***Warning: Long Read***
Well, we were able to make a middle-of-the-week hunt last week to chase after some muleys at Lake Meredith, but I wasn't planning on passing up a whitetail if I saw one. HammerStump and I had been planning this trip all year, and we decided to leave out early last Sunday, that way we could watch our football team not show up to play LSU Saturday night. At 4am, we were on the road leaving Gatesville.
This was right when the big cold front blew in last week. We were expecting inclement weather on our drive, and we damn sure got it. Not long after we hit I20 in Abilene, I got a little sideways on an overpass due to it being iced over and had to slow it down. When we got to Sweetwater, the entire road was ice. Saw quite a few cars in the ditch, and even an 18 wheeler jackknifed completely across both southbound lanes of the highway. Somewhere quite a ways north of Lubbock, probably closer to Amarillo, it looked like this.
*All pics were taken with my Iphone 5s. I really wished I would've taken something better. The views were awesome.
From Sweetwater all the way to Lake Meredith, our cruising speed was around 40-50 mph. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster.
We got there around 2pm and parked at Plum Creek, then immediately got our stuff together for a quick evening hunt. We went as far as the 1st canyon to the north and tried to find a spot out of the wind, then we sat and glassed.
The wind was still pretty brutal at this time, and all the animals were still hunkered down. We saw nothing.
Monday morning, I decided to go back to the 1st canyon, and Hammerstump went to the 2nd canyon. The wind wasn't quite as bad, but still gusting pretty good. It was still in the mid 20s pretty much all day.
Nothing was moving the first morning either. I was watching for other hunters coming in across the way all morning, and saw 2 guys make their way over the first hill about 30 minutes or so after sun-up. I texted HS and told him the deal, and we decided to press forward to the next canyons to the north.
The 2nd canyon.
And there was even a little water in the Canadian River.
We didn't see anything in the 3rd canyon, so we moved on to the 4th canyon. And it wasn't until we got to the upper end of the 4th canyon that we saw our first deer, 3 muley doe. They were bedded down in the bottom, and we only saw them because we jumped them up. We then decided to slowly made our way back to camp, and glassed all along the way. From there, we ended up seeing 3 more muley doe once we went back to the 3rd canyon, and that was it for the day. I didn't think to take any pics of the 3rd and 4th canyon because we were moving the entire time. It was windy and cold, so we tried to keep moving for the most part.
Tuesday morning, HS and I both sat on 2nd canyon. He watched the upper end, and I watched near the lower. Some of the snow had melted by this point.
A thing about the snow...I've never hunted in snow before. Probably the coolest thing for me was seeing all the critter tracks. There were tracks EVERYWHERE. From really small tracks that were like tiny dots in the snow, to pheasant tracks, mice, rabbits, all the way to deer and coyotes. I was blown away by the amount of coyote tracks I saw there. There is a very healthy population of coyotes at Lake Meredith.
I ended up seeing 3 more muley doe in the 2nd canyon that morning. They may or may not have been the same 3 we saw the evening before in the 3rd canyon. We then went all the way to the 4th canyon again. This time, earlier in the day so we had more time sit and glass it.
HS saw 2 muley doe (I think?) in the upper end of the canyon. I saw a coyote. As the day passed, we then again made our way back, slowly, and glassing along the way.
2 and half days in the books. 11 muley doe spotted.
Wednesday morning, we decided to hunt the morning only and try to make it back to camp by 11am. HS had Thanksgiving plans back home and had to get back. By this point, we were tired and down in spirits. We had probably hiked at least 25 miles, and seen lots of deer that we couldn't shoot. I had the opportunity to, so I decided to stay one more day. I really didn't want to sleep in my truck again, so I reserved a room at the Comfort Inn in Dumas for Wednesday night. Wednesday afternoon after HS left for home, I went to Blue West to try a new spot. After walking in a couple of miles, I arrived at my new hunting area.
I really felt like at this point I was just scouting for an area to hunt Thursday morning after getting a good nights sleep.
After going in a bit further and doing some glassing, I approached a canyon rim and spotted 2 muley doe down at the toe of the opposite side canyon wall about 300 yards away. I settled down and watched them for awhile through my binoculars. Not too long after that, I found yet another muley doe bedded down in the brush in the bottom of the canyon. I watched her for a little over an hour. She never moved.
I decided then that I needed to move a little bit so that I could see more of the canyon. As I was taking my binoculars off the tripod, I decided I better take one more look. I looked, and she was standing up. She then immediately began walking to the left, and I then saw another set of legs appear from the brush behind her. His head appeared, and all I saw was antlers.
They started moving pretty quickly to the left, bouncing in and out of sight through the brush. I had already ranged them at 205 yards. I had my rifle rested on top of my pack just waiting for an opportunity, at the same time dealing with a terrible case of buck fever. He popped into a clearing and offered a clean broadside shot, and I squeezed the trigger. He dropped in his tracks.
I continued to watch him for about 15-20 minutes, and he never moved a muscle. I had just about made it to where I thought he was at when I heard some commotion. I looked up the canyon wall about 50 yrds away, and saw the doe standing there looking at me. I continued walking and about 30 seconds later I hear some more commotion. I look up again, and my buck is standing about 1/4 way up the canyon wall, and he begins to run away, paralleling the canyon wall. I saw the GS wound, so I knew it was the same buck. I shot once while he was on the run and missed. He drops down into a small gully out of sight, then pops right back up the other side and stops on top of a little hogback just for a second, still less than 100 yards away. I fired again, and he ran down the other side out of sight. I then sprinted about 75 yards down the canyon across lots of fallen timber to try to cut him off, the whole time thinking to myself, "please don't wipe out, please don't wipe out." I get around the little hogback, and saw no movement anywhere. So I walk back to where I last shot, and he was laying right there.
I had shot a little far back on the first shot and hit the guts. Looking at the GS wound, I really wouldn't have thought it was far enough back to be a gut shot, but it was. I didn't compensate for the wind, but it was probably more buck fever than anything. The 2nd shot hit in right in the heart.
By the time I got to him, the sun had already gone down. And by the time I got him field dressed and my pack ready to go, it was completely dark.
Once I made it out of the canyon, I had just over 2 miles back to the truck in the dark. I took my time and just soaked in everything; listening to the coyotes and looking at the stars in the clear night sky. The packout took me about an hour and 45 minutes, and it wasn't that difficult at all.
And the hotel room in Dumas that night was a fantastic idea. I drove back to Gatesville on Thanksgiving day, and made it home just in time to eat with the family.
Total deer seen on the trip between the 2 of us: 16 doe & 1 buck, all muleys.
A few more misc pics from the trip.
Well, we were able to make a middle-of-the-week hunt last week to chase after some muleys at Lake Meredith, but I wasn't planning on passing up a whitetail if I saw one. HammerStump and I had been planning this trip all year, and we decided to leave out early last Sunday, that way we could watch our football team not show up to play LSU Saturday night. At 4am, we were on the road leaving Gatesville.
This was right when the big cold front blew in last week. We were expecting inclement weather on our drive, and we damn sure got it. Not long after we hit I20 in Abilene, I got a little sideways on an overpass due to it being iced over and had to slow it down. When we got to Sweetwater, the entire road was ice. Saw quite a few cars in the ditch, and even an 18 wheeler jackknifed completely across both southbound lanes of the highway. Somewhere quite a ways north of Lubbock, probably closer to Amarillo, it looked like this.
*All pics were taken with my Iphone 5s. I really wished I would've taken something better. The views were awesome.
From Sweetwater all the way to Lake Meredith, our cruising speed was around 40-50 mph. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster.
We got there around 2pm and parked at Plum Creek, then immediately got our stuff together for a quick evening hunt. We went as far as the 1st canyon to the north and tried to find a spot out of the wind, then we sat and glassed.
The wind was still pretty brutal at this time, and all the animals were still hunkered down. We saw nothing.
Monday morning, I decided to go back to the 1st canyon, and Hammerstump went to the 2nd canyon. The wind wasn't quite as bad, but still gusting pretty good. It was still in the mid 20s pretty much all day.
Nothing was moving the first morning either. I was watching for other hunters coming in across the way all morning, and saw 2 guys make their way over the first hill about 30 minutes or so after sun-up. I texted HS and told him the deal, and we decided to press forward to the next canyons to the north.
The 2nd canyon.
And there was even a little water in the Canadian River.
We didn't see anything in the 3rd canyon, so we moved on to the 4th canyon. And it wasn't until we got to the upper end of the 4th canyon that we saw our first deer, 3 muley doe. They were bedded down in the bottom, and we only saw them because we jumped them up. We then decided to slowly made our way back to camp, and glassed all along the way. From there, we ended up seeing 3 more muley doe once we went back to the 3rd canyon, and that was it for the day. I didn't think to take any pics of the 3rd and 4th canyon because we were moving the entire time. It was windy and cold, so we tried to keep moving for the most part.
Tuesday morning, HS and I both sat on 2nd canyon. He watched the upper end, and I watched near the lower. Some of the snow had melted by this point.
A thing about the snow...I've never hunted in snow before. Probably the coolest thing for me was seeing all the critter tracks. There were tracks EVERYWHERE. From really small tracks that were like tiny dots in the snow, to pheasant tracks, mice, rabbits, all the way to deer and coyotes. I was blown away by the amount of coyote tracks I saw there. There is a very healthy population of coyotes at Lake Meredith.
I ended up seeing 3 more muley doe in the 2nd canyon that morning. They may or may not have been the same 3 we saw the evening before in the 3rd canyon. We then went all the way to the 4th canyon again. This time, earlier in the day so we had more time sit and glass it.
HS saw 2 muley doe (I think?) in the upper end of the canyon. I saw a coyote. As the day passed, we then again made our way back, slowly, and glassing along the way.
2 and half days in the books. 11 muley doe spotted.
Wednesday morning, we decided to hunt the morning only and try to make it back to camp by 11am. HS had Thanksgiving plans back home and had to get back. By this point, we were tired and down in spirits. We had probably hiked at least 25 miles, and seen lots of deer that we couldn't shoot. I had the opportunity to, so I decided to stay one more day. I really didn't want to sleep in my truck again, so I reserved a room at the Comfort Inn in Dumas for Wednesday night. Wednesday afternoon after HS left for home, I went to Blue West to try a new spot. After walking in a couple of miles, I arrived at my new hunting area.
I really felt like at this point I was just scouting for an area to hunt Thursday morning after getting a good nights sleep.
After going in a bit further and doing some glassing, I approached a canyon rim and spotted 2 muley doe down at the toe of the opposite side canyon wall about 300 yards away. I settled down and watched them for awhile through my binoculars. Not too long after that, I found yet another muley doe bedded down in the brush in the bottom of the canyon. I watched her for a little over an hour. She never moved.
I decided then that I needed to move a little bit so that I could see more of the canyon. As I was taking my binoculars off the tripod, I decided I better take one more look. I looked, and she was standing up. She then immediately began walking to the left, and I then saw another set of legs appear from the brush behind her. His head appeared, and all I saw was antlers.
They started moving pretty quickly to the left, bouncing in and out of sight through the brush. I had already ranged them at 205 yards. I had my rifle rested on top of my pack just waiting for an opportunity, at the same time dealing with a terrible case of buck fever. He popped into a clearing and offered a clean broadside shot, and I squeezed the trigger. He dropped in his tracks.
I continued to watch him for about 15-20 minutes, and he never moved a muscle. I had just about made it to where I thought he was at when I heard some commotion. I looked up the canyon wall about 50 yrds away, and saw the doe standing there looking at me. I continued walking and about 30 seconds later I hear some more commotion. I look up again, and my buck is standing about 1/4 way up the canyon wall, and he begins to run away, paralleling the canyon wall. I saw the GS wound, so I knew it was the same buck. I shot once while he was on the run and missed. He drops down into a small gully out of sight, then pops right back up the other side and stops on top of a little hogback just for a second, still less than 100 yards away. I fired again, and he ran down the other side out of sight. I then sprinted about 75 yards down the canyon across lots of fallen timber to try to cut him off, the whole time thinking to myself, "please don't wipe out, please don't wipe out." I get around the little hogback, and saw no movement anywhere. So I walk back to where I last shot, and he was laying right there.
I had shot a little far back on the first shot and hit the guts. Looking at the GS wound, I really wouldn't have thought it was far enough back to be a gut shot, but it was. I didn't compensate for the wind, but it was probably more buck fever than anything. The 2nd shot hit in right in the heart.
By the time I got to him, the sun had already gone down. And by the time I got him field dressed and my pack ready to go, it was completely dark.
Once I made it out of the canyon, I had just over 2 miles back to the truck in the dark. I took my time and just soaked in everything; listening to the coyotes and looking at the stars in the clear night sky. The packout took me about an hour and 45 minutes, and it wasn't that difficult at all.
And the hotel room in Dumas that night was a fantastic idea. I drove back to Gatesville on Thanksgiving day, and made it home just in time to eat with the family.
Total deer seen on the trip between the 2 of us: 16 doe & 1 buck, all muleys.
A few more misc pics from the trip.
