The Rifle Hunt (Did you get one)

The force was with me this morning; I shot my two point at 0800 and had it in the truck before the rain and snow started to fly. I shot him around Parrish trail area. Don't have any pic's but I will be having a wonderful back-strap barb-Q in a couple of weeks with my family to celebrate.

This is in the Archery forum but you asked for it, so here it is again.

I went out with my daughter to hunt buckies this morning. I was excited to help her get her first deer. I have never thought that it was too tough to "just get a deer". We rode the horses since she isn't much into hiking. We didn't see squat. Well I saw one deer but wasn't sure what it was at first light and quite a ways away. I figured that I'd get closer and then look again if it was still there. It wasn't. Anyway, like many others, as the weather turned bad we got off the mountain. We drove home and she took a nap as I picked up my bow and headed back out. I decided to hunt an area that was not in the extended unit but was having an opening day for the "Any weapon" hunt. I chose my bow and sat in a ground blind anticipating great things. I had two spikes and a two point come by but not what I was looking for. Finally a 4 point buckie came in. I thought that it wasn't too big but not too small. I started thinking of my future. My daughter has a Henry Mountains Buffalo tag. I have tags in Montana and Wyoming for Whitetail. All of these hunts are in the second half of November when the extented units seem to get good. I "NEEDED" to stick this buckie. I drew back and let her rip.............................................This is the result.

I can't believe it. This is the second tree this year that I have hit while shooting at a buckie. The only difference between this tree hitting and the one that I had previously this year was the fact that this one had blood on it and had hit the tree after a complete pass through. Thirty yards from the point of impact was laying this cute buckie. As Epek told me, "Hey, it's a Pope and Young buck, that's a good thing." He's not a toad but man that was fun. I was by myself but I had my video camera rolling for the whole thing. I had an absolute ball.

Well as my name implies, I am firstly a bird hunter. I happen to love to eat deer and the original purpose for hunting is to eat. I do agree we should all be selective on what we harvest. I was after a tender tasty treat not a tough eating monster. Were I was hunting there are plenty of great old four points and quite a few five points. I knew the weather was turning and have very few days off, so as a buddy and I were sitting on the mountain watching the storm clouds rolling towards us I saw a walking freezer full of meat and took him. He was a two year old and obviously not very smart, so yes he may have grown larger if I would have passed him up. He was not ever going to be anything impressive and there are plenty of smart monsters on the Wasatch front, so as far as I am concerned there is no loss either way. If I wanted a monster I could have froze my but off on a thirty-degree slope and waited for something else. There are plenty of big deer on the Wasatch front for the really hardcore deer hunters that want a nasty hike in and out. So now I have freed up the five does that were with him to breed with the big boys.

No luck here. Hiked all over the tops and never saw anything. So I moved down a ways and saw lots of does and had sweet shot at a spike but I have a hard time shooting the little guys so I just watched him in my scope. The temperature was droping fast and the clouds were coming in low plus I had a really rough ride on my polaris 500 back to camp. The last I wanted was to ride a nasty trail in the fog. When I got back to camp it was snowing really good and I had a huge headache from the nasty ride so I packed up and came home. No time off at work this year so I'm done hunting this year.

When I lived in Nevada I justified shooting the little guys because it takes an avg. 3 years to get a deer tag so usually on the last day if we didn't get anything better we would get the little guys so we had some meat. However in Utah you usally can hunt if not every year its every other year so I give the little guys a chance. Plus Utah has the dedicated hunter which allows you with 9 chances over three years to bag 2 deer. Just my opinion not trying to offend anyone.