed to fight the cold, if I was to be an effective deer sniper. My perfect aim and careful squeeze of the trigger would determine the difference between success and failure.

Jason and I ate a light breakfast, grabbed my .280 and drove the couple of miles to the place where the creek bottom crosses the rural road. Then, we hiked a couple of hundred yards to our shooting position.

I remember waddling, somewhat like the Pillsbury Dough Man with four layers of clothing, in the pitch black. Eventually, we reached the shooting position and Jason got me down and my rifle set up. The low Harris Swivel Bipod was perfect and I squiggled into just the perfect prone position behind the rifle.

The sky to the east was dark gray and it was about 6:45 AM. Slowly, ever so slowly, the gray turned to dark orange.

Then, a black set of deer antlers arrived at the hilltop. Soon, the whole whitetail buck stood silhouetted against the background of orange and yellow.

He suddenly, walked out of sight and down into the shadows on the near slope. I had my Leupold 3.5-10 cranked to 10X and I followed him as he made it down to the round bale.

And he stood there, perfectly facing me.

I checked my Rolex watch and it was exactly 7:00 AM. It was shooting time … time to boogie.

Killing him was a simple matter of putting the Leupold Dot on the white spot, just below his chin, and carefully squeezing the trigger.

The rifle rose, the buck cartwheeled backwards and as I recovered from the recoil, my buck was down and very sincerely dead.

We watched for a few minutes, just to see if there was any sign of life, and it was obvious that he was down for the count. Knowing that he was DOA, we waddled down the creek bottom, got in Jason’s truck and drove across the frozen open field to the buck.

This is one buck that didn’t suffer ground shrink. Oh my, he was beautiful in all of the ways that a whitetail can be gorgeous. His antlers were indeed marvelous, long of tine, of decent weight and bonzo G-2s, G-3s and G-4s.

He was one of the prettiest whitetails I’d ever seen and he remains so to this day. I’ve shot a few that were bigger, but none that was as just plain gorgeous as this big old fella.

So there you have it, my friends, the story of the my shortest deer hunt. Considering the fact that I sweated about whether or not he would actually show up on opening day, maybe it was a four-month hunt.





Oh yeah, by killing my whitetail during the first minute of opening day, it gave Jason and I the remainder of the hunt concentrating on killing a 180-ish mule deer.

I guess we used up all of our luck on the whitetail, because we chased mules for the next six days and didn’t do as well as we’d planned.

At last light of the last day, I killed a four-year old mulie that was a decent 4X4, plus he had nice eye guards. He was out in a big winter wheat field, sparring with other bucks and messing with about fifty does. The stalk was a sloppy one; dark was fast approaching, so I ran across a frozen field and got prone when I got within range.

Not wanting to spend any time in an Albertan lock-up, I checked my watch and I had about one-minute of legal shooting light when I took aim.

He had a huge body and sported a good-enough rack, so I quickly sent a bullet through his spine at about 200 yards. Hey, it was the last minute of the last day ... what can I say?

Against all possible odds, I shot a wonderful whitetail in the first minute of the deer season and a pretty darned good mulie with less than a minute left in our hunt. It’s weird, but sometimes hunting turns out that way.

by Steve

Thanks for a great read, Friend!

Good story! Thanks for sharing it.

Enjoyable read, thanks for posting!

Great Story Steve. Two great bucks on one hunt is hard to beat.


How much did that whitetail weigh?

Yes indeed Steve,

Two great bucks and one great hunter and writer.

Many thanks,

Another Steve

Friend Joe,

It was so danged cold that we took him guts, feathers and all to the Quonset hut. We weighed him whole, then strung him up, dropped his guts in a large pan and skinned him.

Yes, I have exact weights, but most casual hunters would not believe me. Because of that, I must decline to answer your question, but will PM you the numbers.

Please bear in mind that is a northern whitetail and not one of the somewhat smaller southern cousins. In the photo, the whitetail looks like a dink, but it is simply because of his body position.

Gorgeous buck and a big SOB.

Your buddy Steve

You write a pretty good story. Did you ever think about becoming a outdoor writer?


Thanks Steve for a another great story.

I've always wanted to get a low, wide buck like that, with even length tines all the way out.

Great story!

Great read Steve. I felt like I was part of the hunt! Thanks for sharing.

Soooo true!

Thanks for sharing. Great buck!

Steve,

As always, a great story and I appreciate you sharing it with us! Regarding numbers (or anything else for that matter) there is nothing that you would write that I wouldn't believe is the honest truth....you're one of those guys who has no need for embellishments.

Thanks again!

Good Story

Nice read, as usual Steve. Thanks for sharing.

A fun story. Thanks for sharing it.

Great story Steve. Years ago when I would get a Varmint Hunter Magazine the first thing I would do was go to the table of content and look for your name. I enjoyed the write you did on different guns and cartages that you had made up.

Great story. Thanks for sharing!

Me too.

Brother Steve, that rascal looks thick. I know he had to put a hurtin on the scale!

Brother John,

I've only killed one heavier deer and it was an ancient whitetail buck I killed in Alberta a couple of years later. He wasn't much for horns, was toothless and just a giant.

Here are his antlers:



And here's a big old three point I killed up there one evening. The broken tine is a shame, but he was a glorious buck and he was doing all the right things, so I had to kill him

Crappy photo




And an eatin' moose I busted one morning




Blessings to you and your wonderful family, my brother.

Steve

Steve,

Thanks for sharing another of your stories. I too always looked forward to the arrival of VHM and another of you stories.

Craig

Steve, I truly enjoy your stories. I was also one of the ones who would look for your story in Varmint Hunter. Thanks for sharing!

Steve, when you eventually learn how to paint pictures with words you could be a really successful gun scribe

Just kiddin' ..loved it.

dogzapper:

Thank you for sharing a well written story plus some pictures and brief anecdotes. Your posts always deliver more than I expect!

tag