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| My buck |
Finally archery season is here, the days I had been waiting patiently for. It seemed like forever for it to come along. Endless nights of practicing and shooting, but at last my time to hunt was near at hand. My husband and I always take the first two weeks of archery season off work, so we can get the upper hand on the animals. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky getting a deer or elk on a public land hunt. We do a lot of research to find pockets of BLM close to home that we can hunt, then set out the game camera and see what we can find. We have had good success doing this, and have found some nice trophy deer and elk. We have yet to get the allusive animals though. This year however, Darren had to work out of state the first week, so he didn’t even get to hunt, and I ventured out on my own. We had been getting a lot of promising pictures on the game camera, but none came in while I was there that I wanted. Some nice little forked horns and does frequented our blind, but not the big ones I wanted. I really wanted wanted to try out my new Mathews bow, but I figured I better be a little choosy.
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| Deer from the game camera |
The second week came and we hunted day and night with the possibility of a few good deer in our sights. I was really anxious to try and get one of the big ones. My chance finally came one evening. We were all set up in our blind, and the deer were moving in. The wind was in our favor, the sun was setting behind us, and it was a beautiful sunset. What more could I ask for. They lingered, eating away at the sage brush not giving me a clear shot. The deer I was looking at was a 4x4, approximately 27 inches wide and 22 to 24 tall, field judging. His body was so boehemith and it would have been my nicest deer taken to date. It seemed like an eternity as I watched them make their way closer, but it was really only 30 minutes. Finally, the brute gave me a quick opportunity at him and I drew back and missed. I wasn’t even nervous and I missed. I just couldn’t believe it, I was so upset. He was a dandy and I choked. I am sure most bow hunters have missed at one point or another, and that was my time. I just flat out missed, the deer ran off, and my night was over. I went home with my tail between my legs so to speak and sulked for a few days.
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| The one I wanted, and the one I got |
We decided to try our hand at elk hunting and give the deer a chance to calm down since their education in getting shot at. We hiked a couple miles in the sand one cool brisk morning waiting to hear the call of the elk. And then we heard it, in the distance, the distinct sound of a cow call. Our legs started moving to a quick jog, in hopes we could catch up to them. We could see the elk about 150 yards out, milling around in the trees. So, this was our opportunity to put the sneak on them. We got within 80 yards and they were talking quite a bit. Then they turned and spooked, they ran like their life depended on it. We looked up and some other hunters came through the trees. I am pretty sure the elk high tailed it out of there and the elk hunt had ended for the day. It was quite exciting however while it lasted. My blood was pumping and I got my morning exercise in after 5 miles of hiking in the sand.
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| An Elk Hunting Sunrise |
The next week, we decided to go back to our faithful deer hunting hole, and try and get a muley. A group of deer came in about 6:30pm, and were quite curious. The doe kept circling us and tried to wind us. Each time she would come in to us, sniff a little and then she sauntered a little closer to figure out what we were. I looked back and there was a small forked horn and then a larger one that I had seen the previous year and really wanted to try and get. He was only about 40 yards away, but I thought if the doe kept around us, he would get curious too, and come in closer. Sure enough, he slowly started to move in, and was feeding in the sagebrush. I waited until he gave me a nice 25 yard broadside shot then I drew on him. I released and the arrow made it to the target. What a nice sound and knowing I made a good shot was even better. We waited about a half hour then went and looked for my arrow. It blew clean through him and was lying right where I shot it. It had good foamy blood on it, so we tracked it out 100 yards and there it was piled up in the brush.
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- Curious buck and doe
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Curious doe
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I am glad I got the deer because the next weekend after my husbands morning hunt he was having serious stomach pain. I ended up taking him to the hospital and he had to have an emergency appendectomy. He was out the last week of hunting and that ended our season. We will have to hunt the Westside for late season elk and deer. That should be fun. It definitely made for a memorable archery season.
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| My buck |
Equipment used: Mathews HyperLite bow, Trophy Taker Rest, Spot Hogg Hunter sight, Easton Axis arrows, Tru Ball hand held release, Leupold Cascade Binos, and a Nikon range finder.
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Bows 
