Fiftydriver
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Well, as many of you know, things have been pretty **** crazy in the shop for the past 18 months. Lack of accessary parts over that time has grown the backlog on projects significantly so its been a pretty stressful year. Things have started to look up the past several months and getting some parts needed here and there to get projects shipping again.
Because of my work load this fall, I decided to cancel two of the three hunts I had booked for this fall. The one I kept was with Northern Giants Outfitters in Sask. Canada. I kept this one mainly because it is a big acre private hunting preserve and set up as a 4 day hunt so figured I could get up there(9 hours from my place) hunt, get a good deer and get home within a relatively short number of days.
Now, I know some of you are against private hunting preserves, that your right to believe that way and this is not a topic of why I posted this on the forum. Not trying to convince anyone for or against them. I personally believe if you choose a good ranch that is set up and run properly, its impossible to tell the difference between a big acre private hunting preserve and a wild fair chase hunt. In fact, most of my hardest hunts have been on private preserves and most of my easiest hunts have been on low pressure, private ground fair chase hunts so from what I have seen, with the ranches I have hunted with, the only advantage is generally quality of animals that live on the properly.
Anyway, again, that's not the reason I posted this on the forum.
Arrived at the hunting lodge on the 24th of October and met my guide Dean who is co-owner of the ranch. Got all my gear unpacked and he asked if I wanted to go out for an afternoon hunt just sitting in the truck watching some hay fields and a big brushed valley for the evening. I was all over that as my hunt was not supposed to start until the next morning so this was just a bonus. Grabbed my new Raptor THunter in 7mm Allen Magnum and we headed out to the hunting area which was around 15 miles from the lodge.
We set up looking over a big valley with hay fields, a creek in the bottom and a lot of heavy brush on the far side. It was relatively warm and windy and nothing much moved until right at dark when I spotted a good buck moving through the bush on the opposite side of the valley. Dean glassed the buck and said he was not what we were after. He looked pretty darn good to me. I guessed him as a high 160's class buck but in the dark, shadowy timber, it was hard to tell for sure. I asked Dean what he thought he would score and he said upper 160s, lower 170s. Now, I have shot a lot of good deer in my day but only one bigger then this class of deer so I admit I was a bit nervous not setting up on this deer.
Dean assured me we would see bigger and possibly MUCH bigger if we were patient so I did not guide the guide and just watched the buck disappear into the bush.
Other then a few does, that was all we saw that first evening. We did however hear a gun shot from one of the other hunters on the property so after dark we drove over to see if the other hunters had killed anything. This hunter was a young boy, 12 years old, whose Dad had brought him out on a hunt. When we got to the food plot we could see the Dad and son out in the field and the son lifted up the head of the buck he had killed, I almost crapped!!! Was a truly impressive deer and the kid was VERY excited.
Turned out to be an 8x8 that scored 174"!!! This was the kids first deer ever!! We all told him he was setting the bar pretty high from here on out.
Seeing this deer really got me reved up for what may be in my future. We packed up the buck and headed back to the lodge. Ate a huge dinner and went to bed. We got up early, had breakfast and headed back out to the hunting area to get on the ridge before daylight. Again, it was pretty warm and windy by Canada standards and NOTHING moved that morning at all.
That really surprised me but was not to worried. Headed in for some lunch and then came back out that afternoon. Again, nothing showed but a few does in the bush, warm and windy again.
Was a bit concerned with the weather but still had two full days left to hunt.
The next morning was a bit cooler but not much. We decided to sit on the rims again as we could see a lot of country and again we got blanked, nothing was moving, not even a doe...... I was starting to think I had made a serious mistake passing on that first deer which would have easily been my second biggest deer.
Dean could tell I was a bit nervous and said not to worry but I could tell he was a bit nervous as well with the poor weather and lack of deer movement.
We headed back to the lodge for some lunch and talked over a few different things. We decided to go sit in one of the ground blinds they had set up on a food plot as there had been some big bucks hitting that plot but all at night time. We were just hoping the bucks were staying in the thick bush and one would hit this plot that evening. Well, it did not happen, nothing showed.....
One days left and only one deer had been spotted and I passed on him. Went to bed that night thinking I may have made a huge mistake but the weather was supposed to start to change so I was hopeful.
The next morning we woke up to calm conditions and nice and cool. Around 15 degrees. We set up again on our now familiar overlook and to our amazement, NOTHING moved again. We were both starting to get a bit unnerved here. We set until around 9:00 and then we decided to go drive around to check some other hay fields. Dean got out to take a leak before we left and as soon as he stepped out, he looked behind the truck and somehow, a big whitetail had snuck in right behind us. As soon as Dean saw him, the buck saw Dean as well and spun around high tailing it back across the hay field.
Dean jumped in the truck and said he had an idea where the buck would try to dive off the rims down into the valley creek bottom bush. He tore over to this spot and we jumped out. Now I will admit, this was a bit western which can happen sometimes running and gunning for big whitetails. I never really knew what the buck was. Dean said he was a 180 class deer. Heavy, wide, a few kicker points but should be in that 180 class. We set up with the truck pointed in the direction we thought the buck would cross. I could not lay down as the contour of the land was enough I would not see the buck from ground level so I rolled the window down in the open door of the truck and layed the 7mm Allen Magnum across the window frame.
About that time, the buck came into view, trotting toward a coulee that would take him down to the valley, just as Dean had predicted. The buck trotted to the edge of the coulee and just as I was about to try a moving shot(which I hate), something caught the bucks attention in the opposite direction of where we were. He stopped broadside focused on whatever had gotten his attention. I called for the range and Dean reported 511 yards. I had already put the first line down on the Leupold Mk4 TMR reticle solidly on the bucks shoulders as I knew the range would be close to 500 yards and tripped the Jewell trigger. The PK brake did its job perfectly and I saw that 180 gr berger land right where the line was held and the buck folded up to the shot. From the time Dean called out the range to the buck hitting the ground was around 3 seconds.
I cleared the fired case and racked another one in and got back on the buck. Have seen more then a few bucks take a drop like that only to stand up within a few second and get away. This one was not going to do that!! After 20-30 seconds or so, I was convinced this buck was done. I put the safety on, stood up and looked over at Dean. He was standing there with a look of amazement on his face. I asked him, "WHAT?"
He replied, "I can not believe that just happened. Cannot believe how FAST that happened and how hard that 7mm hit that buck!!"
I replied, "Yep, the old 7mm Allen Mag hits a bit harder then most 7mm magnums out there!!" Dean replied, "No S$&%!!"
We drove over to the buck and I was very happy with what we found. He had one tine broken off the right antler which kept him out of the 180 class for score but he was wide at 26" outside spread and was a 7-9 with a gross score of 176 0/8" and good mass. I was very happy. Dean was upset he had not seen the broken tine but I told him not to worry, I would have shot the buck anyway.
We loaded the massive bodied buck up in the truck and headed back to the lodge where we met the other hunters and the other owner of the ranch. Dean and him kind of disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with a proposition for me. They were now both interested in doing rifle trades for a hunt. It took me about a second to agree to that and they said if I wanted, we could put half the rifle trade on a second deer for this hunt if we could get it done that afternoon as it was our last day. If we could not get it done, would just put everything toward next falls hunt. Again, I agreed.
We caped my first buck, dressed him out to get cooled, ate some lunch and talked over the options for the afternoon/evening hunt. We had seen three BIG deer that were hitting food plots regularly but all were hitting them from 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM so we were not overly confident that we would see anything sitting in a blind for the last night.
The wind was perfect so we decided we would head out earlier then normal and still hunt an area where we knew there were two BIG deer hitting this one plot every night. This was pretty aggressive but we only had one night left. One of the deer was tall and had a lot of long tines. Dean guessed him to be in the 200-205 range with more non typical points then the other deer we were interested in. This other buck was one I had nicknamed HIGH FIVE from his trail cam pics. His G-2s on both side each had 5 kicker points and the one on the left antler looked like a hand sticking up in the air, hence the name HIGH FIVE. Either would have easily been my biggest deer to date. Dean said he thought this second buck was one of the bigger framed deer they had had on the place and would be in the 210 to 220" range.
We packed up and headed out to the hunting property. We started our way into the bush, wind was perfect. From the heavy frost that morning, the grass and leaves were now wet and did not make much noise at all to walk in. We made our way slowly for about 200 yards and I was starting to think we were out of luck as we were getting close to the food plot. Then I looked to my right and saw three tines sticking up out of the tall creek bottom grass. Dean glassed the buck and could not tell for sure who he was but he said he was a BIG deer. We set up the shooting sticks and I put my CLOSE RANGE rifle on the sticks which is my wifes Ruger M77 MkII that I had rebarreled to 6.5-06 just a week before I had left for the hunt!!! I positioned the reticle just over the bucks antlers and knew if he stood, he was ours.
Dean started snapping small sticks to try to get the bucks attention but the wind was enough the buck could not hear us, or was not showing any sign of hearing us. He then decided to softly grunt to the buck, he was only 50 yards away from our position. On the first grunt, the buck turned his head in our direction. I could not tell much but Dean said, "That's HIGH FIVE!!!".
I admit, I started to get a bit nervous but kept telling myself, just get the shot off when he stands. Dean kept grunting to him but he would not stand. After about a minute of trying to get him on his feet, Dean decided to move off to the our left to change the position of the grunts to see if that would get this buck on his feet. Well, it did, but the buck rolled to his left and was gone and I NEVER saw a hair on his body. So I went from thinking, I will be taking a +200" whitetail home to, There goes the biggest whitetail I have ever seen and I never even say a hair on his body!!!
Dean ran back, got the shooting sticks and we ran to the left to try to get a shot at the buck in the bush. We could just see the tops of his rack and he could not see us. He never did see what we were, only that something was not right in his bedding area. I tried to make a shooting lane as hard as I could, there was nothing I could do. THen the buck stopped and then moved back to our right back down the creek. Dean and I hustled around a clump of brush and set up. There as a small 2 foot wide opening around 50 yards away that the buck would pass through.
I set up on that spot and again thinking if I would pull the trigger as soon as I saw hair on his chest. Well that big buck walked calmly right up to that opening and then Darted across it so quickly I never even got a shot...... This deer was kicking my rear!!! Dean grabbed the sticks again and we relocated again while the buck was behind some heavy bush. Wind still perfect, buck has no idea what we are or even where we are at this point. We could see the direction the buck was heading and it was toward a patch of bush that was so thick it would be impossible to get any shot at him if he got in there. The bush was thinning a bit so we just set up there.
At 75 yards Dean gave a challenge grunt to the buck and he turned quartering toward us. I could see the bucks head and antlers in full view but admit I was searching so hard for his body that I never did look at his antlers. There was a thin wall of willows between the us and the bucks shoulder but it they were very close to the buck so I figured I would take a chance. I followed the line of the bucks neck down to where I estimated the crook of his neck to be and gave the 130 gr Accubond a ride. The recoil moved me off target but by the time I recovered, Dean was already giving me attaboys and jumping around.
We walked through the 75 yards of bush and when we broke through the thin wall of willows I had shot through, I was simply amazed at what was laying on the ground. I had never seen a buck with this size of a frame and this mass in real life before. HE was WAY bigger then the game camera pictures made him look. I just had to sit there and look at this deer for a few seconds. Did not know what to say. And I will admit, after this event and seeing this buck, I got a serious case of the shakes. Something that has not happened to me for many years.
After a lot of pics and talking about how the hunt went down we got the buck packed up and headed back to the lodge. Turns out he has 20 scorable points in a typical 4x5 frame. His 4x4 frame alone scores an amazing 177 5/8"!! He has nearly 50" of circumference measurements. Total gross score was 217 5/8"!!! BY FAR my biggest whitetail and for all the long range rifles I build and long range kills I have had, my biggest whitetail to date was killed at 75 yards with a Ruger 6.5-06 that had only been around for a week before the hunt!!!
All in all, the hunt was much more challenging and stressful then I expected it to be but also turned out MUCH better then I expected. Already looking forward to next fall. I have always said, I am a hunter first. I hunt for big deer, not a range number. If they show up at along range, I want to be prepared for that shot but if a big buck shows up at close range, I will take that shot as well. Could not be happier with the results.
Here are a couple more pics of the racks.
Did not even hunt here in Montana much this year. Our deer numbers are way down and I decided to just not even take a buck this year in Montana. Give them another year to age and get some more numbers to our herds. Since my big game hunting career started in 1985, this will be the first year I have ended the season with a Montana Deer A tag in my wallet. Can not complain though. Lots of 2 and 3 year old bucks on our property so in 2-3 years, will have big deer back hopefully. Until then, will be going back to Canada!!!
Because of my work load this fall, I decided to cancel two of the three hunts I had booked for this fall. The one I kept was with Northern Giants Outfitters in Sask. Canada. I kept this one mainly because it is a big acre private hunting preserve and set up as a 4 day hunt so figured I could get up there(9 hours from my place) hunt, get a good deer and get home within a relatively short number of days.
Now, I know some of you are against private hunting preserves, that your right to believe that way and this is not a topic of why I posted this on the forum. Not trying to convince anyone for or against them. I personally believe if you choose a good ranch that is set up and run properly, its impossible to tell the difference between a big acre private hunting preserve and a wild fair chase hunt. In fact, most of my hardest hunts have been on private preserves and most of my easiest hunts have been on low pressure, private ground fair chase hunts so from what I have seen, with the ranches I have hunted with, the only advantage is generally quality of animals that live on the properly.
Anyway, again, that's not the reason I posted this on the forum.
Arrived at the hunting lodge on the 24th of October and met my guide Dean who is co-owner of the ranch. Got all my gear unpacked and he asked if I wanted to go out for an afternoon hunt just sitting in the truck watching some hay fields and a big brushed valley for the evening. I was all over that as my hunt was not supposed to start until the next morning so this was just a bonus. Grabbed my new Raptor THunter in 7mm Allen Magnum and we headed out to the hunting area which was around 15 miles from the lodge.
We set up looking over a big valley with hay fields, a creek in the bottom and a lot of heavy brush on the far side. It was relatively warm and windy and nothing much moved until right at dark when I spotted a good buck moving through the bush on the opposite side of the valley. Dean glassed the buck and said he was not what we were after. He looked pretty darn good to me. I guessed him as a high 160's class buck but in the dark, shadowy timber, it was hard to tell for sure. I asked Dean what he thought he would score and he said upper 160s, lower 170s. Now, I have shot a lot of good deer in my day but only one bigger then this class of deer so I admit I was a bit nervous not setting up on this deer.
Dean assured me we would see bigger and possibly MUCH bigger if we were patient so I did not guide the guide and just watched the buck disappear into the bush.
Other then a few does, that was all we saw that first evening. We did however hear a gun shot from one of the other hunters on the property so after dark we drove over to see if the other hunters had killed anything. This hunter was a young boy, 12 years old, whose Dad had brought him out on a hunt. When we got to the food plot we could see the Dad and son out in the field and the son lifted up the head of the buck he had killed, I almost crapped!!! Was a truly impressive deer and the kid was VERY excited.
Turned out to be an 8x8 that scored 174"!!! This was the kids first deer ever!! We all told him he was setting the bar pretty high from here on out.
Seeing this deer really got me reved up for what may be in my future. We packed up the buck and headed back to the lodge. Ate a huge dinner and went to bed. We got up early, had breakfast and headed back out to the hunting area to get on the ridge before daylight. Again, it was pretty warm and windy by Canada standards and NOTHING moved that morning at all.
That really surprised me but was not to worried. Headed in for some lunch and then came back out that afternoon. Again, nothing showed but a few does in the bush, warm and windy again.
Was a bit concerned with the weather but still had two full days left to hunt.
The next morning was a bit cooler but not much. We decided to sit on the rims again as we could see a lot of country and again we got blanked, nothing was moving, not even a doe...... I was starting to think I had made a serious mistake passing on that first deer which would have easily been my second biggest deer.
Dean could tell I was a bit nervous and said not to worry but I could tell he was a bit nervous as well with the poor weather and lack of deer movement.
We headed back to the lodge for some lunch and talked over a few different things. We decided to go sit in one of the ground blinds they had set up on a food plot as there had been some big bucks hitting that plot but all at night time. We were just hoping the bucks were staying in the thick bush and one would hit this plot that evening. Well, it did not happen, nothing showed.....
One days left and only one deer had been spotted and I passed on him. Went to bed that night thinking I may have made a huge mistake but the weather was supposed to start to change so I was hopeful.
The next morning we woke up to calm conditions and nice and cool. Around 15 degrees. We set up again on our now familiar overlook and to our amazement, NOTHING moved again. We were both starting to get a bit unnerved here. We set until around 9:00 and then we decided to go drive around to check some other hay fields. Dean got out to take a leak before we left and as soon as he stepped out, he looked behind the truck and somehow, a big whitetail had snuck in right behind us. As soon as Dean saw him, the buck saw Dean as well and spun around high tailing it back across the hay field.
Dean jumped in the truck and said he had an idea where the buck would try to dive off the rims down into the valley creek bottom bush. He tore over to this spot and we jumped out. Now I will admit, this was a bit western which can happen sometimes running and gunning for big whitetails. I never really knew what the buck was. Dean said he was a 180 class deer. Heavy, wide, a few kicker points but should be in that 180 class. We set up with the truck pointed in the direction we thought the buck would cross. I could not lay down as the contour of the land was enough I would not see the buck from ground level so I rolled the window down in the open door of the truck and layed the 7mm Allen Magnum across the window frame.
About that time, the buck came into view, trotting toward a coulee that would take him down to the valley, just as Dean had predicted. The buck trotted to the edge of the coulee and just as I was about to try a moving shot(which I hate), something caught the bucks attention in the opposite direction of where we were. He stopped broadside focused on whatever had gotten his attention. I called for the range and Dean reported 511 yards. I had already put the first line down on the Leupold Mk4 TMR reticle solidly on the bucks shoulders as I knew the range would be close to 500 yards and tripped the Jewell trigger. The PK brake did its job perfectly and I saw that 180 gr berger land right where the line was held and the buck folded up to the shot. From the time Dean called out the range to the buck hitting the ground was around 3 seconds.
I cleared the fired case and racked another one in and got back on the buck. Have seen more then a few bucks take a drop like that only to stand up within a few second and get away. This one was not going to do that!! After 20-30 seconds or so, I was convinced this buck was done. I put the safety on, stood up and looked over at Dean. He was standing there with a look of amazement on his face. I asked him, "WHAT?"
He replied, "I can not believe that just happened. Cannot believe how FAST that happened and how hard that 7mm hit that buck!!"
I replied, "Yep, the old 7mm Allen Mag hits a bit harder then most 7mm magnums out there!!" Dean replied, "No S$&%!!"
We drove over to the buck and I was very happy with what we found. He had one tine broken off the right antler which kept him out of the 180 class for score but he was wide at 26" outside spread and was a 7-9 with a gross score of 176 0/8" and good mass. I was very happy. Dean was upset he had not seen the broken tine but I told him not to worry, I would have shot the buck anyway.
We loaded the massive bodied buck up in the truck and headed back to the lodge where we met the other hunters and the other owner of the ranch. Dean and him kind of disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with a proposition for me. They were now both interested in doing rifle trades for a hunt. It took me about a second to agree to that and they said if I wanted, we could put half the rifle trade on a second deer for this hunt if we could get it done that afternoon as it was our last day. If we could not get it done, would just put everything toward next falls hunt. Again, I agreed.
We caped my first buck, dressed him out to get cooled, ate some lunch and talked over the options for the afternoon/evening hunt. We had seen three BIG deer that were hitting food plots regularly but all were hitting them from 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM so we were not overly confident that we would see anything sitting in a blind for the last night.
The wind was perfect so we decided we would head out earlier then normal and still hunt an area where we knew there were two BIG deer hitting this one plot every night. This was pretty aggressive but we only had one night left. One of the deer was tall and had a lot of long tines. Dean guessed him to be in the 200-205 range with more non typical points then the other deer we were interested in. This other buck was one I had nicknamed HIGH FIVE from his trail cam pics. His G-2s on both side each had 5 kicker points and the one on the left antler looked like a hand sticking up in the air, hence the name HIGH FIVE. Either would have easily been my biggest deer to date. Dean said he thought this second buck was one of the bigger framed deer they had had on the place and would be in the 210 to 220" range.
We packed up and headed out to the hunting property. We started our way into the bush, wind was perfect. From the heavy frost that morning, the grass and leaves were now wet and did not make much noise at all to walk in. We made our way slowly for about 200 yards and I was starting to think we were out of luck as we were getting close to the food plot. Then I looked to my right and saw three tines sticking up out of the tall creek bottom grass. Dean glassed the buck and could not tell for sure who he was but he said he was a BIG deer. We set up the shooting sticks and I put my CLOSE RANGE rifle on the sticks which is my wifes Ruger M77 MkII that I had rebarreled to 6.5-06 just a week before I had left for the hunt!!! I positioned the reticle just over the bucks antlers and knew if he stood, he was ours.
Dean started snapping small sticks to try to get the bucks attention but the wind was enough the buck could not hear us, or was not showing any sign of hearing us. He then decided to softly grunt to the buck, he was only 50 yards away from our position. On the first grunt, the buck turned his head in our direction. I could not tell much but Dean said, "That's HIGH FIVE!!!".
I admit, I started to get a bit nervous but kept telling myself, just get the shot off when he stands. Dean kept grunting to him but he would not stand. After about a minute of trying to get him on his feet, Dean decided to move off to the our left to change the position of the grunts to see if that would get this buck on his feet. Well, it did, but the buck rolled to his left and was gone and I NEVER saw a hair on his body. So I went from thinking, I will be taking a +200" whitetail home to, There goes the biggest whitetail I have ever seen and I never even say a hair on his body!!!
Dean ran back, got the shooting sticks and we ran to the left to try to get a shot at the buck in the bush. We could just see the tops of his rack and he could not see us. He never did see what we were, only that something was not right in his bedding area. I tried to make a shooting lane as hard as I could, there was nothing I could do. THen the buck stopped and then moved back to our right back down the creek. Dean and I hustled around a clump of brush and set up. There as a small 2 foot wide opening around 50 yards away that the buck would pass through.
I set up on that spot and again thinking if I would pull the trigger as soon as I saw hair on his chest. Well that big buck walked calmly right up to that opening and then Darted across it so quickly I never even got a shot...... This deer was kicking my rear!!! Dean grabbed the sticks again and we relocated again while the buck was behind some heavy bush. Wind still perfect, buck has no idea what we are or even where we are at this point. We could see the direction the buck was heading and it was toward a patch of bush that was so thick it would be impossible to get any shot at him if he got in there. The bush was thinning a bit so we just set up there.
At 75 yards Dean gave a challenge grunt to the buck and he turned quartering toward us. I could see the bucks head and antlers in full view but admit I was searching so hard for his body that I never did look at his antlers. There was a thin wall of willows between the us and the bucks shoulder but it they were very close to the buck so I figured I would take a chance. I followed the line of the bucks neck down to where I estimated the crook of his neck to be and gave the 130 gr Accubond a ride. The recoil moved me off target but by the time I recovered, Dean was already giving me attaboys and jumping around.
We walked through the 75 yards of bush and when we broke through the thin wall of willows I had shot through, I was simply amazed at what was laying on the ground. I had never seen a buck with this size of a frame and this mass in real life before. HE was WAY bigger then the game camera pictures made him look. I just had to sit there and look at this deer for a few seconds. Did not know what to say. And I will admit, after this event and seeing this buck, I got a serious case of the shakes. Something that has not happened to me for many years.
After a lot of pics and talking about how the hunt went down we got the buck packed up and headed back to the lodge. Turns out he has 20 scorable points in a typical 4x5 frame. His 4x4 frame alone scores an amazing 177 5/8"!! He has nearly 50" of circumference measurements. Total gross score was 217 5/8"!!! BY FAR my biggest whitetail and for all the long range rifles I build and long range kills I have had, my biggest whitetail to date was killed at 75 yards with a Ruger 6.5-06 that had only been around for a week before the hunt!!!
All in all, the hunt was much more challenging and stressful then I expected it to be but also turned out MUCH better then I expected. Already looking forward to next fall. I have always said, I am a hunter first. I hunt for big deer, not a range number. If they show up at along range, I want to be prepared for that shot but if a big buck shows up at close range, I will take that shot as well. Could not be happier with the results.
Here are a couple more pics of the racks.
Did not even hunt here in Montana much this year. Our deer numbers are way down and I decided to just not even take a buck this year in Montana. Give them another year to age and get some more numbers to our herds. Since my big game hunting career started in 1985, this will be the first year I have ended the season with a Montana Deer A tag in my wallet. Can not complain though. Lots of 2 and 3 year old bucks on our property so in 2-3 years, will have big deer back hopefully. Until then, will be going back to Canada!!!
