sagebrush
Active member
My wife is an accomplished hunter, having harvested many animals from NM to AK. This hunt had some twists I never thought we would encounter after all we have learned. Since she also had an elk tag in a different unit, we elected to hunt the last week of her deer season, then move camp to her elk unit to hunt the following week. I know the elk unit pretty well but had never set foot in her deer unit until we arrived to hunt. I spent weeks on Google Earth and had pages of notes with latitude and longitude included. The first five days of her deer hunt we were seeing tons of does but no bucks. I mean zero bucks. No little forkies sniffing around the does, nothing. We knew it was just a matter of time before the big boys started showing and we hoped it would be before the end of the season. We hiked into the wilderness area on the third day thinking the bucks might be higher and further back in. We actually saw fewer does and no bucks that day as well. We saw our first buck on the sixth day about an hour before dark, a little spike. We had two days left to hunt and my wife wanted to stay in the area with all the does hoping a buck would show. On the seventh morning, we were driving to our favorite glassing spot and about a quarter mile before we reached the wilderness area boundary, we spotted a group of deer less than 200 yards away that included a 4X4 my wife was happy to take. The temperature was 6 degrees that morning and we were riding in our Rhino, so my wife had an extra layer of clothing on. She looked like the kid in the Christmas Story. She hops out of the Rhino, pulls her rifle out of the scabbord and sits in the snow to set up for the shot. I range the buck at 184 yards. She fired and missed 3 feet to the right. The deer trot off and the buck stops broadside at 384 yards. She has made many shots longer than that, but missed again low. I asked her what in the world just happened and she said she couldn't shoulder her rifle properly because of all the clothes but after 6 days, she didn't want to miss out on the shot opportunity while she peeled off a layer. In the 14 years we have been hunting, she has never shot and animal next to a vehicle. It has always been after hiking and glassing and she was really disappointed in herself.
Here's a picture with the extra layer off as we were making a firewood run.
Here's a picture with the extra layer off as we were making a firewood run.