After way too much anticipation and lots of last minute stress about my gun, my Blackpowder deer hunt arrived. I hopped into the truck with a friend heading to the same area early Tuesday morning and we were off. The hunt opened Wednesday morning but I wanted to allow plenty of time to ride the horses into the remote spot I was planning on hunting. I guess the mid-day heat and trailer full of horses was too much for his truck and we broke a serpentine belt and had the radiator overheat just a few hours into our trip. Although it only took a couple hours to get a new belt put on, it seemed like forever and it was all I could do to keep from totally freaking out. We got to the trail head later than I had planned and ended up not making it to the spot I had hoped to be on opening morning. On the bright side, another friend of mine who was in the area hunting bears took a nice boar that evening. We rode to his bear in the dark, took pictures, and skinned and packed it out on the horses on a very dark moonless night. I didn't go to bed until after 1:00 am.
Opening morning I decided to put in a couple hours in a nearby spot, and then I figured we would come back to camp and pack up the horses and ride in the rest of the way. I saw some elk and a 2 point buck, but not much else so I headed back to camp to pack the horses.
After a long ride I made it to my desired destination and got the horses settled Wed. night at about 6:30 pm. I was almost out of light and I hurried out to see if I could find any bucks. Right off the bat I spotted what I could tell from a distance were 2 nice bucks feeding in a little patch of sagebrush. I planned a stalk and before I knew it I was right above where I had last seen them. I couldn't see anything so I wondered if they had smelled/heard me and taken off? Suddenly a buck stood up and looked right at me. It was a nice buck, but the smaller of the 2 so I waited. A couple seconds later the bigger buck stood up. He was really really heavy with deep forks, even though it was only the opening day I didn't hesitate and I raised my gun and took a bead.
I have my rifle sighted in to hit a couple inches high at 100 yards, right on at 150. At 50 yards it actually shoots almost 4 inches high. Couple that with the steep downhill angle, brush covering the bottom half of the buck, and probably more than a little bit of buck fever and I watched in disbelief as my bullet kicked up a puff of dust right above the back of the massive old buck. The bucks bolted, but stopped at a couple hundred yards and waited around taunting me as I tried to hurry and reload my muzzleloader. Just as I got my second shot ready to go, they were gone.
I pulled out my rangefinder and I felt sick to my stomach that I had missed a monster buck at only 65 yards! I can still almost cry if I think about it too much.
The next morning I hoped I might turn him up again, but didn't find him. I had his buddy the smaller buck, a 26-27" wide 4 point with huge backs and tiny fronts come within 80 yards of me, but I held off hoping the heavy guy would show up. He didn't.
Over the next couple days I glassed and passed multiple bucks, some that were pretty decent. I made a stalk to within 25 yards of this young 4 point, but let him go. Even after I stood up and busted him, he circled back to 75 yards to have another look at me and let me snap his photo.
After a morning of glassing a beautiful basin and watching a bull elk chase his cows around I was headed back to camp to let my horse eat and to escape the record heat wave afflicting my area.
While walking back I jumped a buck even bigger than the one I had missed earlier. He stopped at about 80 yards and looked back over his shoulder. I had a dead rest on a tree and the crosshairs right on his back rib when I squeezed the trigger. I heard the loudest "CLICK" I have ever heard. It was too much for the buck and he ran into the bottom of a deep thick canyon. The bolt on my rifle had made a good dent in the 209 primer, but it had failed to go off. The primer was a DUD! I had to watch a 190 class buck with beautiful deep forks bound away wondering what I had done to deserve this kind of karma!
The next day I had a black bear walk to within 5 yards of me before we both startled and he took off. I saw multiple bear tracks, and even took photos of one through my spotting scope.
I enjoyed the country and had a couple more frustrating encounters with big bucks, including a standoff with the heavy buck from opening day at 35 yards. There was a boulder between us and all I could see was a perfect view of his antlers. After several days of hard hunting in the sweltering heat I am sure I was pretty ripe and he could smell me. We both waited to see who would make the next move. He moved, taking just the right path to stay out of sight as he stotted down a ridge into the thick oakbrush where I would never see him again.
It had been beautiful, and I had seen lots of nice animals with chances to take several decent bucks, but it had just never come together on any of the big ones.
My friend showed up with the pack horse and we loaded camp up Saturday after the morning hunt. I headed for home feeling frustrated and discouraged. Right at noon a we jumped a couple bucks right on the trail. I hopped off the horse, grabbed my gun and walked up the hill where they had ran. To my surprise they bucks were just standing there. Without really thinking I took aim at the biggest of the two and pulled the trigger half expecting to miss. Well, as Murphy's law would have it I nailed him and he rolled back down the hill coming to a rest right on the trail.
It was probably close to 80 degrees, so we did the best we could to get the meat taken care of and packed onto the horse. That and several other horse related delays didn't let me get home Saturday night as planned, and I didn't make it home until Sunday afternoon. Nothing went quite like I planned, but I did have a good time.
I still wish I could have put the pieces together on one of the bigger bucks I had seen, but there is always next year...
