wolfpup
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2015
- Messages
- 495
So after a tough muzzleloader elk hunt, then my wife needed foot surgery so I missed out on antelope season, I only had 2 days for my deer hunt. Not much of a story, but my brother and I didn't want to accumulate points so we applied to a unit that we could hunt every other year and if lucky, every year. This unit starts only an hour from my house and since I was out of vacation days, weekends were it. Since my wife had her foot surgery, I had 2 Sundays to make it happen. The first Sunday was going to be exploring atv trails and marking spots to actually hike in and hunt. We pulled into the BLM 2 track trail about 30 minutes before light and bumped 3 or 4 does. Not a bad sign to start. So we are cruising the ATV trails and the wind is howling and it's cold. This was pretty casual so when I got cold, I stopped and poured a sip of hot coffee from the thermos. My brother had just bought a new (used) four-wheeler and this was the first outing. About 45 minutes into the ride, his wheeler overheats. He went back to the pickup to work on the wheeler. Ended up the thermostat was not kicking the electric fan on so he wired a switch to run the fan manually. He is a handy little guy to have on every trip we go on. Luckily I have a decent tool box with accessories at the pickup to get him up and running. So we meet back up and check a bunch of spots that look amazing for deer. I mark lots of areas and keep riding. We are cresting the next hill and there he stands about 80 yards off the trail. The wind is blowing like 30 mph straight to me so if he knew I was there he didn't act that way. I won this gun at an RMEF dinner raffle 2 years ago and this was its first kill. As we are walking up to the deer, my brother says it would have been great if he had a buddy with him. Another 10 steps and out steps his buddy! Bigger than mine to boot, but my brother was too shaky and missed so I guess the debate will stay between him and I for years to come. I quartered him up, loaded up and checked the next trail I picked on the maps. We spent the rest of the day exploring the unit. What a great day of wheeling and hunting with my brother. He won't be able to make it out this weekend so that was his only day to hunt. In hind sight, we would have discussed that sooner and he could have taken first shot. But then again, he might have missed! Anyway, an easy hunt not the way I like to do it but I will take the lay-up anyday!
Congrats.
