I think this was the shortest deer hunt I've ever done. The first time I saw this deer was during the general rifle elk season with my friend Tony trying to fill a cow elk tag in the mountains above Logan. His cow hunt is a whole other story, the gist of it being he didn't fill his tag. He had the chance, but didnt' take the shot. Like I said, a whole other story.
A few days before the last day of Tony's cow elk hunt we find ourselves on a nice ridge overlooking a nice sidehill in a huge canyon. We've been here many times before. It's our favorite spot when hunting elk above Logan, and have taken many a critter when hunting here.
In the late morning hours Tony has decided that nothing is on the sidehill, or in the area for that matter, so we decide to pick up and move on. Hiking off the ridge I have the urge to glace back to the sidehill, that's when I see the antlered deer walking on that sidehill. It doesn't surprise me that we didn't see him earlier in the morning. It's a pretty thick sidehill. The distance from us to the buck is pretty far, but we can tell he's definitely a shooter for a general deer tag. Lucky for us, we both have general deer tags and they happen to be for this same area. My mind instantly starts thinking about returning here in one week for the opener of the deer hunt. The deer hunt is really close, we're on a ridge that doesn't get pressure. There is lots of cover, food and water. This buck isn't going anywhere. We have to come back on the opener.
Initially Tony and I had plans for hunting the last half of the deer hunt. Now, upon seeing this buck, have decided that a trip is required to Logan on opening day.
From my house to our ridge is about 75 miles. I know this unit can be a madhouse on opening day, because of all the hunters. (which is why we initally opted to hunt the later half of the hunt). We decide that we need to be on our ridge a good hour before shooting time. Thus hopefully securing our spot in the event that other hunters have the same idea we have.
Driving up Logan canyon we're all ready seeing outfits with the same goal in mind, getting on point before the sun comes up. Right now I'm not terribly worries, there are a lot of areas people can go to fill a deer tag. Getting a little close to where we're dumping the truck and hoping on the ATV the auto congestion is getting a little too thick for my liking. In fact, I'm getting rather nervous that someone might get to the ridge before me. There are a lot of people out and about.
On the ATV, taking the turn that will eventually get us to our ridge, there is dust in the air............there is a machine ahead of us. Boarderline freaking now, we press on. There is one thing we have going for us, we know a shortcut for getting on the ridge. We have a "self proclaimed" parking spot for the ATV. By not going to the end of the trail we can cut off a decent chunk of hiking to the ridge. I seriously doubt anybody else does this. This is the only thing keeping me from a full on panic attack.
We drop the ATV. Tony decides to circle the draw wide, coming down on top of a watering hole and putting himself on the hillside we plan to shoot this deer. This is done because of the length of shot. He's having issues with the possibility that he may have to make a 500 yard shot. It's not in him, so he's taking the short shot option. I have no problem with 500 yards, I'm taking the ridge.
Walking down the ridge, to almost where I want to set up, sweet, not a soul in sight on this ridge. To the North I can see a headlamp on an opposing ridge heading down the ridge. That'd be the other hunters. This is excellent, they're not going to be anywhere near me. If this buck is still here, we're going to get him.
Tony and I have the Garmin 530 GPS radios. They rock by the way. As I'm sitting at my post I can see, on my GPS, exactly where Tony is. He needs to be pretty far to the South to come down the hillside at the right spot. He's too far to the East and dropping lower in elevation. With a quick radio call I send him in the right direction, but we're a little too late. I can hear animals mulling around in the canyon below. There is a wind, I think they can smell Tony. The mulling around is pretty loud, I'm betting elk.
It's really close to shooting time. With Tony more in line with the proper spot for him we are ready.
These elk that Tony agitated didn't ever settle down. A little after official shooting time the elk decided they are done and it's time to bust out of the canyon. All heck is breaking loose down there. They are being neither slow nor quite and they run right out the bottom of the canyon, past the spot where out buck should be. I made mention to Tony that this would be a very stalwart buck if those elk didn't agitate him. My bet is that he's a little on edge now and things will be going down quickly so he better stay alert. My bet is that he is going up to Tony because of all the ruccus down in the bottom. My bet was wrong.
A couple minutes pass and I can see a deer walking through the trees. 425yards. It's heading down for the thick pines. It's not running or bounding, but it isn't grazing as it goes either. Glassing the deer I can tell it's a buck, but it's not looking to be as big as what I thought I saw a week ago. I'm having a mental problem now about shooting this buck. Could there be two in there? That's not uncommon. This one is a good 4pt, but I was looking for bigger. Frantic with what little time I have I start picking the hillside apart. Maybe a bigger buck did bust out to Tony and he didn't see it. Maybe this is the buck. As all this is playing out in my head, I'm also conversing with Tony on the radio about what to do. I figure I have seconds before I loose this deer in the thick pines. Then Tony says the magic phrase. "Mike, nothing has come out up top. That deer is on the same hillside, in the same location as the buck we saw last week. It's got to be him". Okay, this deer is a gonner.
The deer was almost broadside, and a bit downslope. Crosshair should be right on him because of less gravitational influence on the bullet. Settling the crosshair on top of his front right shoulder, BOOM! That was a good squeeze I told myself. After the recoil I get my eye back in the scope and look at the hillside. WTH!?! the deer is still standing there. Oh this isn't good! There's no way I could have missed that deer. Quickly another shell is jacked into the chamber. The deer is in the crosshair and I'm starting to squeeze. WAIT! The deer is starting to sway. The deer then proceeds to topple head over butt 20-30 yards down the hillside. That was super cool to watch! "Tony, deer is down".
This is actually a pretty steep hillside. Can't quite tell from this photo, but getting him out of the brush was a bit of a struggle. Tony and I attempted to work the camera timer, so we could both get in the photo. There is one here where I didn't quite make it back in time before the camera went off. I call this one the deers final poke. If you can see down to the leg I'm looking at, in an attempt to get close to the deer I got a little too close. When placing my foot it caused the deers head to turn, which then scraped the crap out of my leg.
Here's a better one.
Honestly, for a general season buck. This one is pretty good for the Utah Cache unit. He's not big enough to taxidermy as a full on head mount, but I think this one will look really nice as a European mount. Much cheaper as well so that's a plus. He's been a pretty tasty deer. I did loose some of the front right shoulder from hydrostatic shock, but most of the meat was recovered.
Getting up and out of this canyon to our ATV turned out to be a good hike. Like I said, it's pretty steep in here.
There hasn't been many times I've been able to fill my tag in the first hour of the hunt. Let alone, be one of the fist gunshots going off in the area. That was a real treat.
This year had turned out to be quite the downer for Tony. This is how his deer hunt played out, as you see we still had the entire season to fill his tag.
Downer #1. The elk Tony missed last week were still in the area. One of the cows that busted out of the canyon could have easily been shot, had this still been elk season.
Downer #2. A couple days after shooting this buck the weather turned to winter and feet of snow dropped in this area making access really hard.
Downer #3. Tony and I decided to head to the Bear Lake area to fill his tag. We stayed at the Worldmark and each morning in their grounds there was a nice 2pt buck milling around with some does. Can't shoot them there!
Downer #4. We saw more cow elk that Tony couldn't shoot.
Downer #5. There were a couple more bucks found in Garden City, can't shoot in city limits.
Downer #6. Tonly had tag soup. His tag went unfilled for 2012. Sorry dude!
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