Now that Hank has told his side of the story, I can release my own without playing spoiler…  His is much better than I could ever tell it anyway, which is cool, because this hunt really was about Hank’s experience.  I was just there to help.

Besides, I’ve been trying to think of a re-telling of the tale I knew Hank would be writing without sounding like two sides of the same story.  So instead of rewriting the whole story, here’s a little video of the last few days, and with Hank telling us how it all went down.  Then I’ve got a few more things to throw in.

 

It was a rewarding hunt, but with some hard lessons mixed in.  Things didn’t go exactly as we’d like to see them, and we paid the price.  So did the deer. 

To begin with, we were looking for something to cull, rather than a trophy-class deer.  We didn’t want to negatively impact the “breeders”, but rather wanted to take out a deer that either showed poor genetics, or simply got handed a big dose of  average in his development.  A mature, two or three year-old forked horn would have been ideal.  Even better would be a deer that had poor antler conformation.  Because of this, I had to let him “walk” a pretty nice deer, even though I was aching for him to kill it.  It would have been a great, first buck. 

We did find the buck we wanted, a big, mature “spork” (one-by-two).  His antlers weren’t heavy or extraordinarily large, but they were well-developed and it was perfectly obvious that this was about as good as his antlers would ever get.  Sporks are not a desirable characteristic on a managed ranch.  Clients don’t pay good money to shoot odd-ball bucks with small racks. 

Finding the deer was one thing.  Killing it and getting it to the cooler was another, altogether different can of worms as it turned out.  Here are a couple of things Hank didn’t mention in his own version of the story.

First of all, the buck came out and laid down with it’s butt to us at about 174 yards.  Hank didn’t mention that critical detail.  That’s a long poke on a small target.  This is why we didn’t attempt the neck shot he mentioned.  Maybe with a good rest on flat ground… but not sitting on the side of a steep ridge with only a monopod for a rest.  That’s just too much room for error.  To Hank’s credit, he recognized this as well as I did, and didn’t insist on trying the shot.

A mistake on my part, and maybe Hank didn’t even recognize it, was that I went against my better judgement in choosing to wait the buck out instead of moving on him.  I was fairly sure we could get up onto the ridge above the deer and close the range well within 100 yards, not to mention getting a better shot angle.  I decided to wait instead of risking a blown stalk, figuring we had plenty of time and the buck would stand nice and slow like they always do, offering a textbook shot.  As it turns out, that deer was plenty happy right where he was, and it was almost dark before we decided that he wasn’t moving.

My next mistake built on the first one.  With light failing, I decided to try to make the deer stand up.  I tried a loud bleat, but this deer was unfazed.  It’s one thing for public land deer, but obviously this guy was pretty relaxed.  There hasn’t been a legal deer hunted on this ranch in many years, and Michael Riddle (Native Hunt CEO) has pretty well put a stop to the poaching.  These deer aren’t tame by any means, but a little weird noise from almost 200 yards away wasn’t going to alarm this guy.

I had to get this deer to his feet, or we’d watch the darkness swallow him without any shot opportunity.  So I got more aggressive.  First I bleated and waved my arm, and when that failed I stood up while he was watching.  This got his attention, but he still didn’t stand.  Finally, I took off my Stetson and waved it at him.  That did it.

The problem was, I didn’t tell Hank what to expect.  Every blacktail I’ve ever bumped runs about 20 yards, then stops and stands stock still, usually broadside, looking back to see what scared him.  You have to treat them like quail.  Never shoot “on the rise”.  Wait until they level off and then it’s easy pickin’s.

With this in mind, I wasn’t a bit concerned when the deer jumped up and ran uphill a little ways, but I didn’t realize Hank thought he was about to see the last of this buck.  Fortunately, he had it together enough to wait for a good shot, and was ready when the buck stopped.  The other thing I didn’t realize was that while I had a perfect view of the deer, Hank had a little brush between himself and the target.  He didn’t see it himself, until it was too late… which may have accounted for the placement of his shot.  The bullet entered about four or five inches up on the paunch, poking straight through without expansion.  It’s a tracker’s nightmare, especially in this thick, rugged country.

I didn’t realize that at first, of course.  I saw the deer jump and kick, and it looked to me like the hit was good.  He didn’t hunch up like a gut shot, and actually kicked out his rear legs like he’d been hit in the heart.  I figured I was watching a dead deer, and we’d walk up to find it on the top of the ridge, with an easy recovery downhill to Petunia.

Not so much.

My first concern came when we got to where he’d been standing, and there was no blood.  I found the marks where the buck had jumped at the shot, and pretty easily followed his tracks up to the top of the ridge.  There wasn’t so much as a pinprick of blood anywhere, and this is ground covered with white limestone and yellow oat stems.  Blood should have been easy to find. 

Still, the tracks went straight to the fenceline, where the running would be easiest.  An unhurt buck would likely have dived into one of the trails through the chemise instead of angling for this clear cut trail.  Picturing the buck’s response to the shot in my head, I was still confident we’d find him within thirty or forty yards.  I started down the extremely steep fenceline trail, and soon realized that if we both went down here and found the deer, we’d have to hump back up and over to get to Petunia.  It would be easier to send Hank down to follow the fenceline while I took Petunia around to the other side of the ridge.  I figured he’d find the buck off the side of a trail, as their last move always seems to be diving under a thicket before they die.  It would be easier to drag the buck down along the fenceline than to try to come back up that sheer wall. 

Mistake number one was in not giving Hank a radio.  They were back at the lodge, because I hadn’t counted on splitting up at dark.  Mistake number two was in not giving Hank a better idea of the lay of the land.  I didn’t tell him that the fence zig-zags a little bit.  Where he thought he’d bottomed out, he had no idea that he was only another hundred yards or so from another turn… the one that would have brought him right down to Petunia.

Anyway, as you should have seen in Hank’s story, it all worked out well enough.  He got back out to the road, although he didn’t find any sign of the deer. 

Which brings us to the last lesson of the hunt… stay on the trail as long as you have a track to follow. 

I almost gave up on this one.  Actually, I pretty much did give up, several times over.  In lieu of blood sign, and no obvious stumbles in the initial trail, I was pretty sure the deer wasn’t injured.  I started to doubt what I’d seen at the shot, despite the fact all of my experience told me the deer was hit, but something made me keep looking.

In the end, it was partly luck that I found the deer at all.  I’d picked up his tracks, and was following pretty easily in the rocky dirt.  There was still no sign of blood on the ground, on the grass, or wiped on the branches that overhung the trail.  I was dead sure I was following a healthy deer.  The trail turned a little uphill, not a great sign if you’re after a wounded, or dying, deer.  I yelled back to Hank to meet me at the top of the ridge since that’s where the trail seemed to be going anyway.  If this deer went back up on top of the ridge, odds were that he wasn’t hurt too badly, if at all.  I had given it a good try, and it was time to call it a miss.

Then the trail turned back down hill.  On a little flat spot, I saw some broken ground… a stumble? 

I followed the trail with my eye as far as I could see it, trying to imagine what was going on with this deer.  Was it hit?  Was he dying, or just meandering around his home turf?  As I looked along the trail, I spotted an odd looking log under some scrub oak.  That bark looked just like hair!  A quick glance with the Leicas confirmed it… the deer was down and dead.

The rest of the story was one of the tougher recoveries I’ve had in a while.  Hank had a heavy share of that work, and it was a shame that all the sweat and blood ended in the loss of so much spoiled venison.  But at least we found the deer.  We did the best we could to do the right thing, and it paid off.

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