Thankful

This Thanksgiving I found myself grateful for friends, children, and hunting tradition. For a couple years now, I've had an idea. An idea to invite multiple families up to Cody to spend Thanksgiving,  and have a big whitetail hunting party, with the goal of fun, lots of good venison, and a picture that resembles those old hunting pictures from the early 20th century with a group of people and a line of dead deer behind them.

With whitetail in Wyoming, you can typically draw multiple tags in a given year and they are delicious. We invited Tyler Berry, The Zierenbergs, and the Crosby's. Including their children, there were 15 guests, and somewhere around 21 whitetail tags. Although I was certain we'd all tire, and fill our coolers, before killing 21 whitetails I knew we'd have a blast meanwhile. 

Thanksgiving morning was going to be the first hunt. I decided I'd tag along with the Crosby's to show them around a bit. We are hunting private ground but there is public access on all of them. I'm going to rewind before Thanksgiving a bit... I had just killed my whitetail buck days prior to everyone arriving. I might as well tell my buck story now:

My buck hunt was short, about a two hour evening hunt is all. I hiked to a small bentonite knob that looked over an expansive greasewood patch alongside the Greybull river that the whiteys liked to bed in. I locked the binos on the tripod and immediately started picking up does and bucks. The rut was on and strong!!

Once I had my eyes on multiple mature bucks running does around, I convinced myself I wasn't going to be too picky and I would be shooting a buck that evening. Knowing the other family's kids were going to hunt the same area in a couple days, I wanted to get in, kill, and get out and let things settle down. I was pleased there were multiple bucks I could choose from, but I kept my eye on a large-framed 8-point buck. Although his body was giant, a smaller-statured buck had just chased him away from some hot does. My buck was watching the other buck dominate the scene when I decided to take him at 480 yards. He immediately dropped unnoticed by the other deer, who continued their annual rutting ritual. With the risk of being accused of blasphemy from my mule deer aficionados (like myself), each time I walk up on a whitetail I silently confess that they are more striking than the mule deer and the blacktail. I quartered and packed out the heavy buck getting to the truck right at dark.    

Back to Thanksgiving morning...Chris, his son Chayton, and I parked at first light and made our way towards the same bentonite knob. Before we could get there in the growing morning light, we could make out multiple groups of deer scattered between the large alfalfa field and the greasewood patch, including some nice bucks. One buck, tending a doe, out in the pivot field stuck out as one of the bigger deer in view, but it was keeping a safe distance around 800 yards from us. There was a lot going on as deer were in and out of the greasewood and we were catching flashes of multiple bucks.

We decided to keep an eye on Mr. Big in the pivot but still make our way to the knob hoping he'd eventually come our way towards the cover of the greasewood patch below us. There was a lot of excitement as we walked slowly and glassed all the action. "There's a hunter behind the buck along the river!" someone said. We focused in on a nimrod in a big orange parka who lookd to be eyeing the same big buck in the pivot field but he was much closer. The buck's does were alert on the hunter, but the buck was busy standing above a bedded doe that probably hoped the hunter would shoot this buck off of her. 

We were sick thinking love was going to be the demise of this buck from some goofy hunter in the middle of an open field. The hunter, with no binoculars, rested his rifle on some sort of stick/pole he had, The crack of the rifle alerted all of the deer in the area, but the buck still stood. Fortunately the hunter wasn't a very good hunter, he missed. Seconds later, the hot doe finally stood to follow the other does heading towards the greasewood! Get ready Chayton! 

The buck escaped into the waist-high grass making it hard to see by the other hunter at ground-level. Fortunately for us, we were elevated and ready. 470 yards and put it right on him. The buck dropped in it's tracks nearly in the same place I killed my buck a few days earlier. We knew it was a dandy buck, but he grew as we walked up on him. He's an exceptional buck for the area. It was great as Chayton confessed he has always wanted to kill a whitetail more than anything else. He did a fine job!

 

That same morning Jared had his oldest daughter Autumn hunting in the same area. In fact, while we were field-dressing Chayton's buck, Autumn shot and missed a good buck that almost ran us over while escaping. Thanksgiving morning, Autumn filled both of her tags just minutes apart, a doe and a buck, which made us a little late for Thanksgiving dinner, but it was worth it!

Thanksgiving dinner was great. It was fun to get all our children together as it's been a while since we've got them together. We haven't ever got together with the Crosby family so they were a great addition. All the kids played games inside and outside till they were exhausted. Our Hunter came home from Laramie and hung out with all of us as well. It was great to see him also. I wish the Burrell children spent more time with us in the woods hunting as both Roo and Hunter had whitetail tags but they were busy playing and doing other things. I think all the kids had a stellar time together which was the ultimate goal in my mind.

The next couple days were a blur. Those that wanted to hunt were out filling tags while Emily and Crystal graciously stayed back with young children and whoever wanted to do other things like the Christmas parade downtown Cody and Black Friday. We filled many a tags enduring some snowy weather. The deer were plentiful and before we knew it Sunday morning arrived, when everyone was to travel home. All in all, 6 different hunters killed their very first whitetail and we got our vintage picture we were hoping for.

I'm thankful for my children, their health, and their love. I'm thankful for having a such beautiful person that walks through this life with me by my side. I'm thankful for my parents and their examples they've been to me. I'm thankful for good friends that are lighthouses in my life, all of them in one way or another. I'm thankful for my job. I'm also thankful to live in wonderful state of Wyoming surrounded by public lands and strong game populations. I'm thankful for a strong independent country that is in strong support of the North American wildlife conservation model that allows us to manage our precious wildlife through hunting and gathering. Life is good.