Lightning Strikes Twice

[rk]

I applied for fall deer (and drew 37B tags) with my neighbor Dave, his son Dustin, and his friend Chris, but the hunt really started for me when my daughter and I drew 37B spring javelina tags and I decided I was going to scout up a completely new area to hunt. After scouring the topo maps on my PC, and plotting out waterholes, I settled on a place to start scouting in the southern part of the unit. We usually hunted pigs in the 96 Ranch area, and some areas north of the Gila River.

On my very first scouting trip, I knew I was onto something. There was plenty of pig sign, lots of quail and jackrabbits, and quite a few coyotes. And...I spotted a nice looking buck. On a subsequent scouting trip, I was making my way over a low ridge to get to where most of the pig sign was, and a big bodied buck jumped up right in front of me and bounced liesurely away. A couple of the days of the pig hunt when I was hunting solo because my daughter was in school, I had two more brief sightings of a lone buck. And then again on a coyote hunting trip.

Finally, on my last scouting trip for the fall deer hunt, I went back to the same area just to check things out. While hiking the side of a low ridge, I stopped to get something out of my shoe, and when I stood up and started walking again, a big bodied buck jumped up 10 yds in front of me and bounced liesurely away. This was getting to be a habit, and finalized my plans for the hunt.

We had settled on a camp site on the other side of the unit from where I planned to hunt, and my hunting partners went down early and set up camp. I arrived Thursday night late, after everyone but Dustin had gone to bed. He provided some light while I unloaded and popped up the tent. I woke up early to allow time to drive to my hunting area, and the sound of me warming up my truck brought Dave out to see who was trying to steal his (not knowing that I had arrived in the night). I filled him in on my plans, and headed out.

I arrived at the parking spot at just the right time. A few minutes to get geared up, and there was just enough light to hunt. I hunted all morning, covering the entire area that I thought made up this buck's territory based on the previous sightings. I finally found myself on the low ridge where I jumped him out of his bed the first time.

After covering the ridge top with no sightings of deer yet that day, I decided to hunt across a flat and into the big wash where the local peccaries seemed to spend most of their time. The idea was that I would find a soft, sandy, shady spot to eat lunch and possibly take a brief nap before heading to another area where I had seem some deer sign (but no deer).

I dropped off the ridge onto the flat, and had just started moving across the flat when a big bodied buck jumped up about 10 yards in front of me, and started bouncing liesurely away. Bounce, bounce bounce...BOOM! The buck went down hard and didn't get up. However, I could see through the prickly pears that he still had his head up, but was not struggling to move. A follow-up shot finished the job. My deer curse was finally broken.







I got the deer field dressed, and hiked the mile back to my truck. I drove around to another road, and got my truck within manageable distance of the buck. With the buck loaded up, I headed north and dropped it off at the processor. My thanks to Marshall for assistance in trying to track down his taxidermist friend.

The next morning, I didn't go out with the other hunters, but instead hung around camp and played bean bag toss and Cranium with the non-hunters. Around mid-day, the hunters pulled into camp with great news. Dave had another big buck down! He glassed the bedded buck from two ridges away, made a stalk, and took the buck from a mear 40 feet! After a quick lunch, I grabbed my gear and we headed out with a quad to retrieve it. A one mile quad ride up a wash for Dave (and a hike for the rest of us) was all it took.



We hunted hard Sunday and half of Monday, but unfortunately no more deer were taken. But a good time was had by all, and yes, there are (or were) a few nice bucks in 37B...

[crtbc]

Very nice....muy bueno senor.....good lookin deer too congrats on breakin the streak

[DezrtRat]

Nice deer and thanks for the play-by-play. It sure makes it more fun to read.

[AzSlim]

nice bucks.....

[Desert Rat]

Boy, that's awesome. Congratulations!

[Casador]

Congrats on some very nice bucks!

[Jasper]

Beautiful bucks! Congrats!!

[Dave Price]

Way to get it done!

[crounsebd]

Unreal RK!!!! Talk about some sweet deer! Yours is huge with lots of mass and some wicked brow tines! The sweetest part, you found him while doing the right thing, followed up on it and nobody killed him before you could get back to him!!!

[rk]

I'm sure these bucks aren't "big" by some people's standards. But I waited a long time for this one, and if I don't kill another buck I'll still be happy!