- Details
- Category: Hunting
- Published: Friday, 13 October 2017 20:24
- Written by Greg
Smoke Pole Time
My lucky number didn’t come up this year during the mule deer tag drawing process here in Utah, but fortunately I’d get my chance at a left over tag on July 13th. It turned out that the competition for the first-come first-served tags was fierce. The 120 muzzleloader tags for the west desert didn’t last long, but I was lucky enough to secure a tag for myself.
Late July I headed out to the shooting range to sight in the old smoke pole that was recently equipped with a new scope. At 1 ½ inches high at 100 yards, I was anxious for late September when I would have my chance to scour the sage and cedars in search of a buck!
Not having spent time in the area for where I had a tag, I wasn’t so sure that I would even find a buck. But even then I told myself that I was going to hold out for a 4 point.
Opening morning came and I was up before first light. I had mapped out a route using Google maps that would take me a couple of miles up the mountain and away from the dirt road where I had made camp. After an entire day of trudging around, I had seen a total of 11 deer, with one being a little 2 point buck. While seeing that many deer may sound encouraging, I was convinced that I had seen most every deer that lived in the vicinity of this sparsely covered desert. But with very few other areas to hunt, I planned to do it all over again in the morning.
The first deer I saw on the second day of hunting was a 3 point, very encouraging. It wasn’t ten minutes later and I had 6 deer moving across a small hillside and down into a drainage about 100 yards away. While the deer didn’t seem spooked, they were certainly on the move. Before they had wandered out of range, I was able to see that the herd contained a doe, two 2 points, two 3 points and one 4 point!
After two hours of skirting the valley where I had last seen the deer, I came upon a 3 point bedded at 40 yards. After some time I realized that this wasn’t one of the deer that was with the herd I’d seen hours before, I pressed on. An hour later I had come to the end of the mountain range and bumped a lone doe. I decided to head back to my 4 wheeler and figured I’d walk back across the bottom of the valley even though it was void of trees. As I paused to look across the sage covered hills I noticed a movement, a bedded 3 point buck stood, walked a few yards and bedded again. I spent ten minutes glassing the surrounding area in search of additional deer, but saw none. I convinced myself that this was another lone buck, so decided I’d walk toward the deer with phone in hand hoping to get close enough for a pic. I was about 60 yards from the buck when below me and to my right a bunch of deer busted from the sage ravine. I could see antlers, so I dropped to the ground and readied for a shot. At 190 yards, the last deer in the group stopped to look back. Through my scope I could see it was a 4 point. I settled the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed. A clean miss…of course. In all the excitement I completely forgot to compensate for the distance. All I had to do was aim at the top of its back…or even a couple of inches over its back. Too late, I watched the deer disappear over the ridge 800 yards away. It was now 12:45 p.m.
At end of mountain range, turning back, somewhat sparse Deer disappeared up over ridge
Disappointedly I marched up the hill hoping to somehow run across them again. As luck would have it, about an hour later I spotted both the 2 and 3 point bedded. After a slow methodical sneak, I lay positioned under a mahogany tree 115 yards from the bucks. Through my binoculars I finally spotted the swishing tail of another deer through the trees near the bedded bucks. I figured the rest of the deer must be near so I waited. A long two hours passed until finally a deer emerged from behind a thick cedar tree, it was a huge 2 point with lots of mass, obviously an older buck. It walked 15 yards to my left and disappeared behind a thick group of trees. Through my binoculars I could see the movement of another deer behind the same cedar tree. In anticipation of this deer following the same path of the massive 2 point, I prepared for a shot in hopes that the 4 point would emerge. Only a couple minutes later the 4 point did in fact step out and followed the same path as the buck before it. Within seconds it would disappear behind the group of trees ahead. The crosshairs of my scope were sliding along the deer’s body when suddenly the buck came to a stop a few feet from the trees. That’s all it took, a plume of smoke almost instantly obscured my view just as I thought I saw the kick of a hit buck.
I sat motionless. By the time the smoke cleared I was surprised to see that the two bedded bucks remained frozen in place. Obviously confused, they both sat staring in the opposite direction of myself for several minutes. Finally the two bucks became nervous, stood and proceeded to disappear behind the same bunch of trees as the other bucks. I looked at my phone, 4:04 p.m. My thought was to wait an hour before going to check for blood. Twenty minutes later the 3 point stepped back out from behind the trees from where it had disappeared. A long five minutes later and a 2 point followed. Both bucks now stood at 113 yards and remained there for another ten minutes before slowly walking straight away from my position until they were gone. The anticipation was killing me, I just knew the buck must be lying dead a few feet from where he last stood. So I began to inch my way closer.
Once I arrived at the clump of trees, my heart sank as there was no sign of a downed deer and no sign of blood. I spent an agonizing ten minutes combing the area until at last I found my buck! The deer was only 35 yards from the spot where it got shot, but it had traveled in an “L” shaped pattern while leaving no blood trail, which had completely confused me. While the buck wasn’t huge and didn’t have the mass of its 2 point companion, I was completely happy that I had accomplished my goal of bagging a 4 point buck!
