RobertD
Well-known member
I’ve been thinking this morning about blown stalks, and a trip I took which featured several, most of them performed by me. This was on a mule deer hunt in canyon country in the snow. Late archery season in New Mexico. My brother was also on this trip, and he had some opportunities of his own. Personally, I had chances at three stalks throughout the four days we hunted.
For the first, we had glassed three bucks across a canyon. This wasn’t so much a failed stalk as a stalk that was low in quality to begin with. They were moving too quickly to properly close any distance, and it became a classic case of the sun going down on us before we could get anywhere close to them.
The next day, same canyon, we found one of the three bucks, now with two does, near the same spot we had first seen the three bucks. They were moving the same way, but much more slowly, and it was much earlier in the day. I repeated the prior day’s move to cross the canyon, and it worked. Fairly quickly I got to something like two hundred yards from the three deer just using snow and topography. They continued the same direction but started cheating higher up the canyon wall. I followed, and for a stretch I got badly out of breath. I even had to take a break, but I kept sneaking and ranging. I remember ranging the buck at one thirty and being surprised at how close I was getting. Going higher we got into trees, and that allowed me to close the distance even more.
I got held up when they crossed an open park, crouching at the edge of my side of the gap. The buck was on the opposite side, licking a branch. Seventy-one yards. Someone who is a better archery shot than me would’ve killed him right there.
I devised a plan: When they resumed walking, they would hit a little dip. When they did, I would hustle across the open space and then hide behind the tree the buck was standing by while I relocate them. I couldn’t see the does (how many eyebrows just raised?), but I watched the buck disappear into the dip.
I made my move, and this is precisely when the stalk was blown. There she was: One of the does was standing about ten yards uphill from where the buck had been, quartering away but looking over her shoulder at some idiot standing in the snow behind and below her.
The next day I had my chance at a do-over. Found them again, same canyon, but way out in the big flat middle in the bottom - away from all the things that I hid behind to sneak up on them. I had one more good idea left.
There was a ravine of sorts running through the flat bottom they were feeding in. There was a way to get into the ravine a long way away from them and out of sight, and then use it to get close to where they were. I figured I could get out of it somewhere closer to them and try to stalk from there.
This idea worked extremely well. It was like walking down a hallway made of snow. It was a bit difficult to climb the snow wall and get out, but I got out of the ravine at something like eighty yards away from the deer.
This is where things went south. I tried to stalk and had a little bit of cover to work with, but it was extremely difficult compared to the prior day’s stalk. I got to within just over forty yards from the buck, a shot distance I was comfortable with. But I also knew that while I hadn’t done enough to blow the stalk completely, I had done enough to set the does on edge. The buck was much slower to pick up on the “something’s wrong” but eventually he did as well. I was right there at the distance I had wanted, completely pinned down. I tried to think of some way I could draw my bow, my brain short-circuited a bit from the tenseness of the situation, and I basically kinda half-stood and tried to draw. That was goodbye.
Both of those latter two stalks were heartbreakers, but I really like thinking about them in hindsight. I got some things right and I got some things embarrassingly wrong. When they end, the feeling is just brutal, but while they’re going on, it’s a really good time. Plus, the next time one of these states decides to let me hunt one with a rifle, I’ll feel better about my chances after failing so brilliantly with a bow.
Hope to hear from anyone else who’s got a good blown stalk story.
For the first, we had glassed three bucks across a canyon. This wasn’t so much a failed stalk as a stalk that was low in quality to begin with. They were moving too quickly to properly close any distance, and it became a classic case of the sun going down on us before we could get anywhere close to them.
The next day, same canyon, we found one of the three bucks, now with two does, near the same spot we had first seen the three bucks. They were moving the same way, but much more slowly, and it was much earlier in the day. I repeated the prior day’s move to cross the canyon, and it worked. Fairly quickly I got to something like two hundred yards from the three deer just using snow and topography. They continued the same direction but started cheating higher up the canyon wall. I followed, and for a stretch I got badly out of breath. I even had to take a break, but I kept sneaking and ranging. I remember ranging the buck at one thirty and being surprised at how close I was getting. Going higher we got into trees, and that allowed me to close the distance even more.
I got held up when they crossed an open park, crouching at the edge of my side of the gap. The buck was on the opposite side, licking a branch. Seventy-one yards. Someone who is a better archery shot than me would’ve killed him right there.
I devised a plan: When they resumed walking, they would hit a little dip. When they did, I would hustle across the open space and then hide behind the tree the buck was standing by while I relocate them. I couldn’t see the does (how many eyebrows just raised?), but I watched the buck disappear into the dip.
I made my move, and this is precisely when the stalk was blown. There she was: One of the does was standing about ten yards uphill from where the buck had been, quartering away but looking over her shoulder at some idiot standing in the snow behind and below her.
The next day I had my chance at a do-over. Found them again, same canyon, but way out in the big flat middle in the bottom - away from all the things that I hid behind to sneak up on them. I had one more good idea left.
There was a ravine of sorts running through the flat bottom they were feeding in. There was a way to get into the ravine a long way away from them and out of sight, and then use it to get close to where they were. I figured I could get out of it somewhere closer to them and try to stalk from there.
This idea worked extremely well. It was like walking down a hallway made of snow. It was a bit difficult to climb the snow wall and get out, but I got out of the ravine at something like eighty yards away from the deer.
This is where things went south. I tried to stalk and had a little bit of cover to work with, but it was extremely difficult compared to the prior day’s stalk. I got to within just over forty yards from the buck, a shot distance I was comfortable with. But I also knew that while I hadn’t done enough to blow the stalk completely, I had done enough to set the does on edge. The buck was much slower to pick up on the “something’s wrong” but eventually he did as well. I was right there at the distance I had wanted, completely pinned down. I tried to think of some way I could draw my bow, my brain short-circuited a bit from the tenseness of the situation, and I basically kinda half-stood and tried to draw. That was goodbye.
Both of those latter two stalks were heartbreakers, but I really like thinking about them in hindsight. I got some things right and I got some things embarrassingly wrong. When they end, the feeling is just brutal, but while they’re going on, it’s a really good time. Plus, the next time one of these states decides to let me hunt one with a rifle, I’ll feel better about my chances after failing so brilliantly with a bow.
Hope to hear from anyone else who’s got a good blown stalk story.
....can't sleep replaying the blown stalk of two big chocolate antlered muleys I totally whiffed the stalk on. One in Wyoming and one in believe it or not Montana.
