This year started out exciting, as it was only my second year at it. My uncle and I headed out on opening day with both our wt buck and doe tags in hand, and ended up filling his buck tag and closing my doe tag! We saw a lot of deer that first week, and on Friday we headed up into 148 to try and fill my uncles mule doe tag. We ended up seeing a lot of deer, and a couple big herds of antelope, but mainly used Friday to gain access on some land up there(this was the first year my family switched their mule draws to 148 from 116.) But it was still a great day, we saw loads of mule does and a handful of great mule bucks, however my uncle decided not to fill his tag as it was only the first week and we were going out the next day with my other uncle, an aunt and my grandma. We headed out and my grandma, aunt and uncle filled their mule doe tags with very nice animals, so now we were down 5 tags! We spent the next week after wt again, with my 2nd uncle filling his doe tag.
I had started my work practicum last week on Monday and ended up getting Friday the 22 off to really focus on my buck. We got out to our area early that morning and stopped just near the farmers gravel pit, an area that the last few years he had seen a lot of deer cruising through. We got out of the truck on the north side and I began to walk west towards the farmhouse so that I could get the whole field in a position where I would between it and the farmhouse, just so that if anything was in the field I would have a safe shot. It was just my luck that as I was walking towards the house, I was 100 yards from the fence separating his home quarter from the quarter that the gravel pit is on when I saw 4 heads looking at me from a thicket just on my side of the fence, so I stood on the fence and watched the 4 wt does slowly make their way to the south away from me. I started following the direction they headed only to see once i got to the south fence of that quarter that they had crossed into a quarter that was off limits, so I stood on the fence watching them when I saw two does walking up a hill about 1 km away from me right into the sun, once I knew they were does I started watching them for a bit, and could see their breath, it was pretty neat. Once I stopped watching the does I looked back towards my southwest and saw the flash of antler, so I looked at him and realized that it was a little wt spiker, I watched him for a bit and figured that he was too small for me to fill my tag. While I was doing all this, my uncle had settled in on a fence line on the east of the gravel pit quarter and had a spiker that was smaller then the one I had passed up walk within 100 yards of him. While I was walking towards him I got a look at this little buck and we watched him and the 2 does I had saw before playing around in the field. Once they had made their way along we made a plan for him to go drive the truck around to the entrance of another ranchers land that immediately bordered the gravel pit on the eastern and southern sides.
I had walked across maybe 2 quarters of this second owners land when I saw a deer cross the road and a fence around 1 km away to my southwest, I took one look at him through the binos and said to myself holy sh*t is that a nice deer! I watched him go across a ways and decided to head west and try to cut him off. While I was walking west, I came across a comms tower and a wt doe spooked up and took off. I decided to follow her and see if I could see the buck. While I was making my way to the south along the fence line, my uncle had began driving to the gate previously mentioned, and he saw this buck as well, but he had started making his way back towards land that we couldn't hunt! My uncle said that the buck took one look at the truck and headed straight north again. From where I stood on the fence, maybe 5 minutes later I could see the buck again, only now with 3 does on a quarter that borders a main road. Well a truck on the road saw the deer and the buck and one doe took off straight back towards the gravel pit! I looked at a blob near the fence line and immediately knew it was the buck. I was about 1000 yards away from him at this point and began walking towards him. Once I got about 500 yards away I began moving towards him only when he would turn his head away from me. Right around this time he decided to bed down along the fence right where I had watched the two does earlier that morning! I kept walking towards him and got to about 175 yards away and noticed a small hill to my right, so the next time he turned his head I dropped down and belly crawled the last 50 yards to the crest of the small hill. I couldn't believe that I had closed the distance that much! Once I crested the hill and started watching him, I noticed that he had a doe with him, she was hidden in a small dip and was looking right in my direction. After a while she stopped looking at me and decided to bed down, so I started looking at the buck again. The way that he was laying down I realized all that I had was a neck shot, and I wanted to wait until he turned his head so that I didn't risk hitting his head. He turned his head twice and as I was in the process on pulling the trigger, both times he decided to turn back towards me, so I released the trigger and waited. He finally decided to turn one last time and I set my crosshairs and squeezed the trigger. When the rifle recoiled I lost my sight picture but heard an unmistakable "THWACK" and knew that I hit him, I looked back and his head had just fallen into the snow in front of him and he was down!
I was stoked! He's only my second buck ever and boy am I ever happy. This was actually only the first day this season that I had even seen any wt bucks! I haven`t had a chance to post this until now, I got him last Friday, I figured that I enjoy reading all your guys`stories, so I would post mine!
2013 Southern AB WT
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