| My brother and I along with
a buddy of mine who I have hunted with for a long time have been hunting this area for
about three or four years. We had seen some nice 30-inch class bucks and we were set on
getting anything in the 30-inch class range. We tried something new this year and started
hunting elk the first of September and by the third day of the hunt, all three of us had
our elk. We were on a roll and now ready to start the deer hunt. We spotted three nice bucks that were in the
30-inch class about two weeks before and these were the ones we were after. We felt any
one of these would be an awesome buck to take with a bow. They were hanging out in a
little bachelor group and we watched them for about 10 nights straight. We had their
bedding habits down and I decided to do a stalk on one of the nice 30-inch bucks. I
stalked in on him and got to within 25 yards for a good shot. I missed! I couldn't believe
it and was just sick with myself for blowing a great opportunity for a trophy buck. Little
did I know that there were bigger and better things waiting for me.
It took me two days to get back into the
group of bucks again. I got off work and rushed right out there hoping to get close to
them again. This year was really dry and everywhere you stepped would make a popping and
cracking sound that would make it really tough to get in close to these bucks. I knew I
needed to do something, and as it was such a calm night I used some wolf socks on my feet
and they really helped.
I hiked in to where I thought I was
about 400-500 yards from where they were bedding and sat down and waited. It was about 45
minutes before dark when I saw the first buck start to get up and they were in the spot
where I had hoped they would be. That night all I could see were horns. There were so many
bucks in that bunch I couldn't believe it. Then I saw him. For the first time I saw him
with the other bucks including the three 30-inch bucks I was trying for originally. They
started moving towards me. I didn't know for sure how many were in the group until later
when I counted a total of 10 bucks. They started to angle away from me slightly so I
dropped back and got in a little gully and tried to move in front of them. I got up onto a
little mount to check them again and at this point they were a couple hundred yards away,
but I still wasn't in a good position so I dropped back. Again I moved to get in front of
them and came up on a little rise and spotted them just a hundred yards from me. They were
lined up kind of single file feeding a little bit and moving. I decided to stay where I
was and felt my spot was good enough and in the direction they were heading.
I got set up and even had a range
finder, but they were coming in too fast to use it. At 30 yards they started coming
through an opening one at a time. The first one through was a freaky looking 3x1, followed
by a small four point. A few more went by and then the three 30-inch bucks I had been
going after this whole time ended up walking right by me for a perfect shot. I let them
go. I knew that big boy was in that group and would take the same line bringing up the
rear. Where was he? The rest of the bucks were real tight together. Why was he taking so
long to come through the opening?
The delay was killing me and I thought I
might not get a good shot. I could tell the buck was huge, world class even. He was about
75 yards behind the other bucks just taking his time feeding as he went. I figured he
would take the same line, but the problem was that I had a good thick sagebrush in front
of me that I had put between me and the does. But behind me I had nothing. I didn't
realize that I had no cover in back of me when setting up and now realized that all I had
between me and the other nine bucks that just passed by was about five-inch-tall sheet
grass.
As the big buck was getting closer to my kill zone, I had nine bucks within 40-80 yards
behind me that were in plain view. I couldn't believe it, but they never saw me. The big
buck finally came up through the opening. I waited until his head was down and started to
draw my bow, slowly keeping a close eye on the bucks behind me. None of the other deer
spooked so I just focused on him and took a shot. He jumped and kind of kicked. I hit him
too far back and it ended up being a gut shot with a little bit of lung on the one side. I
knew right away I hit him because of the way he hunkered up and kicked. He ran about 75-80
yards and stopped and looked back at me. The rest of the deer ran off about 150 yards and
just stood on the skyline looking at me as well. It was an awesome site to see nothing but
the antlers of big bucks on the ridge. However, the big buck that I hit was staying down
at the bottom and he stood there and looked at me for a long time and then pinned his ears
back.
You could tell he was really hurt and he
just walked slowly down into a gully where I thought I saw him bed. I knew I gut shot him
and wasn't sure if he turned the corner and laid down, or if he kept on going. I went to
the spot where I hit him and found my arrow and I decided to just let him go and tag the
spot and come back in the morning.
My whole family has been bow hunting for
years and we've had this happen a few times. With bow hunting, it will happen. If you
don't push them and let them go, it seems like they come back every time and you find them
the next morning. I tagged it and went back and made plans to come back first thing in the
morning with my family.
The next morning we came back and went
to the spot where I tagged him. We tracked him to where he bedded the first time. He
wasn't there. We all expected him to be there, but he wasn't. He had bled real well
getting to that point and where he laid down there was a good puddle of blood. There were
a lot of coyotes out there and a lot of coyote tracks in his bed. We figured they were
probably pushing him because of the smell.
We started to track him, but after the
first place he laid down the blood just went to nothing because the wound sealed when he
had laid down for a couple of hours. It was really tough tracking him and we ended up
having to track mostly by just his print. Every bed we found along the way there were
coyote tracks all over it. We figured that he was going to be half eaten when we found
him. I was getting frustrated and I started to think I wasn't going to recover the body. I
knew in a day or two I would find some magpies and I would find the body sometime. But I
didn't want to do that. We'd never lost an animal. Also, about half way through trying to
find the buck, my uncle called us on the cell phone and asked us if we were watching
television. It was September 11 and we had no idea what was going on. We didn't know what
to
think of it all. It was very crazy.
Two hours had now passed with no luck,
but I then spotted a magpie about one-quarter mile away. We continued to track and ended
up right under where the magpie was circling. The magpie took us right to him and he was
stone dead. The coyotes hadn't eaten him at all. It was a hot day but we were able
to get him out of there before the meat spoiled.
The buck officially scored 266 7/8 gross
and 261 6/8 net P&Y with only five inches of deductions and is 36 inches wide. He had
a great typical frame scoring 195 7/8, which really makes him a pretty buck. It will be
the new Idaho State archery record and fourth overall pending the panel scores.  The Score Sheet |
