davr
New member
Just got back in late last night from our AZ Unit 10 deer hunt. Man, hunt of a life time. They just don't get better than this.
Get ready for a long one. I'm typically a bit of a long winded writer anyway, and darn sure don't know how to condense this one. It's probably far too long, but heck, who doesn't enjoy a decent hunting story? So grab some chips and a beer....
Background: Drew unit 7W bull tag last year. Went for high draw odds hunt for cow elk hunt this year, and drew Unit 10 tag. Decided to put son and I in for unit 10 deer hunt, figuring if I got drawn, I'd hunt deer while I scouted elk. But, both son and I got drawn, so focus went to the deer hunt.
Scouted...a lot. Poured over topos for a unit I'd never set foot in before. Walked miles upon miles under that blaring hot summer sun.
Found an area that while deer densities were low, I figured it would give my son and I a high quality hunt and experience, with hopefully few people, fewer ATV's, and maybe even a few deer.
Among other deer and elk, we scouted up a particular group of bucks and watched them over the summer and fall. Group of 5 bucks....two 4 pointers, two 3 pointers, and a forkie. Named the larger 4 pointer "Blackie" due to the darker than normal appearance of his velvet. The group became known to us as "Blackie and the gang".
Blackie looked pretty good. The pre-season pics in velvet are from Sept 8th, so he obviously still had some time to grow.
Had them coming into this one area every 3 to 5 days. Only once were they observed to stay overnight in the same area, but always remained throughout the day they moved into the area. We could not consistently locate them anywhere else among their travel route, but without fail, every 3 to 5 days they'd return to this area. My hunt plan revolved around this one known fact. Every morning we would glass from this particular hill. If they were not visible that morning, we would hunt elsewhere that afternoon and evening, but, we would return to this hill every morning without fail no matter how dismal things looked or how few deer we saw. I figured their schedule gave us just one shot at them, and that was it. If we blew it, we'd not see them again during the hunt.
I knew he had survived archery deer, but did not know if he / they made it through youth rifle.
Arrived last week, 2 days before the hunt. Set up camp, cut wood, got some more practice in with the .270. The usual. Scouted this area both mornings before the season. No sign of the (or any other) deer.
This hunt was reward for my son doing very well in school this year. As he was struggling in school two years ago, I decided to use the promise of big game applications, possible tags and hunts as motivation for him. As with his elk hunt last year, if he did well in school, he could then "afford" to take a week off and come hunting big game with the old man. If he did poorly in school, he could not afford the time off, and thus no hunt.
He more than kept up his end of the bargain, with better than a "B" average. I was so pleased, that I informed him that since he was unable to make it out the first 2 days, I would pass on "Blackie" if I saw him, and save the buck for him.
Hunt arrived. Had to hunt the first two days by myself as my son was unable to fly in from his mom's in Kansas until Sunday, the third day of the hunt. Son's first day of the hunt was day 4.
Every morning I / we were up at 0300, and walking the 3/4 of a mile up the hill by 0330 to 0400. I wanted us in place on stand NLT 0430 to 0500 or so every morning, a full 2 hours before sunrise, to both let the area settle in around us, and to make certain nobody else arrived first and took "our" stand or deer.
In the following days, we made two stalks on other deer. Made a nice quiet stalk on a heavy 3 pointer and a doe, but could not find them in the thick P/J's. Guess they moved out of the area too quick for us.
The following morning, we made a stalk on a nice little 4 pointer and 3 pointer on the backside of the hill. Very windy that morning, and I had wrongfully believed the very heavy wind in our face would cover the noise from the first part of our stalk until we got close, and rushed it. Half way down the hill, where there was no wind to speak of and quiet as could be, I realized my mistake. The deer were nowhere to be seen, and obviously we spooked them out long before we got close.
That evening coming off the hill in the dark, we came to our truck to find another truck parked in the road nearby. The man inside had waited for us to see how we were doing, and to ask if we minded if he hunted nearby, on the other side of the road away from us, or if he camped out at that spot for the night. Of course we said that would be fine, as we were intending to hunt the same hill we just came off of again. After some conversation, the man introduced himself. Tim Pender. I said "Hey, I know that name!", and he confirmed that yes, that Tim Pender, the retired wildlife manager for the unit. Nothing like knowing the man who knows the unit you're hunting better than probably any other human is hunting the same hills as you to give you a real confidence boost.
We met up the following couple of mornings and evenings before and during our hunts and compared notes, and just talked about anything and everything that is hunting AZ. Seemed like an absolutely great guy, and my son who has been considering Game and Fish as a career choice has a new idol it appears! He gave my son some good advice on how to pursue the career.
We hunted through day 5 of the hunt, and still no sign of "the" deer. I began to wonder if they'd been taken or heavily pressured during the youth hunt, or just moved out of the area. I hadn't gone this long without seeing them, but figured maybe they'd been through on the one day I could not be there because I had to go to Phoenix to pick up my son at the airport.
Morning of day 6 arrived. Cold. Tired of looking through the binos for 8 or more hours every day. Last thing I wanted to do was pull my head out of my jacket (we were trying to snooze and stay warm while waiting on first light) and start glassing in the early light of pre-sunrise. But I did. And almost immediately I saw deer in the areas we'd become accustomed to seeing the deer. I hastily set up the spotting scope, and verified it was indeed "Blackie and the gang".
We quickly discussed what to do. Usually it would take them a good hour to work their way across the relative openness and to the safety of the thick p/j's. But this time they were much closer to the thick p/j's than the ordinarily would be at this time of the morning. I did not like the odds of trying to follow them into their bedding area, and I did not like the fact the wind was blowing in a direction I was not accustomed to, and was fearful of a wind shift mid stalk. I also believed from my scouting that this was the edge of their territory, and they would not pass through to exit unseen somewhere else, but would go back the way they entered their bedding area that evening. To complicate things, there was another group of deer (3 does and a forkie) that had come into the area a little while later, and I worried about them blowing our stalk as well. As hard as it was, we elected to wait them out, and try a stalk that evening. After all, I'd never seen them wait until beyond 3 p.m. or so to get up and start moving around, and often times earlier than that. We'd have plenty of time....
Thirty minutes or so later, with a 180 degree shift of the winds, we received confirmation that we likely made the right decision to wait them out. It would have been blown right there had we attempted a stalk.
Well, 3 p.m. came and went. As did 3:30, 4 p.m., and 5 p.m. Over 10 hours had passed since we last had seen them. The passing time and anxiety, along with the absence of the deer were all doing their best to bring back up whatever remained of the previous evening's elk italian sausage dinner. I thought we'd blown our one and only chance.
We started packing up as I knew if they did show at this point, it would be a quick stalk with no time to waste. We waited with packs on for the stalk that looked like would now not happen.
Finally, about 5:15 p.m. or so, we saw deer. But from almost 900 yards away in the shadows and fading light, we could not make out if it was "Blackie and the gang" or the other deer that had followed in behind them. I quickly set up the tripod and spotter. It was them. But with no time left to waste, we left the spotter and son's pack where they lay (I would come to regret this greatly later when it came time to retrieve them , but had no other choice, we had to move quick), took a compass bearing, and began to run down the hill as fast as we could manage in the rocks.
Several times during our very rapid initial descent off the hill, I turned to get on my son about "lagging behind" and wanted to tell him to hurry up because I couldn't hear him behind me. Wasn't necessary, the kid was right on my heels, and being very quiet. Things were going well.
About 400 yards from where we thought they'd be and before we topped out of the draw we were in, we stopped, put on gloves and head nets, and slowed our "run-stalk".
At about 200 yards from where they'd be, I knew we were moving faster than I wanted to be moving, but we had no choice, there was simply not much light left, and we had to hurry. A doe shot through an opening 100 yards away. Busted, by at least the doe. We crept forward. A group of 8 does and fawns that we'd seen several times in previous days was now 150 yards to our right, and nervous, but not leaving. Never saw them come into the area. We ignored them and continued on.
Then I saw a deer to our left. With antlers. I brought up the binos, and found it to be the distinctive 3 pointer of the group that was forked on different tines on each side. The big 4 pointer had to be close. I bent over at the waist, and told my son to do the same, keeping his head by my waist. As we crept along doing our best impression of a "4 legged, anything but a human something", I saw more bucks in an opening 180 yards to our left. I brought up the 10x binos, and looking sideways, saw, finally, "Blackie" looking at us.
I said "It's him, here we go". I slid off my pack as we had discussed, and laid it on the groud for him to use as a rest from the prone position. He got down and slid his rifle onto the pack. I got down next to him and firmly planted my right knee and thigh in a nice cactus (I'm still picking out the needles). Doing my best to ignore it, I tried to straddle the cactus and laid down next to him, with my binos on the deer. Definately the right deer. I told him to shoot when ready.
He said "I can't, there's a deer behind him, I have to wait". I said, "when he clears, take your shot". When the other buck cleared, he shot, the deer wheeled 180 degrees and ran. I thought I heard the hit. He thought it was a good shot. I instantly thought "My turn... meat buck". I sighted in on the nearest buck, one of the 3 pointers, and while waiting for him and another small buck to clear one another, a big 4 pointer ran back into view from the right. In the reduced power of the 4x scope and fading light I thought "hey, the other 4 pointer, I'll take him". He was standing, looking, giving me a "quartering towards" shot. As soon as the smaller bucks cleared from behind him, I took the shot, and he fell instantly like he was hit in the head with a sledge.
Our shots were right about 15 minutes after sunset. In the shadow of the hill behind us, we had possibly 3 to 5 minutes of possible shooting light left, and not a bit more. It had come that close. If we had slowed our stalk, or if it had taken us just 3 more minutes to find the bucks, it would have been over.
We laid there for a couple minutes to give the deer time to expire, heart and breathing rates time to return to normal, and make sure we were in position to take another shot in case the buck I shot started to get up. He didn't.
As we walked up to my buck, I couldn't believe it but instantly recognized him as "Blackie". I thought my boy had shot him, but we knew my deer fell instantly. Believing one of two things happened, that either we both shot him, or he shot the other 4 pointer, I put my tag on this deer, telling him he likely had his deer down somewhere in the woods, and we'd find him. If during the skinning process we found two bullet entries and we both in fact did shoot him, it would be his deer, he could tag it, I would forfeit my tag and our hunt would be over.
After a quick search of the area for his deer, a few quick dark pictures of the deer, we field dressed him, then began an intensive search for additional blood or deer. After almost 2 hours, we found nothing to indicate another deer had been hit or was down. We returned the following morning in the light of day and searched for another 2 hours. Nothing. Looked like a clean miss. The absence of any crows / buzzards the final 3 days of the hunt seemed to verify my suspicion that he had made a clean miss on the same deer I had shot.
We both were however thrilled that we had gotten "him". All that scouting and effort, and the single deer we wanted, and we did it. As I told him, he was there every step of the way, scouting through the heat of summer, all the decision making, the stalk, and this was "our deer". He seemed to be just as ecstatic as I was and had no bad feelings about his miss on the deer.
We took the deer to the processors and taxidermist the next morning. With the size of the deer, I decided to cool him the best I could, but elected sacrafice some meat quality and leave the hide on until the next morning when we could get some good daylight pictures.
The taxidermist said he thought he'd go "190 easy". I'm not so optimistic, but am deferring to his vastly more experienced opinion at this point. I'm just not good at field judging deer, and never really cared to do so. As I tell my son, if you think "wow" when you see him, tag him, be happy, and don't worry about the numbers. I'm waiting on a call with an unofficial green score, so maybe some of you guys that are sharp at field judging want to take a crack at estimating before I find out....
It was everything the kid and I could do to get that bruiser in the back of the truck ourselves. I mean we struggled. I now regret not weighing him. I did however receive back from the processor 103 pounds of boneless paper wrapped meat. Nearly as much it seems as we got back from my son's spike elk last year! With what little remains of my son's elk, my freezer is jam packed, and I still have a cow elk hunt next month!
The final two days of the hunt, we attempted a stalk on a deer for him, but never came across the deer. We did manage to stalk up to within 60 yards of a coyote that never knew we were there, in the same area we had seen the deer in, so I imagine the deer caught scent or sight of the coyote, and spooked out of the area possibly. Luck of the hunt.
Our last afternoon was the kicker to the trip. Unable to hunt the final evening as I had to get him to the airport early in the morning for his flight out. If he got a deer, we'd have no way to process it and still get him to the airport on time. We decided to dedicate the afternoon instead to calling a couple stands for bobcat for him. We've been trying for more than 3 years to call one in for him, and while we did get one in, he never got a shot.
Thirteen or so minutes into the second of what was to be only two stands called before we ended our hunt, the bobcat appeared off to our right coming out of a wash, sitting down at the edge of the clearing we were calling. He never knew we were there. Ryan made a nice shot at 25 yards to end his quest for his first bobcat. The relief he felt after finally bagging his cat after years of work was readily apparent by the tears running down his cheeks. He couldn't be happier, and in fact said he'd rather have the cat than the deer because he worked harder for that. It was a nice sized and beautifully furred up tom, and a perfect ending to a nearly perfect hunt.
So, it was an outstanding hunt, the best of our lives, and one I felt I needed to share. Hope I haven't lost all of you yet, but I'll now shut up and get to the good stuff....the pictures!!!
Get ready for a long one. I'm typically a bit of a long winded writer anyway, and darn sure don't know how to condense this one. It's probably far too long, but heck, who doesn't enjoy a decent hunting story? So grab some chips and a beer....
Background: Drew unit 7W bull tag last year. Went for high draw odds hunt for cow elk hunt this year, and drew Unit 10 tag. Decided to put son and I in for unit 10 deer hunt, figuring if I got drawn, I'd hunt deer while I scouted elk. But, both son and I got drawn, so focus went to the deer hunt.
Scouted...a lot. Poured over topos for a unit I'd never set foot in before. Walked miles upon miles under that blaring hot summer sun.
Found an area that while deer densities were low, I figured it would give my son and I a high quality hunt and experience, with hopefully few people, fewer ATV's, and maybe even a few deer.
Among other deer and elk, we scouted up a particular group of bucks and watched them over the summer and fall. Group of 5 bucks....two 4 pointers, two 3 pointers, and a forkie. Named the larger 4 pointer "Blackie" due to the darker than normal appearance of his velvet. The group became known to us as "Blackie and the gang".
Blackie looked pretty good. The pre-season pics in velvet are from Sept 8th, so he obviously still had some time to grow.
Had them coming into this one area every 3 to 5 days. Only once were they observed to stay overnight in the same area, but always remained throughout the day they moved into the area. We could not consistently locate them anywhere else among their travel route, but without fail, every 3 to 5 days they'd return to this area. My hunt plan revolved around this one known fact. Every morning we would glass from this particular hill. If they were not visible that morning, we would hunt elsewhere that afternoon and evening, but, we would return to this hill every morning without fail no matter how dismal things looked or how few deer we saw. I figured their schedule gave us just one shot at them, and that was it. If we blew it, we'd not see them again during the hunt.
I knew he had survived archery deer, but did not know if he / they made it through youth rifle.
Arrived last week, 2 days before the hunt. Set up camp, cut wood, got some more practice in with the .270. The usual. Scouted this area both mornings before the season. No sign of the (or any other) deer.
This hunt was reward for my son doing very well in school this year. As he was struggling in school two years ago, I decided to use the promise of big game applications, possible tags and hunts as motivation for him. As with his elk hunt last year, if he did well in school, he could then "afford" to take a week off and come hunting big game with the old man. If he did poorly in school, he could not afford the time off, and thus no hunt.
He more than kept up his end of the bargain, with better than a "B" average. I was so pleased, that I informed him that since he was unable to make it out the first 2 days, I would pass on "Blackie" if I saw him, and save the buck for him.
Hunt arrived. Had to hunt the first two days by myself as my son was unable to fly in from his mom's in Kansas until Sunday, the third day of the hunt. Son's first day of the hunt was day 4.
Every morning I / we were up at 0300, and walking the 3/4 of a mile up the hill by 0330 to 0400. I wanted us in place on stand NLT 0430 to 0500 or so every morning, a full 2 hours before sunrise, to both let the area settle in around us, and to make certain nobody else arrived first and took "our" stand or deer.
In the following days, we made two stalks on other deer. Made a nice quiet stalk on a heavy 3 pointer and a doe, but could not find them in the thick P/J's. Guess they moved out of the area too quick for us.
The following morning, we made a stalk on a nice little 4 pointer and 3 pointer on the backside of the hill. Very windy that morning, and I had wrongfully believed the very heavy wind in our face would cover the noise from the first part of our stalk until we got close, and rushed it. Half way down the hill, where there was no wind to speak of and quiet as could be, I realized my mistake. The deer were nowhere to be seen, and obviously we spooked them out long before we got close.
That evening coming off the hill in the dark, we came to our truck to find another truck parked in the road nearby. The man inside had waited for us to see how we were doing, and to ask if we minded if he hunted nearby, on the other side of the road away from us, or if he camped out at that spot for the night. Of course we said that would be fine, as we were intending to hunt the same hill we just came off of again. After some conversation, the man introduced himself. Tim Pender. I said "Hey, I know that name!", and he confirmed that yes, that Tim Pender, the retired wildlife manager for the unit. Nothing like knowing the man who knows the unit you're hunting better than probably any other human is hunting the same hills as you to give you a real confidence boost.
We met up the following couple of mornings and evenings before and during our hunts and compared notes, and just talked about anything and everything that is hunting AZ. Seemed like an absolutely great guy, and my son who has been considering Game and Fish as a career choice has a new idol it appears! He gave my son some good advice on how to pursue the career.
We hunted through day 5 of the hunt, and still no sign of "the" deer. I began to wonder if they'd been taken or heavily pressured during the youth hunt, or just moved out of the area. I hadn't gone this long without seeing them, but figured maybe they'd been through on the one day I could not be there because I had to go to Phoenix to pick up my son at the airport.
Morning of day 6 arrived. Cold. Tired of looking through the binos for 8 or more hours every day. Last thing I wanted to do was pull my head out of my jacket (we were trying to snooze and stay warm while waiting on first light) and start glassing in the early light of pre-sunrise. But I did. And almost immediately I saw deer in the areas we'd become accustomed to seeing the deer. I hastily set up the spotting scope, and verified it was indeed "Blackie and the gang".
We quickly discussed what to do. Usually it would take them a good hour to work their way across the relative openness and to the safety of the thick p/j's. But this time they were much closer to the thick p/j's than the ordinarily would be at this time of the morning. I did not like the odds of trying to follow them into their bedding area, and I did not like the fact the wind was blowing in a direction I was not accustomed to, and was fearful of a wind shift mid stalk. I also believed from my scouting that this was the edge of their territory, and they would not pass through to exit unseen somewhere else, but would go back the way they entered their bedding area that evening. To complicate things, there was another group of deer (3 does and a forkie) that had come into the area a little while later, and I worried about them blowing our stalk as well. As hard as it was, we elected to wait them out, and try a stalk that evening. After all, I'd never seen them wait until beyond 3 p.m. or so to get up and start moving around, and often times earlier than that. We'd have plenty of time....
Thirty minutes or so later, with a 180 degree shift of the winds, we received confirmation that we likely made the right decision to wait them out. It would have been blown right there had we attempted a stalk.
Well, 3 p.m. came and went. As did 3:30, 4 p.m., and 5 p.m. Over 10 hours had passed since we last had seen them. The passing time and anxiety, along with the absence of the deer were all doing their best to bring back up whatever remained of the previous evening's elk italian sausage dinner. I thought we'd blown our one and only chance.
We started packing up as I knew if they did show at this point, it would be a quick stalk with no time to waste. We waited with packs on for the stalk that looked like would now not happen.
Finally, about 5:15 p.m. or so, we saw deer. But from almost 900 yards away in the shadows and fading light, we could not make out if it was "Blackie and the gang" or the other deer that had followed in behind them. I quickly set up the tripod and spotter. It was them. But with no time left to waste, we left the spotter and son's pack where they lay (I would come to regret this greatly later when it came time to retrieve them , but had no other choice, we had to move quick), took a compass bearing, and began to run down the hill as fast as we could manage in the rocks.
Several times during our very rapid initial descent off the hill, I turned to get on my son about "lagging behind" and wanted to tell him to hurry up because I couldn't hear him behind me. Wasn't necessary, the kid was right on my heels, and being very quiet. Things were going well.
About 400 yards from where we thought they'd be and before we topped out of the draw we were in, we stopped, put on gloves and head nets, and slowed our "run-stalk".
At about 200 yards from where they'd be, I knew we were moving faster than I wanted to be moving, but we had no choice, there was simply not much light left, and we had to hurry. A doe shot through an opening 100 yards away. Busted, by at least the doe. We crept forward. A group of 8 does and fawns that we'd seen several times in previous days was now 150 yards to our right, and nervous, but not leaving. Never saw them come into the area. We ignored them and continued on.
Then I saw a deer to our left. With antlers. I brought up the binos, and found it to be the distinctive 3 pointer of the group that was forked on different tines on each side. The big 4 pointer had to be close. I bent over at the waist, and told my son to do the same, keeping his head by my waist. As we crept along doing our best impression of a "4 legged, anything but a human something", I saw more bucks in an opening 180 yards to our left. I brought up the 10x binos, and looking sideways, saw, finally, "Blackie" looking at us.
I said "It's him, here we go". I slid off my pack as we had discussed, and laid it on the groud for him to use as a rest from the prone position. He got down and slid his rifle onto the pack. I got down next to him and firmly planted my right knee and thigh in a nice cactus (I'm still picking out the needles). Doing my best to ignore it, I tried to straddle the cactus and laid down next to him, with my binos on the deer. Definately the right deer. I told him to shoot when ready.
He said "I can't, there's a deer behind him, I have to wait". I said, "when he clears, take your shot". When the other buck cleared, he shot, the deer wheeled 180 degrees and ran. I thought I heard the hit. He thought it was a good shot. I instantly thought "My turn... meat buck". I sighted in on the nearest buck, one of the 3 pointers, and while waiting for him and another small buck to clear one another, a big 4 pointer ran back into view from the right. In the reduced power of the 4x scope and fading light I thought "hey, the other 4 pointer, I'll take him". He was standing, looking, giving me a "quartering towards" shot. As soon as the smaller bucks cleared from behind him, I took the shot, and he fell instantly like he was hit in the head with a sledge.
Our shots were right about 15 minutes after sunset. In the shadow of the hill behind us, we had possibly 3 to 5 minutes of possible shooting light left, and not a bit more. It had come that close. If we had slowed our stalk, or if it had taken us just 3 more minutes to find the bucks, it would have been over.
We laid there for a couple minutes to give the deer time to expire, heart and breathing rates time to return to normal, and make sure we were in position to take another shot in case the buck I shot started to get up. He didn't.
As we walked up to my buck, I couldn't believe it but instantly recognized him as "Blackie". I thought my boy had shot him, but we knew my deer fell instantly. Believing one of two things happened, that either we both shot him, or he shot the other 4 pointer, I put my tag on this deer, telling him he likely had his deer down somewhere in the woods, and we'd find him. If during the skinning process we found two bullet entries and we both in fact did shoot him, it would be his deer, he could tag it, I would forfeit my tag and our hunt would be over.
After a quick search of the area for his deer, a few quick dark pictures of the deer, we field dressed him, then began an intensive search for additional blood or deer. After almost 2 hours, we found nothing to indicate another deer had been hit or was down. We returned the following morning in the light of day and searched for another 2 hours. Nothing. Looked like a clean miss. The absence of any crows / buzzards the final 3 days of the hunt seemed to verify my suspicion that he had made a clean miss on the same deer I had shot.
We both were however thrilled that we had gotten "him". All that scouting and effort, and the single deer we wanted, and we did it. As I told him, he was there every step of the way, scouting through the heat of summer, all the decision making, the stalk, and this was "our deer". He seemed to be just as ecstatic as I was and had no bad feelings about his miss on the deer.
We took the deer to the processors and taxidermist the next morning. With the size of the deer, I decided to cool him the best I could, but elected sacrafice some meat quality and leave the hide on until the next morning when we could get some good daylight pictures.
The taxidermist said he thought he'd go "190 easy". I'm not so optimistic, but am deferring to his vastly more experienced opinion at this point. I'm just not good at field judging deer, and never really cared to do so. As I tell my son, if you think "wow" when you see him, tag him, be happy, and don't worry about the numbers. I'm waiting on a call with an unofficial green score, so maybe some of you guys that are sharp at field judging want to take a crack at estimating before I find out....
It was everything the kid and I could do to get that bruiser in the back of the truck ourselves. I mean we struggled. I now regret not weighing him. I did however receive back from the processor 103 pounds of boneless paper wrapped meat. Nearly as much it seems as we got back from my son's spike elk last year! With what little remains of my son's elk, my freezer is jam packed, and I still have a cow elk hunt next month!
The final two days of the hunt, we attempted a stalk on a deer for him, but never came across the deer. We did manage to stalk up to within 60 yards of a coyote that never knew we were there, in the same area we had seen the deer in, so I imagine the deer caught scent or sight of the coyote, and spooked out of the area possibly. Luck of the hunt.
Our last afternoon was the kicker to the trip. Unable to hunt the final evening as I had to get him to the airport early in the morning for his flight out. If he got a deer, we'd have no way to process it and still get him to the airport on time. We decided to dedicate the afternoon instead to calling a couple stands for bobcat for him. We've been trying for more than 3 years to call one in for him, and while we did get one in, he never got a shot.
Thirteen or so minutes into the second of what was to be only two stands called before we ended our hunt, the bobcat appeared off to our right coming out of a wash, sitting down at the edge of the clearing we were calling. He never knew we were there. Ryan made a nice shot at 25 yards to end his quest for his first bobcat. The relief he felt after finally bagging his cat after years of work was readily apparent by the tears running down his cheeks. He couldn't be happier, and in fact said he'd rather have the cat than the deer because he worked harder for that. It was a nice sized and beautifully furred up tom, and a perfect ending to a nearly perfect hunt.
So, it was an outstanding hunt, the best of our lives, and one I felt I needed to share. Hope I haven't lost all of you yet, but I'll now shut up and get to the good stuff....the pictures!!!
