king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Best of 2007 Feb-March 2008 - Index

Just as I was nearing the
aforementioned spot, I spotted
an animal in a slough bottom
about 300 yards in front of me. A
quick inspection with my 10x42
Swarovski’s revealed a nice 6x7 bull
elk that I fi gured would go about
350-inches. This was a very good
bull for an area that the elk had
recently moved into the last year or
so. Maybe in the next year or two
that bull will be the topic of another
story.
After watching the bull for
a minute or two, he decided to head
for quieter pastures and I continued
on. After another 10 yards, I decided
that now would be a good time to
sit down. Before doing so, I took
a quick look around with my bino’s
and noticed fi ve whitetail does just
coming over the hilltop about 600
yards away. The does had also
spotted me and decided to head back
in the direction they had just come
from. I fi gured I had just spoiled my
evening hunt by being fi ve minutes
too late, but fi gured I had better
get down and stretched out on the
ground anyway because you just
never know.
I’d been sitting for
approximately thirty minutes,
glassing the whole time, when I
saw a lone doe coming over the
same hill that I’d seen the previous
does vacate. She was a good 600
yards away and feeding down the
hill. A closer inspection of the trees
covering the hillside where the doe
was feeding revealed another deer
which was sneaking in and trying
to remain hidden. I fi gured it must
be a buck, so I kept the binoculars
trained on him the whole time. He
stepped out of a bunch of willows
momentarily and all I thought was,
“Wow, that deer is wide!” I knew
that if I had an opportunity to shoot
this deer, I was going to take it. Just
like that, the buck disappeared into
the brush again. Although he was
now about 550 yards away, I could
clearly hear him grunting at the
doe (obviously the wind was in my
favor). The doe thankfully kept feeding
out in the open and making her way
closer to me. I didn’t see the buck again
for at least a couple of minutes and
began to think that another big one had
slipped away from me. As the seconds
that seemed like minutes passed, I
really began having my doubts. But,
suddenly, he was back again. I could
tell that the buck didn’t like the doe
leading him out towards the open,
but that’s what the rut is all about.
“I could tell that the buck didn’t
like the doe leading him out
towards the open, but that’s
what the rut is all about.”
of the
5NORTH BORDER5
February/March
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