Where has the time gone? The 2018 season is the last year my little Roo will be hunting as a "youth". I had been looking forward to this hunt all year as I LOVE one on one time with this girl. Through the years, our conversations in the pick-up may have gotten a bit more complex but her cheerful attitude and chatty personality hasn't changed; I'm so proud to be her father.
These days, she is a tremendously busy girl with school, work, along with her Drum Major title in the high school band, dance, and her after-school nursing course. I felt guilty reminding her about the upcoming deer hunt because of her demanding schedule, but she always seemed excited for this year's buck hunt.
She'd be hunting "any deer", which included whitetail or mule deer in an area close to home, but as my whole family would agree, who would hunt whitetail if there are mulies around? We made one late summer scouting trip for a morning ride to show her the area we would be hunting and the behavior of the deer. Typically, the deer will travel miles to feed at night in agricultural ground and then head up into the large canyons before sunlight to evade people.
The theory is the older the buck, the earlier he leaves the feeding area and heads up in some secluded pocket somewhere well away from any road; most likely in the morning darkness. She was able to see several older-class bucks on that scouting trip a mile or so up the canyons headed to bed and was beginning to get excited about hunting for a bigger buck than what she has taken previously.
The day was sunny and soon enough it was time to take her back to school with her tag still in her pocket. She said she could hunt the following Saturday. I had a plan to drop off the side by side at the bottom of a ridge and drive to the top with the pick-up. We had 4 miles of ridge in between the vehicles, which was a hotbed for bucks.
We started the morning out and it was a bit slow, with very few deer sightings. Roo kept her eye on a small three-point in a slot canyon in case he had some buddies near-by. Meanwhile, I had the binos on the tripod picking apart every bit of real estate. After 20 minutes or so, we'd move on down the ridge and do it again. We had been sitting in one spot for quite a while and the sun, behind us, was hitting the eastern slopes in front of us and warming things up. "Dad, I can't believe you can just keep looking and looking at the same area. Do you think a buck is magically going to appear?"
On cue, I had just spotted a glimmer. A glimmer of hope in the form of an antler. Behind a boulde; a big boulder. I could see the wide frame of a light-colored buck's antlers although the buck thought he was well hid between the boulder and a small pine. I could barely make the frame out with the 10x binos at 900 yards. Roo was so excited when I told her about the size of the buck she started shaking while tealing the tripod and binos for a peak. It still took her a couple minutes to pick out the bedded buck.
We closed the distance until the sun and open terrain stopped us. We laid in the edge of the shade at 530 yards. We dialed in the .243 ackley and she prepared for the shot. Mind you, Roo has never missed an animal so her confidence was as high as a migrating eagle. I noticed a bit of wind in between us but didn't have her adjust at all, which was a mistake as her bullet shot just right of the bedded buck. More wind than I thought!
A quick adjustment and the standing buck took the 105 amax right through the respiratory organs and stumbled to the ground before Roo could even get back in the scope. Roo still couldn't wrap her head around how she could miss. Cocky little bugger anyways...
It was a beautiful cool October morning still with the scent of sage heavy in the air. I love watching my children have some luck and truly enjoy themselves outside with dad. Nothing means more to me than their presence out there. Indeed, it was her biggest buck to date. 26" of pure muley beauty.
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