Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Beyond Waldo: Where the Deer Are.

This boy kept me company all day.





Last year that nook was taken by an oversized fork. This trip, Wallace here was in place by the time I got to my sit at can-see. He sneaked away while I took a brief snooze at about 2:30. He was in direct sun from early in the morning until he left! He shifted position a couple of times, trying to snuggle back against the rock to catch a sliver of shade, but without much success. The shade you can see covers some slope in the rock, not a flat spot suitable for a bed. Ambient temp was mid-70's and he was in his October fat.
One of these days I'll find a shooter in this spot.

Here's another shot of him (I'm about 110 yards away) -





Now look closely at that (very) steep hillside in the background. This next photo is where the gray branch to the right of center blocks both the near and the far hill -







Two bucks are obvious (Walker and Waldron); there could be up to three more (Walt, Walden and his other brother Walden?) (I don't see them now. It's a little tough to correctly frame a photo through the spotting scope.) Most of the day five bucks were bedded as best they could there where the gully wall began to cliff off into the bottom. That's a steep sonofabishin spot- even sagebrush can't hold on! For awhile one of the bedded bucks had a front leg braced to keep himself from sliding from between his satin sheets.

In the late morning two more, larger, bucks (Wilfred and Andy) fed down and wanted to bed. One of them went up to that deer on the left and stared him into giving it up. That buck then booted out the guy in the center. And that one walked over to one to the right, but had to tickle antlers a bit before ousting him. Sucker number four didn't have anyone smaller to pick on so he pretended he'd wanted all along to stay on his feet and get a snack. It was fun to watch, and was a lesson that the biggest (or toughest) get the best toys.

Easterners, take a good look- save yourselves some learning curve. Not only will the deer be at the base of the rimrock, as you've heard, but also in such open, nondescript spots like my quintet's. Few of those beds on the slope held shade for very long. But they were real beds, well scooped out (I got to see them doing some remodeling, too.)


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Very cool pics!

Is your season open? Plans to ruin the day for one of them?

No season open. These are from the first week in October. I think I posted in the 'Deer Pics' thread a photo of a pair of our group's results.
I shot a last-day buck soon before dark, had him on his back with legs in the air, but the next day followed a blood trail for 400 yards before losing it. Two of us spent that day looking, in different manners, without success.

Ouch, sorry to hear that.
I missed that earlier thread..

Great pics tho. Pretty cool catching them all in beds like that.

Great photos. Could that fork last year have grown into that sun-tanning buck?
What kind of binocs do you hunt with in that country?
Thanks for the photos and story.

pepaw

I'm confident that the fork wasn't a growing one but either a freak or a downhiller. Someone took a big old fork this year 800 yards upcanyon- probably the one.
When I got serious about hunting out in the big country I set aside my beat-up but very nice Swift Audobon 8x and popped for 10x Swaros.
I'm not very flush, so I bought a Nikon Spotter XL scope. It won't let me count tines on the moon but for my purposes I'm happy. (And the pictures I take thru it come out just fine.)

A few years ago my brother took a 150-class buck bedded in the taller sage and slight shade of the depression running up this hillside, 300 yards and in plain view of the ranch road.





The bucks are very definitely where you find them!


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