Friday morning we hunted out of the truck, not many deer seen but did take a feral hog. Funny to see them living out in that desert country




That evening we hunted hard but didn't see many deer, we came back about 15 min early bummed out. I pull up to the rear of the truck and we see a buck looking at us about 60 yards from the truck, only about 200 yards off the highway. Donnie made good on a 60 yard shot and a management buck was down




now the pressure was on with the season winding down, we hunted the same pasture the next morning, I made a long stalk on a buck only to find out he didn't quite make the cut age wise.

Feeling pretty bummed, stxranchman suggested we hunt on top of a large hill where you could see for miles in each direction. having never been there before, I got directions on where it was and we made our way out around 3. at 4:30 we still hadn't seen any deer. at 4:45 Don saw a few way off in the distance. We glassed them and I saw a mature buck in the group, but couldn't see anything as far as horns go. we decided to drive down and take a road that would put us a little bit closer to him. once we got down there I glassed the buck and although I could see a rack I couldn't make heads or tails of what it looked like. I start a very long (and very tough) walk towards the group of deer, crossing a large grass flat, creek bottom, another grass flat, a mesquite thicket and finally one more grass flat before reaching the edge of the gravel hill they were on. The sun was setting behind the mountains in the distance and I was going to run out of cover quickly. I used up all the concealment a thin piece of greasewood would give me, and 5 of the 8 deer in the herd were looking directly at me. I shouldered the rifle on the shooting sticks and cranked the magnification on the scope but the distance (350 yards) plus my heavy breathing from the walk over there made the shot very difficult. By now I could see the buck was a large 3x3, from what he looked like about a 4 year old. I decided to try to move a tad closer and closed another 30-40 yards across wide open country and set the sticks up again. the buck was not all that concerned about me but a doe about 30 yards in front of him was eyeing me and I was afraid she was gonna bolt. I took aim but my labored breathing make holding the cross hairs steady difficult....I took a minute (all 60 seconds of it) to let my breathing calm down and got back on the gun. I steadied it as best I could on his shoulder and squeezed it off. the rifle recoiled and settled back when I heard the bullet hit and the buck react to the shot, do a slow spin and dive headfirst into the ground. the does ran off at the shot, then grouped up and walked back over to the buck and stood next to him as I walked up. the entire time I was there they didn't get more than 40 yards away until the calvary showed up to haul me and the deer outta there.


110 grain bullet outta the .257 wby performed as expected, very happy with the way everything took place.




Some other pics from the trip:

Good story and great pics

can someone turn the sideways pics the right way? please

nice

Looks like you did good.

Awesome country

Good pics !
Nice place !
Congrats on the nice buck and good shooting !

Nice write up and

Congrats on a successful hunt. Looks like a lot of fun.

You done give me a crick.

Glad y'all connected and was great meeting you. Wish there had been more time to hunt together but it was truly a pleasure. Great pics and nicely done on the animals

Looks like some great hunting and awesome scenery.

nice