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Utah Muley Successful Hunt

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jode

32 Cal.
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
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After all sorts of trouble sighting in a .58 cal replica rifle, I borrowed a .45 cal "Kentucky rifle" for the deer hunt. I put in a LOT of miles hiking around and a lot of time out in nasty conditions, but couldn't seem to get the shot. Towards the end of the hunt, I met up with this bad boy and the .45 cal did the trick despite my very best efforts at screwing things up.

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Sorry about the photography skillz. This was my first Utah buck and I was too excited to get a decent photo. You can't really tell, but it's a nice little 4X4 with an extra cheater on one side that technically makes him a 4x5. And it has some small eyeguards. Overall, a great buck that I am real happy with. Here's how it went down:

We actually spotted him off an old 4x4 antenna road as we were driving up into the mountains. He was hanging with 2 other smaller bucks. We figured we were probably at 100-150 yards and I went to take a shot at him (later we figured this first shot was probably close to 250-300 yards - oops!), but the rifle failed to fire with two caps. I went to pour some powder down into the nipple to jump start things and found that the powder in my flask was all clumped into a plug due to moisture. (I had spent 8 hours a few days earlier out in a major rainstorm chasing 3 other small bucks with no luck, and the leather of my powder/accoutrements bag was wet and must have moistened the powder.) I pushed the frantically pushed plug out and was finally able (with a pretty good hangfire) able to get a shot out at the deer. They acted like they didn't even notice all this ruckus. So, after two primers going off and then a single shot aimed in their general direction, they were still just browsing along up above us on the hillside not seeming concerned at all. By the time I was able to reload however, they were behind a few bushes. My buddy stayed in the truck with the spotting scope and I moved in close to get to where I could see them around the bushes. By the time I got to where I could see them again, probably 30 minutes had passed and a big thick fog bank was rolling in on us. I was able to get in one more shot - again with a major hangfire (probably 150 yards or so) and I think I missed him (I say I think, because as you read, you'll see that I shot quite a few more times and it's hard to tell which shot actually hit). The fog bank came over at this point with visibility of something like 20 yards. Amidst the cursing of my gear and my stupidity at hunting with wet blackpowder, I used the cover of the fog to move in as close as I dared and to a spot where I figured I would be able to see them when/if the fog cleared. I was feeling pretty bummed at this point cause I figured there was a good chance I would not see them again.
The fog finally did blow over (maybe 20-30 minutes after it first rolled in) and sure enough, the deer were browsing broadside right in front of me at 75-100 yards slightly up hill. I braced on a small scrub oak tree and (with a major hangfire) took a shot. By this point, I later discovered that I had broke the rear leg of the buck, but he was still acting as if he knew I was there, but didn't really care. At this point,I was out of patches and was rolling bare balls down the barrel. I reloaded again and took another shot that got them moving slowly up the hill at an angle. Before they went over the top of the ridge, I got another shot or two broadside at him (hard to remember exactly since I reloaded so many times and shot so many times) and I saw him double up like he was gut shot. He then walked over the top of the ridge above me and was out of sight. I was excited and marked the last spot where I had last seen him, then slowly and quietly made my way up to the top of the ridge. I kept looking up to try to keep an eye on that spot I had marked so I wouldn't lose it (you know how the terrain looks different as you look at it from different angles) and as I neared the top of the ridge, I looked up again to mark the spot and I saw a huge set of antlers! This was the first time I had a non-binocular view and I could see it was a real nice set. I leveled the rifle and took a broadside shot into the vitals at maybe 20 yards. He jumped and ran down the ridge, but I could hear him breathing real hard just a little below me, so I knew he didn't go far. I started looking at the blood sign (it was all over the place) and followed it very quietly to kind of see where it went and to make sure I hadn't mixed things up and accidentally shot two of them. While I was doing that, I could no longer hear him breathing. I started glassing down the hill and saw what looked like a very silver and uniform rock laying on the ground. I glassed and glassed it and finally decided it had to be him, so I walked down to him and sure enough, he was there and had just one last flinch where he barely moved his head before he passed. I was really surprised at the mass on the antlers. A really nice set, and a good sized buck - probably 200-250 pounds.
We gutted him out and attempted to drag him up the hillside (my buddy moved the truck up the road to where he was directly above the kill about 200-300 yards - which sounded really close - boy was that a LONG way). After moving him only 10 feet or so up the hill in the sage brush, rocks etc. that were wet from recent rain, we knew that he wasn't getting out of there whole. So we skinned out the hind quarters and severed the backbone to take the rear out as one piece. I attempted to heft the front half at this point and I could barely stand up under it's weight, but there was no way I could move up the hill with it like that. So I started hauling the hind quarters up while my buddy skinned out the head/neck and cut it off the front quarters. Getting those hind quarters up that hill took 90% of my strength and by the time I got to the top, I was SPENT. But I headed back down to help get the rest. With the head over my shoulders and with my buddy's help, we started hauling the front half up a few feet at a time (each of us pulling on one of the front legs). We made it probably 1/3 of the way up and neither of us could go any further. By this time, it was about 9:00 pm and my buddy was concerned about getting home for work the next day. So we made the call to leave the front half and get it the next day. We left it on a sage brush and barely had the strength to drag ourselves back up to the truck.
The next morning I went back on a 4wheeler and was to the carcass by 6:00am. A cougar or coyote or something had already torn into the shoulder and ate most of it. I was real bummed to lose that meat and also to lose that portion of the skin that he tore up. I cut the rest of that shoulder off and left it and strapped the torso/remaining shoulder/vertebrae to my pack and hauled it up to the 4 wheeler. It was so much easier in the daylight, with a frame pack, fresh legs, and with things a bit drier - I couldn't believe how much easier it was. Overall, we ended up with about 60-80 pounds of processed meat, and the skin was mostly in one piece. I've got it soaking in alum/salt now to cure it. The chickens and magpies are doing a great job getting my european mount started and I'm pleased as punch to have had a successful hunt despite all my failures with the blackpowder. I was real lucky this guy let me shoot at him so many times. Next year, I plan to have my stuff together and I will do a better job on the attempt to get a clean one-shot, one-kill. The good news is that this buck is feeding my family and we are doing our darndest to make use of as much of it as we can. I saved most of the bones/scraps for use as coyote bait, and we are even using some of the bone for Halloween costumes.

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I guess I should mention this was not a limited-entry area. It was general entry muzzleloader buck unit 17A. I was pretty happy to have shot the biggest buck I have ever seen in that area (and I'm out in that area ALL the time on the mountain bike and for other hiking/hunting). His rack is only 20" wide, but the tines are all good and long and there is some good mass on there. I know there are tons of bucks like this on the limited entry areas, but we don't see a lot of em like this in 17A.
 
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