Settled for a spike on the last day

[Okanagan]

Called this little fellow in to 15 yards on Halloween morning, and watched him for a minute or so trying to decide whether to shoot him.  About the time I decided, he took off running about half speed.  He stopped and looked back at 70 yards, and I used a wooden walking stick to steady my aim for the shot. 

I was sitting in the same nest of salal brush on a power line where I killed a buck last year.   This one showed up close in front of me 18 minutes after I sat down on my folding stool and started calling.  90 grain Hornady ELDX from a little 6ARC in a Gen II Ruger American.  Hawke 1-8 scope with a German #4 reticle and an illuminated red dot center.  I LOVE that rifle/scope combo!  The shot angled forward and damaged both lungs.  Almost no blood trail but the buck only made it 25 yards.

I didn't know it but one of my grandsons was hunting a quarter mile from me.  He heard my shot and texted to ask if I had shot something.  I replied yes, and that I would need some help sooner or later, but that he should keep on hunting for now.  He was already on his way.  He dragged the buck to a road, walked a half mile one way to retrieve my vehicle, and loaded the buck for me.  I am spoiled!

I had passed a bigger spike last week but haven't seen much for bucks this year in any place I can hunt.

[HuntnCarve]

Any buck's a good one Clyde!  Way to go!  I've learned the closer they are to you when you shoot, the easier and less distance to drag.  Good on the grandson helping you out.

[nastygunz]

Tender vittlin!. I have 2 nephews who are hunting machines, I call them the Twin Towers, they do the heavy work for me out in the field👍. I remember quite a few years ago when I was still semi-young I was walking across a field with one of them when he was about 14 and with one of my brothers and the kid ran up to a barbed wire fence hurdled it like an Olympian then looked back and said come on you old guys are slow!.

[Hawks Feather]

Meat in the freezer is always a good thing. Nice shooting and I like your rifle set up.

[nastygunz]

I have a favorite powerline spot too. Perfect spot to look down on a gametrail around a big swamp.

[FinsnFur]

Beautiful!
Worth it's weight in gold with todays beef prices. Job well done.

[nastygunz]

True!

Beautiful!
Worth it's weight in gold with todays beef prices. Job well done.

[Okanagan]

He is a tasty morsel.  He's hanging with elk quarters, aging in a cousin's cooler.  I got the idea to cook up a big chunk of him for a man's meal with sons and grandsons, and talked with grandson Code about it.  He has become a great cook, especially smoking and BBQ. He's been wanting to slow cook a whole venison ham, so it's a deal. 

Last year I called in six bucks and killed the biggest one. This year I called in one small spike.  I'd prefer we consider batting average rather than my latest time at bat.   

We get one tag per year in Washington, for a rifle season about three weeks long.

[Okanagan]

I have a favorite powerline spot too. Perfect spot to look down on a gametrail around a big swamp.

Power lines are great places to hunt deer anywhere I have lived.  Especially here in the wet jungle forest they are one of the only open places.  Sunlight doesn't get to the ground in many places and the open power lines produce a growth of grass, brush and berries for feed that deer, elk and bears can't get in the dense forest. 

I recall a huge mule deer buck near Kamloops, British Columbia, in a power line cut across a canyon from me that we later measured as almost exactly 440 yards (a quarter mile).  I did not get him, except engraved in my memory.