My first deer hunt!!!
My friend Dustin and I left Friday at 4:00pm and drove up to Brigham City where my awesome cousin Mike Veater let us borrow his 4wheeler and trailer. Our original plan was to just go east of Brigham city near Mantau and camp, but after learning it was all private property from an old road worker we decided to head up Logan canyon on his advice. We camped out Friday night on the Franklin Basin road with about what seemed like 600 other hunters. Saturday morning we woke up just before 6am, got ready and headed out. Unfortunately Dustin forgot his camera, but it was a beautiful little canyon we were in and perfect weather, except for the fact it was below freezing in the morning. After searching for a while up on a ridge Dustin decided to head down the hill and see if he could sort of herd some deer into sight. While he was doing that I saw a buck leading two doe up above me Near the top of the ridge. (It's kind of crazy how much your blood starts pumping in that situation.) However, as soon as I saw the buck, he moved out of sight behind some trees. I moved around to where I thought they would come out, but all happened was a doe came out and looked at me for a while, but the buck stayed hidden, and then the doe went back up into the thick trees. I tried to follow, but there was a wide patch where it had snowed earlier that week and was now just a crusty layer of ice on top of snow, so as soon as I stepped on it CRUNCH! I decided to head back to where I told Dustin I was going to go so we would not get too separated, but on my way I found the trail the deer were using and it looked like a very busy trail with signs all over. I followed the trail as it turned up the ridge and told myself "I am just going to the top to take a look around and then I am going to head back." As I crested the ridge it was all rock. (which is good because you can be really quiet on the rock) I looked down and to the south... nothing, down and to the north... movement! I crept up to a big tree about 100 yards away from the movement I saw and put my scope up (I was using my friend Dustin's .243). I could see the back side of a deer. It was eating some sage brush and pointed down hill. (At this point my heart pumping so hard I could feel it when I breathed.) "If I see antlers I am taking the shot." I though to myself as I looked though my scope. Then, to my dismay, the deer took a few steps down hill out of my sights. "Oh crap, please don't run away" I could see that I was going to have to move to a new position. There was a another large tree about 15-20 yards closer than where I was. I circled back around the tree I was at so I would be out of the line of sight of the deer as I was moving up to the closer tree. When I got to the closer tree I put my scope up again and looked around for the deer. I was afraid they had heard me and left as I was moving because I could not find it right away, but I soon saw the deer continuing to eat. It was in the perfect position for me, facing down hill with his full side profile exposed to me, except I was unsure if it was a buck ot not since its head was down in the sage brush eating. Then, just like in a instructional video on deer hunting it lifted its head and look right in my direction. I saw antlers, put my cross-hairs right behind its front shoulder and squeezed the trigger. BOOM! I saw the deer jerk violently and jump a tiny bit in the air, simultaneously I saw two other deer jack their heads up and start to run. One was a doe and the other was a HUGE BUCK!! Probably at least a 6 point. All three took off down the hill and to my left. The one I shot got about 15 yards before he wobbled and fell to the ground. The other two ran about 45 yards before the doe turned back to see where the small buck that I shot was. After seeing the buck on the ground the doe lingered for a second, but the big buck urged her to run. I was so excited, but conflicted, seeing the huge buck so close to where mine was and thinking I was too impatient was killing me. In the end I am happy that I got a deer at all. I guess every hunter has a story about the one that got away, and now I do too. I will leave out the details about field cleaning the deer, but I would give myself a 6 out of 10 for gutting it. Dustin eventually found me while I was gutting it and helped me bring it back to the 4wheeler. When i finally got it home to Springville, V took a look at it and started crying and said "Aye Dave you're so bad." LOL. Anyway, my friend Matt helped my skin and butcher it at his house, we even cooked up a little bit of it, and it was quite delicious! Now we have some venison in the freezer.
Here is a
MAP of where it all went down.
DAVE
