Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Tough So Far

The full moon is killing us, plain and simple. Very little daylight deer movement is making chasing muley bucks in the sand a tough deal, but we did get lucky once so far with this old, solitary buck. We were situated on a small sandhill glassing about 2 sq miles of country when this buck happened to stand up, feed around for about 10 minutes, then reposition himself in the shade of a big mesquite thicket around 2pm. My buddy has hunted all over the world with this 300 Win Mag and 180 partition bullets, and a Leupold VX3 (yes, contrary to popular 24HCF opinion, they still work well).

We got to within 120 yards before the buck spooked, taking out from his bed at full speed, no screwing around, no stopping a looking back, contrary to some popular myths that they always do. My friend hit him the first time in the rear hip but he kept churning, obviously slowing down but had not stopped running. He made a fantastic running shot the 2nd time, off hand, anchoring the huge bodied, 7.5 yr old buck. Grosses 188 green for those that care.

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The search has continued with several more mid 180's bucks, and a small handful of slightly bigger ones, but with little deer movement it is extremely difficult finding bedded bucks like this consistently, especially those mesquite dwellers. Sometimes we get lucky and find an extraordinarily massive buck like this, but the ensuing stalk failed. Pic taken through a Meopta S2 spotter at app 1 mile.

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