2007 Utah Deer

Due to early success on a couple of other hunts this year, I had some extra vacation time and thus decided to take Friday off to go look for a deer. In the first thirty minutes of light I sotted two good bucks on top of the mountain I was glassing and I decided to go after them. What I expected to be a 20 minute hike quickly turned into an hour and a half...the mountain these deer were on top of turned out to be bigger and steeper than I originally thought. Finally I reached the top and eased over the ridge to find nothing but an empty hillside. After picking apart the mountain below me and finding nothing, I evalutated my food/water situtation and decided to I had enough in my pack to spend the rest of the day away from the truck. That evening left me watching the same bowl to only reveal a few does at last light.

Saturday morning came really early, so I decided to take it easy and glass the same hill to try to get some better bearings on what these deer were doing in the mornings. However, I found myself once again looking at an empty mountain. Saturday evening I decided to take a different approach to the hill and, after about a 45 minute hike, I was glassing half a dozen does, a small forked-horn, and one of the two four-points from the previous morning. My approach this evening had set me up for a much better ambush. I worked my way to a spot on the ridge that gave me a good place to shoot from and setup for the shot. After ranging the deer at 242 yards, I waited for about 10 minutes for the right shot oppurtunity to present itself. Finally the buck gave me a slightly quarting away shot. I leveled my gun on the deer, split the crosshair and my 300 yard mark right behind the front shoulder, and slowly squeezed the trigger to a CLICK! My gun had missfired! I racked another shell into the chamber, leveled the gun on the buck again, and pulled the trigger...this time to a loud bang/thump. I instantly knew I had hit the deer and expected him to drop. However, he jumped and headed straight for the quakies. I dropped my gun and put my binos up just in time to see him disappear into the trees.

I worked my way over to where the deer had been standing when I shot him and started searching for a blood trail, but with light fading I found nothing. I finally decided to work my way into the quakies where he disappeared to see if I could spot him. If I didn't find him quickly I was planning on bringing reinforcements back with me in the morning. About 80 yards from where I shot him I found him laying dead. My bullet had struck true entering right behind the left shoulder and exiting through the front of the right shoulder.[attachment=0:3uv0d3qe]Email 3.jpg[/attachment:3uv0d3qe]