We were hunting the high burnt ridges of a large wild fire that burned in Grant Co. Oregon in 2015, the area is ripe for muledeer, we were now sitting on 4 bucks, and 12 does, all Bedded 75 yards from public land. We tucked them in at 10:30 am, then crawled out, went for lunch, spoke about the issue to the group and went back for the afternoon hunt to see if they decided to move. We snuck back in, reached the 285 yard mark and stopped to readdress the situation. No change.
Bedded within 30’ of the place we left them. So at 4:30 pm they decide to move and feed down, we make our move to gain ground and peak over the rim and see if they are headed toward us or further into private ground. We sneak up 30’ to a better spot, resettle, grab glass, start scanning…….nothing. WTH! Where did they go, I ask my wife, “what just happened”. We start scanning and there they are up the ridge and onto the BLM we were hunting on, they went across, not down, thank goodness, they crossed the wire fence and were clearly legal. We scanned for the 2 large bucks we were watching….nothing, just does, then my wife says, “up above the does, there is the buck!” Sure enough I glass up a nice buck, a move to a burnt dead log, throw up the range finder, it’s scans twice at 360 yards, I ask her if she wants the shot, she says no too far for me, I say okay I am taking it….place the .240 Weatherby on the burnt branch, aim 4” over the back, he is quartering up hill away from me, slow squeeze, and next thing we see is him rolling down the hill about 10 times.
The hit was high back, under the spine, top of the lungs, he rolled and then walked about 75 yards then piled up. A wild ride. The buck we killed was not one of the 4 we were watching, it was one we didn’t see that was moved by the deer crossing the drainage. He was a good buck, big mule head and ears, nice species for the area. The pack out was in the dark with one head lamp in steep ground, but we both had smiles on our faces!
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