- Joined
- Jan 28, 2003
- Messages
- 13,332
Tim’s elk season was a bust if, that is, if you consider not getting your critter on the ground a bust. I know that neither Tim or I do. We enjoy hunting both a have serious appreciation for wild country and more so, enjoy walking said country with a rifle in hand.
We are both from New Mexico. We’ve both lived in Alaska and we have both been professional outdoorsmen in one form or another in our sorted past lives. We both also happen to be professional pilots for the same airline and were hired within one week of each other. Go figure! We even knew some of the same girls in high school. But I digress, back to hunting.
Tim is one of the few people that I feel completely comfortable with out in the field as I know that no matter the problem, and no matter the challenge we are both capable and more important we both know each others limitations and hopefully our own. There are very few people that I trust on a late season high country hunt in Colorado. (See the my elk hunt thread posted today.) This statement will make more sense after reading it.
In any case back to the story at hand. Tim was fortunate enough to draw a late season tag for the eastern plains of Colorado. Tim had never hunted mule deer before and asked if I would mind tagging along for moral support and an extra eye in the field. I gladly accepted .
The hunt started last Friday the 1st of December. Tim had vacation and has been in the field every day. I have been able to join him for four of those days. We spent the majority of our time sitting on high vantage points glassing the expansive plains of central eastern Colorado. In the course of the week we’d spotted numerous deer and many of the same deer over and over. But we’d not seen what Tim was looking for. Tim had his heart set on a mature 4X4 and preferably something that is a trophy class buck. Me thinks, that’s a pretty high bar to set for your first mule deer but what the heck , he had one of the premiere mule deer tags in the whole state.
In the last few days I began to hear Tim’s resolve quiver a little as he was really wanting to get that first deer on the ground and we had seen dozens of very nice mule deer bucks. I suggested that we had until next Thursday that he should wait just a bit longer before dropping a smaller buck.
This morning Tim’s buck luck was about to change. And it is always funny to me how these things play out. After days and days of getting up at O:dark thirty and hours upon hours of enduring freezing temperatures and icy wind, straining your eyes behind binos and spotting scopes not mention straining your patience for countless hours. It often turns out that the hunting gods have a very twisted sense of humor.
We got up this morning and drove to a friends house who knows the area quite well and had the morning off. He wanted to go out with us and see if he couldn’t find what we were looking for. We hadn’t gone 800 yards down the county road when our buddy rudely interrupted the story I telling of how keen a hunter I am not to mention eagle eyed , brave, strong, accurate, and modest. He had the audacity to interrupt me just as I was getting to the theatrical climax of my hunting story with the rude and flippant words “Hey look at that deer out there.” Standing plainly in sight in the wide open not 150yards off the road was doe and a young buck. Which I, the hairy chested hunting legend (it's true just ask me) hadn't even seen. And upon closer inspection there was a bruiser of an old 4X4 laying at the feet of the doe with just the tips of his antlers showing above the chamisa brush.
Tim piled out of the truck and belly crawled the requisite distance off the road and dropped into a seated, tight sling position. And he waited and waited and waited. It took no less than 15 minutes before the old buck stiffly stood and presented Tim with a perfect broadside shot.
Tim’s trusty M-70 in .30-06 spoke, sending a 180 gr Nosler Partition through the old bucks vitals dropping him straight to the ground. No more dramatic no less. The .30-06 is in no need of proving anything, that’s been done a long time ago. This is just one more case where the 06 reaffirms that it is the royal king of the .30’s and is as effective today as it was 100 years ago and as effective as it will be 100 years from now.
In any case please join me in congratulating Tim on his first Mule deer.
Not a bad first buck if you ask me.
We are both from New Mexico. We’ve both lived in Alaska and we have both been professional outdoorsmen in one form or another in our sorted past lives. We both also happen to be professional pilots for the same airline and were hired within one week of each other. Go figure! We even knew some of the same girls in high school. But I digress, back to hunting.
Tim is one of the few people that I feel completely comfortable with out in the field as I know that no matter the problem, and no matter the challenge we are both capable and more important we both know each others limitations and hopefully our own. There are very few people that I trust on a late season high country hunt in Colorado. (See the my elk hunt thread posted today.) This statement will make more sense after reading it.
In any case back to the story at hand. Tim was fortunate enough to draw a late season tag for the eastern plains of Colorado. Tim had never hunted mule deer before and asked if I would mind tagging along for moral support and an extra eye in the field. I gladly accepted .
The hunt started last Friday the 1st of December. Tim had vacation and has been in the field every day. I have been able to join him for four of those days. We spent the majority of our time sitting on high vantage points glassing the expansive plains of central eastern Colorado. In the course of the week we’d spotted numerous deer and many of the same deer over and over. But we’d not seen what Tim was looking for. Tim had his heart set on a mature 4X4 and preferably something that is a trophy class buck. Me thinks, that’s a pretty high bar to set for your first mule deer but what the heck , he had one of the premiere mule deer tags in the whole state.
In the last few days I began to hear Tim’s resolve quiver a little as he was really wanting to get that first deer on the ground and we had seen dozens of very nice mule deer bucks. I suggested that we had until next Thursday that he should wait just a bit longer before dropping a smaller buck.
This morning Tim’s buck luck was about to change. And it is always funny to me how these things play out. After days and days of getting up at O:dark thirty and hours upon hours of enduring freezing temperatures and icy wind, straining your eyes behind binos and spotting scopes not mention straining your patience for countless hours. It often turns out that the hunting gods have a very twisted sense of humor.
We got up this morning and drove to a friends house who knows the area quite well and had the morning off. He wanted to go out with us and see if he couldn’t find what we were looking for. We hadn’t gone 800 yards down the county road when our buddy rudely interrupted the story I telling of how keen a hunter I am not to mention eagle eyed , brave, strong, accurate, and modest. He had the audacity to interrupt me just as I was getting to the theatrical climax of my hunting story with the rude and flippant words “Hey look at that deer out there.” Standing plainly in sight in the wide open not 150yards off the road was doe and a young buck. Which I, the hairy chested hunting legend (it's true just ask me) hadn't even seen. And upon closer inspection there was a bruiser of an old 4X4 laying at the feet of the doe with just the tips of his antlers showing above the chamisa brush.
Tim piled out of the truck and belly crawled the requisite distance off the road and dropped into a seated, tight sling position. And he waited and waited and waited. It took no less than 15 minutes before the old buck stiffly stood and presented Tim with a perfect broadside shot.
Tim’s trusty M-70 in .30-06 spoke, sending a 180 gr Nosler Partition through the old bucks vitals dropping him straight to the ground. No more dramatic no less. The .30-06 is in no need of proving anything, that’s been done a long time ago. This is just one more case where the 06 reaffirms that it is the royal king of the .30’s and is as effective today as it was 100 years ago and as effective as it will be 100 years from now.
In any case please join me in congratulating Tim on his first Mule deer.
Not a bad first buck if you ask me.
I would have to say GUILTY AS CHARGED!!
