2010 Deer

Mexican Creek Deer

October 17th, 2010

Approaching the deer, just after I'd blasted it.

I was mostly hunting elk this weekend with Barney. Like most weekends, I headed up to camp Friday night after work. Arrived around 8pm to Barney stoking an nice warm fire in the ol stove. Got up really early the next morning and started on gianormous hike (click on the link to see the route)...

We hiked and hiked, and hiked... all pretty much bush whacking. No luck. Didn't really even see much for sign until we headed back up around the ridge that lead back to the Uncle Tom springs parking area. Even then, only tracks. Later we'd learn that a cow/ calf were killed where we had started earlier that day. Oh well. Saw lots of neat country. The next day we decided to focus our efforts more on deer. Also didn't want to walk as much.

We hit a ridge below our camp early Sunday morning. Saw some deer there, but only one kind of small little buck. Tried to sneak up on them, but never found them again. Saw some more does/ fawns- no horns. After a while we headed back to camp and packed up our stuff. Barney was ready to head out and try a different area all together. I decided to hike a draw that'd I'd been seeing good elk sign in all season. I hike the draw and did see some more deer, but again- no horns. At this point I was pretty tired. It was lat afternoon. I was ready to bag it. I loaded up and started on back.

Just after crossing Mexcican creek and heading up the steep hill, a whole herd of deer- six head started walking down the road, right at me. Yikes! I shut things down and whipped out my shooter. Set it up and took aim while sitting on the ATV, thinking one of these deer has to have horns. No horns- though, not any of them. Got me fired up again... thinking maybe it might be good to stick around for evening and hunt some more. So I did.

I motoreed up the road a bit further and maybe about a mile or so before the parking area, I took a two track that headed back towards Mexican creek. Didn't get in there too far before it dead-ended on a fence line near a small draw, running paralell to the Mex creek drainage.

I walked down the fence line quite a ways. When I got to the end of it and realized out close it was to the road, I figured I wasn't probably going to see much. I turned around and headed back to my ATV, retracing my steps along the fence line. It wasn't too long after that this deer stood up and pretty much surrended. I believe he snorted, "Shoooot Me!" I did. One shot, oof-hand, maybe 50 yards or so into the trees. At first I couldn't tell if he was a buck or not, had to hold up for a while until he flashed his antlers a bit. I soon as I saw horn, I fired. Kaaboooom! Direct hit- heart lung. He ran up the other side of the draw maybe 50 yards or so and that was it. He was gone. Time to go to work.

My first Mexican Creek deer.

The ol' 300 H&H was spot on.


While dressing him out, I noticed that someone else had nearly shot his foot off- probably a day or two earlier.

Dragging him up out of this draw all by myself was fun. Could've been much worse though.

After I got him out of the draw and onto a trail next to the fence, another hunter showed up an helped me drag him the next few hundred yards, out to where I could get the ATV to him. After hiking where I did the day before with Barney, and even just a few hours before-- getting this deer out was cake. Plum close to the road compared to those other areas. I shot him around 5pm and had him loaded on the quad at 7pm.

Loaded up, ready to head home.

Headed home.

After I got home, I had to scramble a bit to build a meat hanger and get the deer hung and skinned. It was warm enough out, that it was pretty imparative to get his hide off and get him cooling off ASAP. Still managed to get all of this done and make it to bed before midnight- and to work the next day.

The kids were happy to see me.