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Craig,
this was a fun hunt with my wife. She drew a Utah desert limited entry buck tag in 2001.
We hunted hard for six days. We backpacked every day about three miles to our hunting
area. Denise (my wife) had the chance at a 185 class buck on the third day but at 400
yards she was not able to find him in the scope in time. This buck that she got was a very
unusual buck. We spotted him way down a ridgeline. We watched him for over 1-1/2 hours
until he bedded. Then we hiked over the ridge and headed down the opposite side to get
closer. He was about 1/2 mile down the canyon. We finally got down the backside to where
we thought he was. This took about one hour because of the steep cliffs we were
traversing. We popped up on the ridge and I found the buck in about ten minutes of
glassing. I ranged him at 359 yards. |
| I set the tri-pod and spotting scope up and then got Denise set in a
comfortable position for shooting. The buck was laying down and unaware of anything.
Looking through the spotting scope the buck seemed to have great mass. His antlers were
past his ears on both sides by about four inches. I guessed him at about 30". We had
plenty of time to make sure Denise was set. I knew she would only get one shot. I moved
over to the spotting scope and told her to go ahead and shoot. I heard the crack of the
rifle and waited. The buck never flinched. He just laid his head down. It was every
husband’s dream, No chasing a wounded buck. This buck never knew what hit him. Denise
was using my 7mm Sendaro with 162 Hornady A-Max hand loads coming out at 3250 FPS. When we
got up to the buck we got a surprise. First the buck was in full velvet. That accounted
for the mass we were seeing in the heat waves. Next, his ears were only 17 inches wide so
the antlers turned out to be 26" wide. It was still a great experience for my wife
and me. She insisted on packing the buck out ourself so we boned the meat and split up the
weight. She wanted to pack the head. I gained a lot of respect for my wife after we hiked
the miles back up out of the canyon. I weighed her pack when I got home and I was
surprised to find that it weighed 46 pounds. Not bad. What a great hunt. What a great
wife!!!!!! |
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