Thanks fellas. Haven't had the chance to tape him out yet, but he should push 180" as a 4x3. And honestly, the score really doesn't matter to me. We had a crazy grueling hunt and prior to it starting, I told my buddy that I was really wanting a more "boxy" framed deer this year. I've always liked the look of that type of frame. I got just that and in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs.
The whole hunt had been very challenging. It's been extremely dry and very little wind for months. What we were working with was piles of tracks that all ran together. Before today, we had tracked out a single small buck and 8-9 does. Now this isn't a high deer density unit by any means, but the last several years, we've had much higher success with our track outs. But our conditions were also better. A couple days ago, we were fortunate and had some 15-20 MPH winds that blew in for most of the night. That ruined our hunting for Thursday, but blew out most all of the tracks which made yesterday and today really good. It was perfect, as we were essentially starting with a clean slate. Yesterday was frustrating as we stumbled upon two good tracks midday, but the deer were bedded under some cedars and busted us as the wind wasn't in our favor. This morning, we caught another set of good tracks, but they went down to the river, which is impossible to track in due to the immense amount of vegetation. We jumped the river to see if we could pick up his track on the other side, but they were nowhere to be found. After a couple hours of searching, we were hiking back to the 4-wheeler when we picked up another set of tracks.
It looked very similar to the other track in terms of size and shape, so it appeared the buck went down to water at night, but returned into the sand dunes on the same side. That usually doesn't happen. They typically cross. We got about a mile into the dunes and found a couple trees that were freshly torn up right next to his track. And we knew he was a good buck because of how high it was in one of the trees.
We moved very slowly and tediously over the next mile or so, as he could be bedded anywhere. There was a 13-14 MPH wind in our advantage, which helped a ton. We finally rounded a big stone structure and as we glassed around, my buddy said "I got him and he's a solid one". He was feeding at 690 yards. This was right at 3:00. Fortunately, we had some good size dunes and ledges that allowed us to sneak into right at 300 yards. We were about 35-40' up above his elevation so I had a downward shot. I slid my backpack off and sat it on top of the rocks for a rest. Turned my turret to 300 yards and locked in. My heart was about to jump out of my chest. When he turned broadside, I breathed out slowly, squeezed a round off, and smoked him right behind the shoulder. He lunged forward and face planted into the sand. Fist pumps and chest bumps took place for the next 2-3 minutes, as we took it all in prior to walking down to check him out. Lots of sweat and miles were put in. I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't an emotional roller coaster. This week was tough and mentally challenging. All week was slow. And today, I thought we had a good one early, then we didn't, then we did again. All it takes is one good opportunity and we got lucky to get it. Just a beautiful representation of an old desert muley.
