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Yeah there's only two-words that can explain today's economy and I
can't say them here.
Anyway, You knock one down up there and I'll try here in N.H..
I'm glad you consider me a valued hunting companion (sounds like a
dog,bark-bark)
See ya when you get back!
Don't forget to call me with a mid-week up-date.
Your Bro..
Rick
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Well we're back. We had quite an interesting week in Canada. When we
got there we all found out that due to a hard winter (4' base of snow)
and a tremendious Coyote population the deer heard was down. The
Natural Resource Dept. (F&G) had stated they thought they would only
have a 50% kill from last year (24,000 harvested). In talking with the
guides, hunters in the previous weeks had seen deer and all had missed
shots when bucks came out. Well with that we all just said we are here
and we'll hunt the hell out of them. We did have one advantage, there
was 6" of snow on the ground to make things a little easier. First day
(11/12) we get up and listen to the weather report, 32 degrees with 60+
MPH winds, brrrr we were in for it. Nothing moved the hole day except,
my dad took a walk on a tote road and was looking at a set of big
tracks when he looked up he saw the rear quarter of a bear cross the
road into the woods with no shot available. Second day weather report
is 26 degrees with 45MPH winds. I was the only person to see deer on
this day. At 10:45 I was watching the crossings to my left and right.
I had a range of 250 yards to my right, and 140 to my left. I looked to
my left and no movement, then to my right and was studing the small
trees on the side of the road for movement. When I turned my head back
to the left a huge Buck was already half way across the opening I had
to shot with his head down and walking fast. I reached for my gun and
got him into my scope, by this time (in seconds) he had already got
most of his body into the woods except for his hind quarter. I chose
not to shoot at that target. I got down from my stand and went over to
where he crossed. I got on his tracks and stayed with him for about
1000 yards and I had no site of him. I figured he was heading down to
another area were one of the other guys was posted so I gave up. Boy
was I pissed at myself that he got the jump on me, but that's hunting.
Late that same day (5:15) a spike horn came into the crossing and I
debated on shooting. I watched him and all the pro's and con's went
through my head what I should do, which seemed like it took 10 minutes.
When I decided that I would shot the main thing on my mind was to drop
the deer in his tracks. With all the coyote problems we were told that
if we had to retrieve a deer over night it would be most likely that they
would get to it and eat most of it. So I came down from his head to just
above his shoulder and the cross hairs disappeared. There wasn't enough
light to see them so I brought my point of aim back out to the right
and the snow brought out the crosshairs. So I figured that I swing back
to the left at the correct level and shoot. Well everything went as
planned except for I pulled th trigger about a 1/2 a second early and
grazed his front chest only taking hair off it. We tracked it in the
woods with flashlights for about 500 yards and never found a drop of
blood. On wednesday no one in our party saw any thing but the other
group took a 9 point Buck, 217 pounds. This deer had a rack that looked
like it was os a Caribou. When I did the measurements it had 5 1/2"
bases, a 22 3/4" inside spread, and at the curve of the rack it was
6 3/4". The buck was a swamp monster, and they figured him to be about
4 1/2 years old. On thursday again our party didn't see anything but the
other party saw 3 Doe's. On Friday the last day of our hunt my father saw
a huge (900-1000 lb.) Bull Moose, and I saw 2 Doe's. The other party took
a 6 point Buck, 176 pounds. This was this hunters first deer and he had
been hunting for 20 years. The rack had no brow tines, and it had an
18" inside spread. The figured this deer to be about 2 1/2 years old.
So all in all we had what was considered an excellent trip, and I'll
say one thing the truck coming back with those 2 Bucks gave people
passing by "Whiplash".
Guy
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