Utah is known as the Beehive state but they also have some of the finest hunting in the western US. One of my sons' father in law has 10,000 acres & he gets some land owner tags each year for both deer & antelope. I was offered 4 of them this year but only took 2, one of each. These are antlerless tags & the hunts run about three & a half months.
I had a deer tag last year & seen lots of deer but waited to long & the snow got deep & I couldn't get to them, my mistake! Anyway, this year I decided to go earlier although it's been very hot. The drive is about 115 miles & I arrived about 7:30, hoping to catch the antelope heading for a big reservoir he has on the property. I've only been there a couple of times & his land is pretty scattered so I wasn't exactly sure where it was at.
As I headed down a long dirt road & then turned onto another dirt road I started following a pretty little stream & then started seeing several deer, yikes, change of plans! I had wanted to shoot an antelope with my scoped 357 Maximum & then hopefully fill the other tag with my old flat top 44 magnum. I originally was going to take the Bisley 41 but it gets quite a bit of work & the OM 44 flat top hadn't stretched it legs for a while so it was a last minute change of plans.
When I stopped all the heads came up & I grabbed the 357 Maximum & went around the back of the truck, the tail gate was down because my 4 wheeler is too long to fit so I had a place to steady my left elbow, a real key to shooting a sixgun from the standing postion. Every deer was getting ready to run & although I wanted to shoot a dry doe there really wasn't time to be picky, I singled out a big doe that was a bit separated from the other 13-14 in the group, lined up from a center lung shot & lit the switch. She stumbled & run 10 yds or so & then stopped & did kind of a jump in the air. I thumbed back the hammer on the 10 1/2" Ruger & sent another 200 grs of lead poison her way.
Just as I broke the shot she made another one of those little jumps & I hit her lower in the leg & clipped her brisket. The shot broke the leg & she ran 10-15 yds & went down. The problem now was, she was across the stream so I had to take off my trusty Croc's & socks, & use my walking stick to balance me as I sank in the deep mud on each side of the bank.
Now I had to get her across the stream & the best way to do that is to not gut them until you reach the other side. I had to float her down stream about 150 yds & then pull her out of the sticky mud, I was sinking over a foot each step once I got to the other side. Then I walked back & got my 4 wheeler & drove down to get her but she was too heavy to load so I had to gut her first & then I loaded her & rode the 4 wheeler right up into the truck.
Shade is really hard to find in this area, there are almost no trees & I drove for 6-7 miles & ran into a guy from Nevada taking a dip in the stream & he took a photo of me standing next to my truck. Then I drove another 5-6 miles to an old abandoned farm house that had one small shade tree & I boned the meat there & put it in the coolers.
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