Tikkamike
Well-Known Member
This year some buddies and I decided to burn some points on Colorado Mule deer. I had never been hunting in the unit but a couple of the guys had so I went into it relatively blindly. We rented a house via Air B&B that was about 20 minutes from where we planned to hunt. This was Colorado 3rd season in a not so premium area, lots of tags, somewhat limited public access and it was also going to be open for elk. I had no idea how many people were going to be in the area, I was excited nonetheless. I showed up mid day on the day before it opened, we went out and did a little glassing from the truck and I was honestly quite impressed with what i saw. A couple of shooter bucks and seemed to be plenty of deer.....but also plenty of camps. I went into this hunt hoping to break 170", it would be a new personal best for me and seemed like an achivable goal after what I had seen for deer. Opening morning we decided one guy was going to glass from the truck, 2 guys went up one side of a piece of public ground and I went up the opposite side. The plan was to get as much elevation as possible and hunt our way down. I left the truck about 20 minutes before shooting light and started working my way up the mountain. Before I got to where I was headed I had already seen plenty of hunters and heard a few shots. As I was getting close I crested a ridge and discovered a decent size bowl that I did not know was there. it was about 450 yards across and full of cedars. I decided to stop and glass for a few minutes because it seemed like I was alone. I immediatley spotted a small buck working across the opposite side of the bowl. a few minutes later I spotted a pretty large frame and half a face staring in my direction from across the bowl. It looked like a pretty good buck on 10x through the Geovids but I dropped down and threw my rifle across the pack to see if I could get a better look through my scope on 15x. just as I got him in the scope he walked deeper into the cedars and didnt pop back out for quite a while, finally he walked through an opening and I verified that he met my standards, he didnt have super great forks but he had a couply kickers and a big frame. I chambered a round in the 6.5 Gap build on a tikka action and waited for him to hit the next opening in the trees, but he never came out, I put the rifle on safety and left it laying there while I moved a few feet to the right so that I could glass the bowl a little better looking for this buck. I was confident he was in there but I just could not find him. As I was looking a doe and 2 smaller bucks walked out in the bottom at 300 yards, The doe kept looking over her shoulder which made me think the buck I was after must be coming. A couple minutes later a big frame stepped out, I threw the binos on him and it was obvious this was NOT the deer that I was wating on, this was his great grandpa and I absolutely needed to get on the rifle. I was there pretty much instantly and flicked the safety forward. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happened, I tried to work the bolt and it wouldn't lift, I instantly knew my safety was still engaged, I looked and sure enough when I flicked it it only went about half way. I addressed the issue and got back on the buck, he had just stepped behind a cedar, I was ready, as he stepped I started to squeeze the trigger and BOOM! The buck crumpled in my scope, the problem was I hadnt fired, someone was down the ridge a short ways whom I was unaware of and he just shot my dream buck out from under me while I was half way through a 1.5 lb trigger pull. Talk about bad luck, but this is where it gets interesting! The buck hits the ground like a ton of bricks, hes flopping around trying to get his feet back under him which he manages to do, and starts to stumble away, my first thought is "I can put this thing down right now" but then I thought, no its this guys deer just let it go. About that time he fires again and misses. I assume the deer is just going to do a death sprint and be down in a few yards. Well as he gets going he is picking up speed and regaining his cordination. he goes from trotting, to bouncing to an all out get the heck out of dodge sprint. he gets clear across the bowl and I cant see where hes been hit, at this point hes not even acting hit. He is running up at an angle trying to get out of the bowl as fast as possible, it becomes very obvious that he is headed out and is going to go a long way befoire he goes down again if he even does. I knew the probability of making a 400+ yard shot on a deer running diagonally up a hill was basically 0 so I just watched as he ran. then in the last 50 yards he turned and started running straight up the hill away from me. I knew he was just over 400 yards and that my drop for 400 was 3.8 moa so i glanced up at the dial and turned the VX-5HD to 3 and change, found the buck in the scope and put the cross hairs between the shoulder blades right as he was about to crest the hill. I heard the 127 LRX connect and watched the buck go down with an obvious hip shot. he was anchored but still trying to get out of there. All I could do was put another one in the hips which put him down, I could see the silhouette of his big rack on the skyline and couldnt believe what had just happened. I start gathering my stuff up and I look down the hill and the other guy is making a Bee line for the last place he saw the buck. I was not excited for what I knew was coming next, but I felt I had a right to this deer considering he was leaving the country, and would have done so if not for me. I was a little bummed too though because I had a buck down with someone elses bullet hole in him. I make my way to the bottom expecting to see the other guy up on the hill ahead of me headed toward the deer but he is no where in site. I knew where the deer was so I hiked up the hill and there he was still alive, not struggling because he knew he couldnt get up. I put another one in his lungs and waited for him to expire. I couldnt believe what I was looking at. I had never even seen a deer like this alive before. I was looking him over and for the life of me could not find a bullet hole in this deer other than the 2 in the rear end and the one in the lungs. about 10 minutes later the guys shows up. He says "Oh there he is! I was wondering where he ran to, I shot him in the bottom down there" I said yeah I watched you pile him up in my scope right as I was about to shoot. then I shot him as he was about to leave the basin and this is where he dropped. I said, I dont know where you hit him though because I cant find your bullet hole. The guy looked pretty disappointed, it was a crappy situation, neither of us knew the other and had not idea how this was going to go down. the only thing I knew was I didnt plan on letting him have the deer, I think he senced that along with our size difference, and didnt even put up a fight. He asked if I would take his picture with the deer, and we chatted for a minute then he was on his way. After he left I took some more pictures and while doing so I noticed some blood on his ear, pretty odd place for blood on a deer with 2 bullet holes in the hind quarters. I picked his head up and theres was a bloody bullet hole in the ear as well as a half moon notch out of the base of the antler where the other guy had obviously hit him. If he had been an inch lower it would have shot this deer in the brain, and an inch left it would have probably blown the antler off. I couldnt believe it, it also made mee feel a lot better knowing this deer was 100% fine other than a headache when I killed him, no need to share the credit with some unknown guy. The shot placement is not what I had hoped for but this was the buck of a lifetime for me and I wasn't letting him get away. He measures out at 185 6/8" and I couldnt be happier, he is a clean typical with only 3.5" in deductions.
. Good for you for letting it go at first, and then finishing him off when he was obviously going to get away. He's definitely yours, fair and square. I'm not sure if there is anything quite as cool as a big mulie, congratulations!!
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