First trad buck! What a journey!

[Tim]

Jon's a good mile back in the canyons fighting off the deer, sending me a text every now and than to let me know he's ok!

I'm sitting along the creek bottom of the "Petting Zoo" pretty much watching the same show as Jon, just a different channel!          

I had'nt been there very long when a young 8 pointer came cruising by.  I pulled out my video camera.  Not long after the parade of does began!
   

[snakebit40]

Well I would love to stretch this out more but I've got to get to work. So here we go.

One of the bucks that was walking was a nice 8. He bedded down about 60 yards from me, and literally put his head down and went to sleep. I looked at him through my bino's and would think, no he's not big enough then look again and think I'm not a Wensel and I haven't killed a buck in four years, he's big enough.

After about 30 minutes a spike came running through the draw chasing a doe. They came on the trail 5 yards behind me and ended up circling down wind of me. The nice 8 decided to join the party and came in and stopped at 15 yards. I didn't have a shot and waited. He started coming again and came by at 10 yards. He was at a brisk walk and for some reason I thought I could just lead him and wouldn't have to stop him.          My shot was back and I was very disappointed in myself. He went about 50 yards and laid down. I knew where he was because he started sneezing too        

Here he is! Not the biggest buck I've seen this year but I very proud of him!

 

Thanks for coming along!

[Gen273]

Great story and a nice buck! Thanks for taking us along.  

[Elkchaser]

Congrats on a great buck and even greater story!          

P.S. What is the color of your Asbell pullover? I really like it!

[Orion]

Nicely done and nice buck.  He's got character and heft. Congrats.      

[goldflinger]

Very Nice and Congrats! Good story

[Robhood23]

Great buck, and taken with an original silvertip it looks! Congrats!

[GRINCH]

He's a winner in my book,congrats on a nice buck.          

[John146]

Nice!!!

[RedStag5728]

Nice Congrats! Unless your spoiled with 160+ class bucks all over the place, that's surely a shooter!

[Alexander Traditional]

Nice first buck,congrats!

[Bernie B.]

Nice story and buck!  Congratulations!    

Bernie Bjorklund

NC Iowa/SW Wisconsin

[DoubleJ1929]

NICE!!!  Thanks for sharing.  And I also like that pull over.

[Tim]

Let me tell you folks, I couldn't have been happier watching Jon punch the tag on his first traditional buck.  As he mentioned, the shot wasn't what we strive for but it was effective.  Jon was also effective in the fact that he never gave up. We've all been there and watching a deer take it's last few breaths makes you question why we do this.  I stood next Jon and saw him go through the emotional process.  I put my hand on his shoulder and told him "if it didn't bother you than there's something truly wrong with you".

[Altiman94]

Congrats on your deer and really enjoyed the story.

[A.S.]

Thanks for sharing guys! Sounds like a fantastic trip!

Tim, now you just need to get those elbows healed.

[straight_arrow]

Have to add my two cents.  Needless to say we had a terrific week together, saw many nice bucks during the week but most important to me was the friendships we continued to develop.  Jon, an outstanding young man doing all the right things for all the right reasons.  I admire Jon tremendously.  Tim, a friend for 25 years is without question an extraordinary individual who has inspiried me and changed my life in many ways.  Thanks to Jon and Tim for being great friends.

[Tim]

I would love to expand on the DRAG!          

So there we are in the dark a good mile away from the truck.  Mark is with the truck so Jon and I are all alone....flashlights are failing and both of our cell phones are in the single digits for battery life!

I remember looking at my phone and than at  Jon..."how much life do you have left"?  2%!  We'll buddy I have 1%!  Call Mark fast and tell him where we are and we need the truck.  Halfway through the call the phone died.

We had two choices, a drag straight up 100 yards to the left or 200 yards straight up to the right.  We chose the lesser of the two, a very bad choice!  We were in canyon country and it was dark.  By the time we saw Mark's headlights it was 9:00.  He had no way to get to us and the only way to get too him was back down and than up again.  

We could hear the oak brush scratching Mark's truck and knew this was not good.  

I vaguely remember, in between taking what seemed to be my last breath, looking at Jon wondering just how much he was pulling!  He looked at me with the same thoughts.  Two 170 pound guys is no match for a 200+ pound buck and a very steep hill!  Bottom line, we finally made it too the top and to the truck.  We were still quite disorientated and after retracing our steps a few times over we found our way out back to the road.  

Only to make matters worse we still had my doe to contend with and finally got back on the road by 10:30!      :rolleyes:    

A long but very successful day!  Here are a few more photos from the trip!

           

[rastaman]

Great story!  Thanks for sharing it with us! Very nice deer!      

[D Harris]

Congrats...enjoyed the story