Tagged a 2X3 muley & saw a bear

[Okanagan]

Left the house at 3:10 AM for a multi day deer and moose hunt east of the mountains on the dry side.  At first shooting light about 7:25 I was still 8 miles of logging road from where I wanted to hunt.

Five minutes later I saw a mule deer doe beside the road in timber.  I stopped, got out and loaded my rifle as I watched her and it was obvious there was another deer nearby, probably across the road from her.  I glassed into the timber, did some voice calls and realized that my deer call was not around my neck.  So I went back to my rig and rummaged for the call.  Game wardens have been playing gotcha with hunters who allow a loaded firearm to touch a vehicle so I popped out the clip (magazine) and put the rifle inside while I stood outside and leaned inside over the driver seat.  Got distracted fiddling with the lanyard... you can see this coming...

Suddenly thought that I should check on the doe, so stood up and saw that she had crossed the road behind my vehicle.  Just then a fork horn buck stepped out from behind a thick clump of brush near her and walked about two body lengths in the open.  I dived in, grabbed rifle and clip, and never saw the buck again though I followed, stalked, called etc. for ten minutes and 200 yards into the timber. 

Drove on and stopped to glass an excellent area a mile before my best spot.  A square mile of clearcut and selectively logged area is visible below the road, plus there is a prime deer bedding area on the ridge above.   The view downhill, a bit later after the sun started coming up.  Two light settings give a better sense of conditions.





Nothing downhill so I turned to look up toward where I've glassed deer in their beds near the open timbered ridge top.  Saw two mule deer rumps.  Their white rump patch often gives them away.  The view uphill.



With my 8 power binoculars I saw that the upper one was a doe.  The lower deer had its head behind a tree but it had a slightly blocky body and I intuited that it was a buck.  I walked 30 feet to one side to get a view of the deer's head but still could not see antlers with my thyroid tremored 8 power binos.  That just meant that it was not a big buck with a large rack.  I fetched my 16x50 Nikon version of Big Eyes from my vehicle and with a leaner rest could easily see three points on one side of the buck's rack.  Game on. 

Leaner rest, very wobbly. Should not have drank coffee at McDonald's.   Long shot, guessed 250 yards, so I held a little high on his shoulder to stay on body but allow for some drop if the range was longer.  He was broadside facing to my left, with his hind end behind a tree.  Bore down for that millisecond of stillness needed for the shot, and fired.  He seemed to buckle on his left front corner, forward and down, and disappeared.   His head came up in the dry grass and then he rolled downhill.  Photo below is as he lay, looking uphill toward the ridge with rising sun behind it. 



Downhill view.  The shot was very close to 260 yards.  As an old man, I'm getting to be a road hunter!  Bullet hit point of shoulder, under the green fir twig.  8:06 AM.  Savage 111 30-06 shooting 165 grain Hornady Interbond, Leupold 3-9x40 at 9 power.

 

I dragged him down to a thick clump of trees 75 yards above the road and hung him in the shade hidden from the road, skinned with front shoulders cut off to allow shoulders to cool better.  Cool in the shade but warm enough in the sun to bother me as to how long he would keep.  I went on hunting for moose all day.  By evening I decided to let him max out cooling overnight and then head for home after a morning moose hunt the next day.  Did two hikes of half a mile each into good moose areas and did two calling stands for bulls.  Cooked a few slices of deer liver on sticks over a fire that first evening, superb.   

Never saw another game animal the entire trip until on my way home and saw a whitetail doe and a bear on a private ranch in the valley bottom.  Saw a white weasel with black tip of tail and found a wolf track less than an hour old, very unusual area for wolves, my third wolf sign in that region in 30 years.  Blackbear grazing in an alfalafa field, below. 



He had some burrs in the fur on his shoulders and would work at getting them out.

[code]

Nice buck Grandpa. That bear looks like hes had enough mice.

[HuntnCarve]

Congrats on the buck!  Looks like an all round great day spent in some beautiful country.

Dave

[Hawks Feather]

Yep, nice looking buck you tagged.  Glad you had some fun.

Jerry

[Dave]

That is some nice looking country.  Thanks for the write up and congrats on your buck.

[WhiteHare]

Nice deer.  Watching Bear would be awesome to me.  We don't have them around here.
What were the temps. outside?

[FOsteology]

Congrats! Scenic countryside.

[Okanagan]

Nice deer.  Watching Bear would be awesome to me.  We don't have them around here.
What were the temps. outside?

WhiteHare,
Touch of frost each night but light flannel shirt or even T-shirt weather all day.   Would guess low of 31 and high of 62.

Hey Code Man, I thought that you were away from computer so didn't send an e-mail to you.

Hope to look for a bigger buck next week, at least for a couple of days.  This one puts some extra tasty and tender meat in our empty freezer.  The only other hunter I met hadn't seen a buck, and a big camp with five campers and a wall tent had no meat hanging, so I was lucky.   

[Okanagan]

Nice buck Grandpa. That bear looks like hes had enough mice.

Fat mice!   

[FinsnFur]

Sounded like quite the journey
I'm glad you connected and it all paid off. Nice shooting
We got bears a little further North, where the girls used to live. We try to avoid them or view them from a distance

So curiosity has got me. What are those big wheel, rolleee looking things with what appear to be pipes running through them for axles?

[Okanagan]

Sounded like quite the journey
I'm glad you connected and it all paid off. Nice shooting
We got bears a little further North, where the girls used to live. We try to avoid them or view them from a distance

So curiosity has got me. What are those big wheel, rolleee looking things with what appear to be pipes running through them for axles?

Those are sprinkler irrigation pipes and wheels.  Somebody correct my details if I get some of this wrong.  That is an old style now.  They hook up the pipes end to end, usually with a flex hose connection at one end, then probably have a small engine somewhere on one of the wheels to roll the long line of pipe into position on the field to be watered.  There are sprinkler irrigation heads spaced along the pipe.  They run sprinklers for 12 hours or so on one swath of ground 80-100 feet wide, then roll it far enough to wet the next swath of alfalfa and start the water again.  Do that until the whole field is irrigated and likely roll it back and start over again immediately in that dry country.  Roll the pipes out of the way to cut and bale the hay.   Those are big square bales stacked on the left side of the photo, with a cattle feeding lot out of sight behind them.

Newer systems are automatic, often in a round field with the wheeled sprinklers on a pivot from the center.  They move and water continuously, slowly swinging around the quarter mile radius circular field.   

[KySongDog]

Great looking country and congratulations on connecting on some fine eatin'.      

As someone who is getting along in years, I can understand your "road hunting" comment.     The deer seem to be getting heavier and heavier each year.   

[nailbender]

 Nice shootin'!

[FOsteology]

Okanagan you're right on the irrigation. Every once in awhile we still see the old manual types on ranches out my way.

Now, the deer you shot, was that a blacktail? I saw a few while hunting Western Washington years back. Skittish deer! I guess they have a reason to be with bears and cougars!


EDIT:


I see in the topic it's a mule deer! 

[FinsnFur]

Those are sprinkler irrigation pipes and wheels....  That is an old style now...

I wondered if thats what they were, thanks.
This is what all ours look like up here now.

[HaMeR]

Heckuva morning in the field!! Congratulations on a fine buck & some great pictures!! Thanks for sharing the wonderful scenery you get to live in!! 

[coyote101]

Thanks for sharing.  That truly is spectacular country that you live in. 

Pat

[possumal]

You got your cooler supplied now, so got get that big old muley.  Thanks for sharing those great pictures of that beautiful country.

[JohnP]

How many deer are you allowed?  We can only get one  calendar year.

[Okanagan]

How many deer are you allowed?  We can only get one  calendar year.

Three deer per hunting year is the general limit for British Columbia, but there are complex permutations and combinations as to how many from specific geographic regions, antler and sex restrictions in some places, how many mule deer, whitetails, blacktails of each sex in each region, etc.  On the Queen Charlotte Islands, the limit is 15 of their little island blacktails in a season that runs from June 1-Feb. 28.   Rifle season in the black tail coastal area where I live runs from Sept. 10-Dec. 15 with a two buck limit, no antler restrictions.  Most inland mule deer seasons will switch from "any buck" to "4 point or better" on Nov. 1. 

I grew up in a one deer per year area and have to say that having more tags is sure nice.  There is something that makes me hunt more relaxed and yet better when I have one tag filled, some meat in the freezer already.  I've never tagged a BC slam of mule deer, whitetail and blacktail bucks in the same season, and am musing over how much to try to do that this season while my legs still function.  If so, I should not try too hard for another muley!