Updated: Idaho Deer Opener with Pics

[Rzrbck918]

Cool deer, congrats!

 

[marshman]

Update: The warden wrote the tickets for trespassing. I was informed last night the land owner decided not to press charges due to no signage coming from another private land. Warden said signage will be put up again at all trails leading in. The warden did his job but he could only cite them since the landowner didn’t press charges. Still kudos the warden.

I went back in this morning after sleeping through a rainy night in my car. I decided to wait closer to daylight and slip through to glass more going in. I was in about a mile where the hunting really starts and slowly wandering down the trail with my headlamp on when I run into two sets of eyeballs in the sage. We just sat and watched each other for a few minutes until I turned back to the trail to see a nice buck cross at 15 yards. I checked the time and still twenty minutes to shooting time. We stared at each other for about 10 minutes before they went over the ridge in front of me. I stayed put until legal time came and followed down the trail.

When I crested the hill I spotted tails going up the next ridge in front of me. I spotted the buck through my Binos, cranked up my scope, and got on him. He was standing straight away with no shot. He went further up the ridge and just before getting to the top stopped to look back. The sage was too tall so I had to freehand the shot and when the gun went off deer went in every direction and I couldn’t tell which was what.

I saw one run over the ridge to the right and followed as I saw antlers. I found his track and no blood. I went back to where they were standing when I shot and tried to follow each set of tracks with no blood. I started gridding as I couldn’t believe I missed when I saw a magpie land on the tallest sage nearby and kept looking down. I walked over and there he lay 20 yards from where I hit him with no blood trail.

I sent pics to @Hilljackoutlaw and @Preston.W_HDO and Preston responded the face looked like a hybrid. I had thought he was just a unique color until that point when I inspected the tail to confirm it was a mule deer/whitetail hybrid. It only made the buck that much more special. Another blessed hunt.
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Interesting; That tail looks exactly like a Blacktail deer tail in case anyone's ever wondered.

 

[ZMT588]

Congratulations on a nice deer!

 

[Pahoundsman]

Congratulations

 

[ashersdad]

Great looking buck!

 

[Deleted member 40728]

Congrats. Sounds like a fun hunt

 

[CouesKelly]

Congrats on a great buck! Hybrids are cool and pretty special.

 

[Southern Elk]

Nice buck! Congrats!

 

[Hawk Tuah]

Cool deer. Congrats

 

[Shangobango]

Awesome hunt. Thanks for sharing.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Cool buck, congratulations! It would be really neat to get that deer genetically tested to see what the whole story is. Hybrids are pretty rare.

 

[tzone]

Cool buck!!

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Awesome as per usual! Crazy cool buck by the way, jealous!
Matt