GarGuy's stories got me to thinking about several that I've been on in the past. There are several that had I not been there to see it, I might not believe it. Sometimes deer do things that your brain can't wrap itself around it.
Several years ago my brother and a friend of his went on a day hunt outside of Water Valley. They where there for 4 days and Kasey killed a 140ish 10 point, and Billy killed one a little bigger. They both agreed that they'd settled for lesser deer because they where short on time. Billy being the sweet talker of the 2 struck up a deal and leased the property.
This was on of those dream leases. Loaded with mature deer and lots of numbers. It was a place that if a guy put his head down and hunted, he could bank on killing a high 140's-150 class deer every year. For the first several years, they killed a couple into the 160's.
I wasn't a member but my dad had gone out with Kasey's father in law about 3 years after they'd leased it. He came home telling me about all the big deer they'd seen and numbers. His buddy had shot a high 130's 8pt but they'd seen much bigger deer. The next year Kasey invited me to go during early bow season to shoot does, turkey's, and javi's.
Billy and Kasey hunted a big thick mesquite and cedar draw, one on either end of it. It had several bowls and gnarly drains coming off of it that where loaded with big deer. I enjoyed sitting in a box stand and watching the draw because about the time the sun disappeared behind the hill, the rocks and hillside started crawling, coming alive with deer, some of them being giant deer!
They both had pics and had their eyes set on a buck that we all figured would get into the 180's. He was about as pretty a non-typical as you'll ever see. He wasn't very wide but we counted 15 LONG heavy tines. Seeing as they both had pics of the deer in the same draw, neither of them where going to shoot anything else.
Several days into it, if throttled a couple of does and a turkey. Billy dropped me off at a stand where his draw sort of played out on the edge of Rocky Creek and a giant mesquite flat. Turkey's roosters all along the river and I'd planned to film them up close and capture all the cool little noises they make to practice on my calls at home. When it broke daylight I has 11 bucks and 14 does under the feeder. The camera made a *ding noise when I turned it on so I decided to leave it in the pack as to not booger up the deer.
I was enjoying the morning, watching more dominate bucks nose inferior deer out of the corn and bump does around out of their way when I heard the first snort wheeze I'd ever heard. It was coming out of the thick brush adjoining the creek sort of behind me and to my left. Over the top of a prickly pair, I see what looks like a mesquite limb with no leave turn and head towards the corn! My mouth fell open, this deer was an absolute world class giant! I discovered he had 2 10" tines that where hidden in all of the pics due to them growing inside the main beam. This deer was gonna be in the high 190's!
When Billy picked me up, I told him about the deer. He hunted that stand twice and decided to head back to his the next morning, not really sure to believe if I'd actually seen his deer or not. The next morning after my hunt, I'd walked back to camp and was cooking breakfast when Billy and Kasey got out of the Samurai Billy cussing and throwing stuff around. I figured he'd missed the big deer when I heard him say he'd gut shot him.
That's bad, we all know that feeling. I took a look at his arrow and didn't see guts, I saw fat. In fact, I took a lighter and melted it off the shaft to prove my point. He said it had been a little low and back but was upset because of the lack of blood on the arrow. I tried to calm him down telling him the fat may have wiped it clean but it was a feeble attempt at calming a man's nerves that'd just made a bad shot on a once in a lifetime deer. We decided since he'd shot at 7:03am we'd wait til lunch to go looking.
About 12:30 we drive back. The plan was I'd sit in the road and watch the valley incase the deer got by them I could see where he went. Billy was going back to where he saw him go into the creek bottom and Kasey and Stevie would walk either side of the thick brushy creek and watch for him. They dropped me off about 700-800 yards from the stand and headed for their positions. I was looking east up the brushy creek that looked like a big dark snake running through the middle of this valley with huge cedar hills to the north and south. The bottom was fairly open aside from the creek but 3/4 of the way up the hills, it's started getting pretty nasty.
I'd been there maybe 20-30min when I see a buck blow out of the bottom heading more south than west but at enough of an angle to get to the top of the hill. On this place big deer where more common than small ones so it didn't register that this was THE buck until I saw 3 grown men chasing after this deer like wild Indians, slinging arrows at a deer that had to be over 100 yards away... This was very strange to me. All 3 of these men where very seasoned hunters. They'd all killed several big deer and knew the rights and wrongs of deer hunting. Chasing a wounded buck across the desert slinging arrows like something on a cartoon definitely falls under WRONG.
None the less, I hauled my ashes in the general direction of the deer to try and cut him off... When in Rome I guess... I caught up with Kasey breathing heavy on the side of the hill. I asked him what the hell was wrong with them! He caught his breath and said he and Stevie where on either side of the creek sloping through when they spotted the buck laying in the dry creek bed. Kasey said he was laying flat on his back with his head away from them and all 4 feet stuck straight up in the air. He said he just knew the deer was dead, but for general purpose he shot the deer just below the sternum and the fletchings disappeared. To everyone's surprise, the deer jumped up and headed towards Billy and that leads us to where we are now.
So this deer has 2 arrows in him, Kasey's being no doubt in the vitals and I'd seen this deer cover 300 yards like he wasn't touched.
Billy and Stevie had made a wide circle and where working their way back towards us. Last and I where 20' apart and working our way slowly towards them when I heard a whistle, ssssshhhhhhhh, WHACK! Then the sound of hooves on rocks coming directly towards us. In a flash the giant deer split the middle of Kasey and I and was headed back towards the creek due north but wasn't moving as fast as he should have been. He now had 3 arrows in him, 1 we know is really good, the 3rd we assume is good and the 1st was enough to put him in a bind. As soon as the deer passed us, Kasey and I broke and run heading towards him.
I'm not sure what was going through my head, I don't know why I did what I did at all... Looking back it was incredibly stupid, but I have a slough of stupid acts under my belt. I shucked my bow, and grabbed my skinning knife off my belt as I was closing in on this deer. I was maybe 10' behind home when he did a nose five down the hill. I jumped on his back and wrapped my legs around his neck and grabbed his wrack to hold his head down. Luckily for me, deer made 2 bleats and gave up the ghost.
After high 5's and retelling the story knowing no one would believe how it went down, we went back to camp and got the tape out. I scored the deer at 198 6/8". 60 days later, he was officially grossed by a P&Y scorer at 202 6/8 and netted 196 3/8". Free range, low fence, monster whitetail with an unbelievable story to go with it.
Several years ago my brother and a friend of his went on a day hunt outside of Water Valley. They where there for 4 days and Kasey killed a 140ish 10 point, and Billy killed one a little bigger. They both agreed that they'd settled for lesser deer because they where short on time. Billy being the sweet talker of the 2 struck up a deal and leased the property.
This was on of those dream leases. Loaded with mature deer and lots of numbers. It was a place that if a guy put his head down and hunted, he could bank on killing a high 140's-150 class deer every year. For the first several years, they killed a couple into the 160's.
I wasn't a member but my dad had gone out with Kasey's father in law about 3 years after they'd leased it. He came home telling me about all the big deer they'd seen and numbers. His buddy had shot a high 130's 8pt but they'd seen much bigger deer. The next year Kasey invited me to go during early bow season to shoot does, turkey's, and javi's.
Billy and Kasey hunted a big thick mesquite and cedar draw, one on either end of it. It had several bowls and gnarly drains coming off of it that where loaded with big deer. I enjoyed sitting in a box stand and watching the draw because about the time the sun disappeared behind the hill, the rocks and hillside started crawling, coming alive with deer, some of them being giant deer!
They both had pics and had their eyes set on a buck that we all figured would get into the 180's. He was about as pretty a non-typical as you'll ever see. He wasn't very wide but we counted 15 LONG heavy tines. Seeing as they both had pics of the deer in the same draw, neither of them where going to shoot anything else.
Several days into it, if throttled a couple of does and a turkey. Billy dropped me off at a stand where his draw sort of played out on the edge of Rocky Creek and a giant mesquite flat. Turkey's roosters all along the river and I'd planned to film them up close and capture all the cool little noises they make to practice on my calls at home. When it broke daylight I has 11 bucks and 14 does under the feeder. The camera made a *ding noise when I turned it on so I decided to leave it in the pack as to not booger up the deer.
I was enjoying the morning, watching more dominate bucks nose inferior deer out of the corn and bump does around out of their way when I heard the first snort wheeze I'd ever heard. It was coming out of the thick brush adjoining the creek sort of behind me and to my left. Over the top of a prickly pair, I see what looks like a mesquite limb with no leave turn and head towards the corn! My mouth fell open, this deer was an absolute world class giant! I discovered he had 2 10" tines that where hidden in all of the pics due to them growing inside the main beam. This deer was gonna be in the high 190's!
When Billy picked me up, I told him about the deer. He hunted that stand twice and decided to head back to his the next morning, not really sure to believe if I'd actually seen his deer or not. The next morning after my hunt, I'd walked back to camp and was cooking breakfast when Billy and Kasey got out of the Samurai Billy cussing and throwing stuff around. I figured he'd missed the big deer when I heard him say he'd gut shot him.
That's bad, we all know that feeling. I took a look at his arrow and didn't see guts, I saw fat. In fact, I took a lighter and melted it off the shaft to prove my point. He said it had been a little low and back but was upset because of the lack of blood on the arrow. I tried to calm him down telling him the fat may have wiped it clean but it was a feeble attempt at calming a man's nerves that'd just made a bad shot on a once in a lifetime deer. We decided since he'd shot at 7:03am we'd wait til lunch to go looking.
About 12:30 we drive back. The plan was I'd sit in the road and watch the valley incase the deer got by them I could see where he went. Billy was going back to where he saw him go into the creek bottom and Kasey and Stevie would walk either side of the thick brushy creek and watch for him. They dropped me off about 700-800 yards from the stand and headed for their positions. I was looking east up the brushy creek that looked like a big dark snake running through the middle of this valley with huge cedar hills to the north and south. The bottom was fairly open aside from the creek but 3/4 of the way up the hills, it's started getting pretty nasty.
I'd been there maybe 20-30min when I see a buck blow out of the bottom heading more south than west but at enough of an angle to get to the top of the hill. On this place big deer where more common than small ones so it didn't register that this was THE buck until I saw 3 grown men chasing after this deer like wild Indians, slinging arrows at a deer that had to be over 100 yards away... This was very strange to me. All 3 of these men where very seasoned hunters. They'd all killed several big deer and knew the rights and wrongs of deer hunting. Chasing a wounded buck across the desert slinging arrows like something on a cartoon definitely falls under WRONG.
None the less, I hauled my ashes in the general direction of the deer to try and cut him off... When in Rome I guess... I caught up with Kasey breathing heavy on the side of the hill. I asked him what the hell was wrong with them! He caught his breath and said he and Stevie where on either side of the creek sloping through when they spotted the buck laying in the dry creek bed. Kasey said he was laying flat on his back with his head away from them and all 4 feet stuck straight up in the air. He said he just knew the deer was dead, but for general purpose he shot the deer just below the sternum and the fletchings disappeared. To everyone's surprise, the deer jumped up and headed towards Billy and that leads us to where we are now.
So this deer has 2 arrows in him, Kasey's being no doubt in the vitals and I'd seen this deer cover 300 yards like he wasn't touched.
Billy and Stevie had made a wide circle and where working their way back towards us. Last and I where 20' apart and working our way slowly towards them when I heard a whistle, ssssshhhhhhhh, WHACK! Then the sound of hooves on rocks coming directly towards us. In a flash the giant deer split the middle of Kasey and I and was headed back towards the creek due north but wasn't moving as fast as he should have been. He now had 3 arrows in him, 1 we know is really good, the 3rd we assume is good and the 1st was enough to put him in a bind. As soon as the deer passed us, Kasey and I broke and run heading towards him.
I'm not sure what was going through my head, I don't know why I did what I did at all... Looking back it was incredibly stupid, but I have a slough of stupid acts under my belt. I shucked my bow, and grabbed my skinning knife off my belt as I was closing in on this deer. I was maybe 10' behind home when he did a nose five down the hill. I jumped on his back and wrapped my legs around his neck and grabbed his wrack to hold his head down. Luckily for me, deer made 2 bleats and gave up the ghost.
After high 5's and retelling the story knowing no one would believe how it went down, we went back to camp and got the tape out. I scored the deer at 198 6/8". 60 days later, he was officially grossed by a P&Y scorer at 202 6/8 and netted 196 3/8". Free range, low fence, monster whitetail with an unbelievable story to go with it.
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