The 2011 hunting season has been a different one for me.

I started my hunting season in Hawaii hunting a Spanish (feral) goat. I took a very old billy that was likely the foulest smelling thing I’ve ever hunted in my life! Hunting in the lava fields was also something very unique that most hunters will never experience.





In August, I and my good friend Snellstrom and his youngest son, and another hunting buddy took a little trip to south Texas. My main goal was to add an addax to the trophy room.



While there I couldn’t pass up this old Texas Dall. I like to think I did this old boy a favor has he had something wrong with his testicles!



October found me with a Colorado antelope doe tag in my pocket. A couple hours into opening morning and my tag was punched.



The 3rd season Colorado mule deer season was a fun one with the gang. I punched my tag on this last day freezer filler.



The Thanksgiving Holiday found us making our annual pilgrimage to Oklahoma to spend the holiday with family and friends. While there, I always take a couple of extra days to get some whitetail hunting in on the family property.
Wednesday was uneventful and I didn’t even see a deer.

Friday morning found me in one of my favorite hunting spots. We have one property that has a series of deep canyons that run west to east. These canyons are 50-70 yards deep and about 100-140 yards across. The deer use these canyons as travel corridors and bedding locations, while I like to take a chair and sit along the rocky rims and catch the deer as they travel through.

I had an interesting start to the morning. I hit an owl with the truck on my way to the location putting a nice dent and buckle to the hood of my truck. The owl cracked the paint and there were feathers stuck where the paint had broken and chipped. My second interesting event happened on the walk to my shooting rocks. I was walking down a cattle trail when I heard something off to my right. With the wind blowing steady from the south I dismissed the noise to the wind. After a couple more steps I heard it again and realized it was some type of critter making the noise and not the wind. I stopped, turned to my right, and came face to face with a skunk that was doing his best posturing. He didn’t need to do much to scare me as he was only about 7 yards away. A slightly quickened pace and I averted disaster!

I made it to my shooting location and settled in my chair. On one pan through the canyon, I noticed movement that probably wasn’t the cause of the wind. I looked a bit more intently on the location and spotted the buck. What I had seen a second before was the rear end of the buck as he was walking through the bottom. I picked up my gun, aimed at an opening in the trees and waited for him to walk thru. As he was moving at a brisk pace roughly 100-125 yards, I had about 2-3 seconds to assess the buck and make a decision whether to shoot or not. Obviously, you can tell which decision I made.

At the report of the rifle, I noticed two things. Firstly, I noticed the buck jumped at the shot, and then he ran off flagging. Secondly, I noticed a tree limp falling from the direct path of the bullet. Having seen this before, my initial thoughts were, “this is not good!” I ran the bolt, and watched the white tail of the buck disappear into the trees. I sat there concentrating on the location the deer was walking at the shot and made a mental note of where I needed to start looking for blood. Then, a few seconds later, the buck appeared from behind a set of boulders low and to my right, walking along a trail just below me about 35 yards away. I centered the crosshairs behind his shoulder and sent another Nosler partition his direction. This time the buck acted properly and took off in a death run and appeared to stumble as he crested a small rise in the canyon bottom.

I sat there about 5 minutes replaying the events that just transpired. I decided I would get down off the rocks and check on the initial shot. Sure enough, there was blood coming down the trail the buck was on prior to the second shot. I then proceeded along the blood trail making it to the little rise and spotted the buck in the oak leaves about 15 yards from where I lost sight of him.

Upon further inspection of the deer, the first bullet hit him in his right shoulder, but must have been tumbling after contact with the tree limb. The wound was not a nice neat hole, but more of a tear. The interesting part is there were three holes on the lower portion of the deer’s left neck. I don’t know what happened, but I think the bullet hit the deer’s shoulder blade and it appeared it had broken up sending three separate pieces of the bullet through his neck. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I do believe the tree limb had something to say about the performance of this bullet. The second bullet had done the job and took out the top half of the heart and all the associated pumping work.

After thinking about the deer and looking at him, I’m a bit regretful for taking this buck. He needed another year, possibly two. But regardless of the fact, he is my 2011 Oklahoma deer and a nice deer to cap off my 2011 Big Game Hunting Season!





You can look into the background of this picture and image the tangle of tree limbs I was shooting thru.



The only animal I didn't score on was a Florida alligator. We were holding out of an 8-footer or better and could have taken some borderline alligators, but the definate 8 foot plus gator never game me a chance.

Now it's time to clean and oil the guns and a break out the shotguns as it's pheasants, quail and ducks from here.

Hey nice Whitetail Graybird, way to end your big game season!
Tell me more about this Nosler Partition failure, er I mean deflection or whatever!

Nice buck to cap off a busy year! Congrats.

You know, I'm not sure what happened with the first shot. I know I hit a tree limb between me and the buck. That is a for sure!

The bullet wound was not a nice neat little round hole. It was more of an oblong tear, but not sure that accurately describes the hole either as it was jagged.

There were three nice sized wounds on the lower left side of his neck a little better than the size of Susan B Anthony dollar. They were almost perfectly in line. One actually coming out of the meat on the point of his shoulder. I remember the deer's left leg was forward at the shot, which would explain why a porition of the bullet would have come out of the point of the shoulder, without entering the chest cavity. What appeared to happen was the bullet tumbled after hitting the limb. Entered the deer's right shoulder angling downward towards his neck and separating causing the three wounds along his neck on the opposite side.

I gave the deer away to a family in need that my dad is friends with as they need the meat worse than I do; therefore, I don't know what the wound channel looks like with the exception on what I saw visible.

The second shot was through the ribcabe on his left side angling downward taking out his heart.

That's all I know and can only speculate on what happened.

That son of a gun has mule deer brow tines....he got cheated!

Congrats a million graybird.....you'v been busy but it's a long time till next year.

But I can't wait!!!

You got that right Ted! Kinda sad when my mule deer had better brow tines than the whitetail!!! And, the kicker is they weren't busted either!!!

He did have one little kicker coming off the backside of his left antler. You can see it at the base of his ear in the picture of him laying on the ground.

Luckily, my 2012 Big Game Season starts early next year!!! I'll be hunting a black Hawaiian sheep on the Big Island of Hawaii in February!!

I couldn't see the deer very good on my cheap phone. That is a damn nice buck! Good shooting buddy.

I spoke with my father this evening on the drive home, and I guess one of the guys who hunts another of our properties about 3-4 miles away as the crow flies shot a monster 10 point yesterday that field dressed at over 190 lbs. That's a big deer for our area. Any time you get around 200 lbs field dressed, you're talking about a heck a big deer in our neck of the woods.

Said he saw another big buck with about 30 does on one of our alfalfa fields last night too that was likely pushing 170-180". I just wish I had more time to spend in the field and bag one of the bruisers we have walking around!

Congratulations Cody, you had a productive year. I hope 2012 goes even better for you.

Congrats...I think you have had a lot of fun this year!

Thank you Wade and Tim!

quote:

Originally posted by graybird:
I spoke with my father this evening on the drive home, and I guess one of the guys who hunts another of our properties about 3-4 miles away as the crow flies shot a monster 10 point yesterday that field dressed at over 190 lbs. That's a big deer for our area. Any time you get around 200 lbs field dressed, you're talking about a heck a big deer in our neck of the woods.

Said he saw another big buck with about 30 does on one of our alfalfa fields last night too that was likely pushing 170-180". I just wish I had more time to spend in the field and bag one of the bruisers we have walking around!

I may have some time coming up, how long does that season last?

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:

quote:

Originally posted by graybird:
I spoke with my father this evening on the drive home, and I guess one of the guys who hunts another of our properties about 3-4 miles away as the crow flies shot a monster 10 point yesterday that field dressed at over 190 lbs. That's a big deer for our area. Any time you get around 200 lbs field dressed, you're talking about a heck a big deer in our neck of the woods.

Said he saw another big buck with about 30 does on one of our alfalfa fields last night too that was likely pushing 170-180". I just wish I had more time to spend in the field and bag one of the bruisers we have walking around!

I may have some time coming up, how long does that season last?

It ends on Sunday unless you want to bow hunt. You certainly need to join me next year, if this year doesn't work out!