Well, finally up and around. Long trip home. It kinda went like this: We sat Double Bull Blinds near and around alfalfa fields in country that I had never hunted before. It was steep to Biggie and I , but we actually got around fairly well. I'm sure that both our guides were waiting on us, but they didn't let on. Good fella's! This hunt was purchased by Biggie at the last PBS Banquet and he offered to take me along. We tried several others to join us- including Hogdancer- to no avail.The outfitter was Aram Barsch out of Boulder, Utah. A town full of Organic Farmers and no French Fries at any restaurant! Believe me- we tried!
The season Opener was on Saturday and I passed a decent 4x5 and saw a few others-in fact I had action most of my sits, whereas the Big-man did not. He was playing cat and mouse with several nice bucks as the trail camera's showed them at every blind he wasn't sitting in!
On Monday evening about 8pm, we heard the rocks tumbling and we had about 10 bucks come by including the one that I shot. He was the dominate one of the group and showed it by kicking the others around and posturing towards them. Pretty neat to watch. It seemed like an eternity, but he finally turned broadside at about 8 yds and I took my shot.The guide had the film rolling.I immediately knew that I had a penetration problem, but I saw that the broadhead had done considerable damage as the buck really hobbled as he ran up the steep slope. We waited 45 minutes, til it was dark, and went to look for the arrow.
That's when the doubt started as it was lying there with hardly any blood and one of the blades of the Razorcap was broken off which had never happened to me before. I have used these heads on LOTS of game including all the African animals I have taken with no broadhead failure ever. We went back to camp and reviewed the footage many times. We determined that I had broken the buck's front right leg as the arrow hit about 2 inches forward of my intented placement. Like I said, these Mulies are sharp at close range.
The next morning, 5 of us, including the cook( a young lady wearing flip flops-but that's an entire other story!)went to look for the deer. We found blood about 100 yds from the point of impact and it really started flowing as the buck went up over the steep part of the mountain onto a large plateau! This was 7 am. One of the guides and I stayed on the blood trail and the others tried flanking the trail to see if they could spot the deer bedded anywhere. We knew it was hurt badly.
We quickly got seperated, with no means of communicating, but the guide and I were not about to leave the trail. Around 10
[/URL][/IMG] am we jumped the deer within hearing range and my spirits were lifted, even though I thought we had a good chance after finding all that blood getting up on this plateau, when we finally heard it jump up, I felt alot better! Jess and I just steadily stayed on the track-sometimes now with blood, sometimes not. We hit a Canyon and I thought I heard something and looked up from the ground to see him struggling to get over the next ridge about 400 yards ahead! I got a good look at the buck here and it was struggling to climb and it's tongue was out. This fella Jess is about 28yrs old and he took off a full gallop down into the canyon and up the other side. I felt old at 53! He waited for me at the top and we again had to look for the blood as he had crossed the tracks of many deer now. It took us about 15 minutes to sort it out and again the chase was on. About 11:30, Jess realized the deer was heading back toward the highway, which really din't break my heart until we saw where he went over a cliff that no one woulda bet a deer could go- let alone me! We followed him over and indeed it led right to the highway! It was about 1pm when we got to the road, we had nothing to drink, so Jess went to get the truck which was a mile and a half up the road. We figured the deer had gone over 4 miles at this point!!
At this time, I wanna say that I wasn't proud of this shot by any means, but I was proud to be part of such a tracking job that included such determination on this fella's part to help get this buck!!!
When Jess returned with the truck- I drove to town and got us water and Gator aid and when I got back to Jess, all the others were there, as they had trailed us the entire time! We all had a well deserved drink and took off across the highway. I told the outfitter and all the others, at this point after all this- the first person to get an arrow into this deer-please do it- this deer has been thru enough!
At 2:30, we broke out into a pasture along a mountain stream and the buck was down in the corner. He was down, but not completely out. the outfitter, Aram, was about 30 yds ahead of me and just instictively drew and shot after my little speech about geting this buck. The deer ran about 15 more yds for the final lunge. It had been 7 1/2 hours after finding first blood. I thanked the outfitter for finishing off the deer and he said he didn't finish it - that it was gone and just didn't know it yet. That's it in a nutshell. I'm sure I didn't remeber it all, but you get the idea. I have already relived it a thousand times.
Trailing Biggie in a chair!!!
Topic: Biggie and Marty have meat in Utah (Read 4416 times)
