Did OK this year

[Jonesy]

Never did get near close enough to the big mule deer i wanted, but had a good season regardless. The massive amount of snow we got made deer hunting a challenge to say the least. I got my Black Hills deer first a few days after the blizzard. I parked on a road where the snow removal stopped about 2 hours before dark and started moving my way slowly on the edge of the trees next to where the road was 3 feet under the snow. About 15 minutes before dark caught him chasing a doe, didn't think he'd ever stop and give me a broadside shot. But he finally did, but had moved a good hundred yards farther. He was skirting in and out of the trees. If I were to guess, I'd say it was about a 250 yard shot. He's a decent 5 by 5, think it was an old buck on the decline. Had a heavy main beam but shorter tines and 18 inches wide. His teeth were about gnawed down to nothing and very grey. Had to drag him about a half mile through crotch deep snow in the dark to get him back to the jeep. Was so exhausted couldn't get him lifted to the top. So i quartered him and put him up in pieces. I had two prairie buck tags to fill and two doe tags. I still have the doe tags, i'll fill them when they open the season again after the first of the year.

The next prairie buck was also an adventure. Was on the edge of the Belle Fourche River on an alphalpha field. I got out there a little late as it was 2 in the afternoon and there was already about 50 deer out feeding. Man it was cold, high teens and 40 to 50 mile per hour winds. I'm sure Nulle remembers that day. Wasn't sure how i was going to do it. About half the deer were feeding the other half were laying down on the far side of the round bales out of the wind. If i were to come up from the south they'd see me, if i came from the north they'd catch my sent for sure. So i came in from the East and used all the other round bales to zig zag my way closer. I made it to a little knoll in the field and a good vantage point. I had 5 nice little 4 by 4's and 5 by 5's within 200 yards of me, but nothing that really caught my eye. I sat with my back against a bale and tried to stay out of the wind as much as I could to wait and see what else came out before then and dark. While waiting i caught movement across the river on the neighbors land. Checked it out and was a dozen deer tooling around with a nice buck rutting pretty hard. They just stayed there for a couple hours. Kind of figured if they were coming my way they wouldn't get here before dark, so i would only look up there every 20 minutes or so and they were always there. About half hour before dark i looked up there and didn't see them. Then about 500 yards that nice buck came up out of the river bottom harassing a doe. He kept pushing her hard and kept moving right towards me. By that time there had to be well over a hundred deer in that half section hay field. I was on the North end and they were coming in from the North West corner. They followed along the river through some brush and big cottonwoods and vanished below me behind a shelf, i was on the shallow end of it where it peters out. Then that buck popped up with the doe 150 yards from me. I was starting to sweat it a little cause by that time i was really close to running out of light. I had him in the cross hairs and followed him for about 50 yards going across in front of me. He finally stopped and and i got my shot. The moment i shot he bolted, ran about another 50 yards and ran full tilt into the end of a round bale. When he bounced off the round bale and hit the ground he didn't move. I've never seen anything like that before. Was a good solid heart shot. He's a nice 5 by 5, long tines and 22 inch medium heavy mainbeams.

The last one i got wasn't near as eventful. Was last Sunday on the last day. I had hunted that morning, saw lots of deer, plenty of bucks but nothing that big. I got back to the pickup and thought I'd eat lunch and watch the prairie dogs. I parked on a point and had prairie dogs all around me and down below me. Thought i could also watch across the river in the big breaks where right before dark the night before i saw the massive mule deer i'd seen a few times while out scouting, but he was a quarter mile away. It was about noon and my eye caught a nice whitetail all by himself sneaking along the river bottom. I waited till he got behind a big cut bank. I grabbed the rifle and high tailed it down the shelf, across the flats to try and intercept him. Had to go about 400 yards to get to the high cut bank above the river. crawling the last 20 not to expose myself. When i got to the edge, he was down below me and maybe a little over a hundred yards across the river. I shot and got him. he's a nice little 4 by 5, his main beams are tight from front to back and the tips aren't far from touching each other, fair tine length and medium heavy.

I took all of them with a custom 280 built by Stu Saterlee on a mauser 98 action that was topped by a leupold vari-x III in 3.5 x 10. The steaks are almost gone already and have made a bunch of saugage, brauts and jerky. So it's been a pretty fair season.

I didn't take any pictures in the field. Here's a picture of the one off the hay field. Sorry, not a great picture. They're all skinned and deboned now. Just have the heads sitting on my shop floor. Gonna skin them out this weekend to get ready to boil them sometime over the next couple weeks. I'll get some more picture or have Nulle come over and do it. lol

[Dan Morris]

Dang bud, that's a nice buck. My congrats!
Dan

[VaRedneck]

"nice little 4x5".....heh, in relation to what? That's a nice buck!

I wanna see the rest of'm.