I got a BIG one today

[The Nyack Kid]

boy am i sore tired hungry cold and sore.i dont know who stinks worse me or the deer. i hurt too . just got back from the Fisher River were i shot a big STINKY 5x5 mule deer buck .this deer is the first big game i have shot with cast,useing a boolit that i designed myself, first big game shot with my 45-70 , and i am proud of myself it's a good feeling. he has a 23 inch wide spead and has nice heavy main beams this is by far and away the biggest deer i have ever gotten.
but he was barely worth getting .
my brother and i picked up a friend in Kalispell and headed west . got out of the pickup at first light and i walked up a steep creek bottom got up on the ridge that rimmed the creek and walked around . the wind was blowing and it was snowing and i had passed up a little 2x2 mule deer buck way up in the head end of the draw . he was too small and the ground was a nitemere , steeep and brushy . walked down the ridge , found not "just" a patch of lodgepole blowdown but "The Dreaded Patch Of Lodgepole Blowdown From Hell" .i met up with my brother and friend in the middle of said mess . we desided that we would be nuts to kill the creek bottom , anything on this hill side , it was nearing lunch time , and the friend was about dead. so back to the pickup . well we cut some big ,fresh deer tracks and we spread out and headed after the deer . I blundered in to the middle of a heard of mule deer and i was looking at them thinking "doe",doe","doe"...... "**** bull elk !!! nope big buck"boom aaah dont tell no one but i got the buckfever bad then and even though he was "only" fifty yards away , it wasnt a pretty shot . the boolit hit the big bone in the hind leg exited then entered to the rear of the diagram run though the brisket exited then shatered the elbow of the oppisit front leg . me thinks that the 490 gr HTWW boolit is still going . i bout killed myself dragging him down in to the creek bottom ,and i have the scars to prove it . my brother and i tried to drag him down though the blowdown got 100 feet in a 1/4 hour and said "screw this ,time for the chainsaw" . it was a 1/4 mile hike down the draw to the pickup . we had to leave the friend behind at the pickup , he was in sad shape heaving cramping and dieing , poor kid he is so out of shape . any ways 1.5 hours and two tanks of saw gas (remember im a 25 year old Pro Timber Faller ,i run big saws and i cut circles around most other timbercutters ) later we got to my buck . we drug him as far as we could , and i thank God that we had some snow to drag on else we would still be dragging .then we got to the spot were we thought best to get him up out of the draw ( yes we has do pull him up a hill )and what a nasty steep hill too . it has blowdown on it , but not as much as the bottom has. we had to dress the deer out then havle him , then pull the front halve 300 feet up the hill (some time i hate gravity and this was one of those times) then back done the hill to get my saw and the rear half . guess who got to pack that out on his shoulder? dang thing was an easy 80-90 pounds got to the top of the hill which was the half way distance wise , but it was all down (very down) hill from there . our fiend had joined my brother and I at the top of the hill ,he got the saw , i packed the rear and Andy got to drag the front . got every thing to the pickup right at dark some 10 hours after starting that morning and 5 hours after gettin the buck , and talk about the luck O the pollock, some one had shot and left the gut pile of a deer less than 200 feet from my pickup . course mine was bigger . earlier in the post i said the buck was hardly worth the trouble , well he was right up untill i pulled in to the game check station ,the looks i got, Made It All Better. got to go now sorry for being long winded but Nah nah nah I got a big buck nah nah nah !!! [smilie=w:

[Trailblazer]

Congratulations! You earned him.

[TCLouis]

On a great hunt.

Not like it is on one of those deer/elk game farms like they show on television. Hard work but a story to tell over and over during your lifetime!

Aren't you glad you are young and in good shape?

[grumble]

Look at the bright side, Kid. Just be thankful it wasn't an elk! <GGG>

[Abert Rim]

Great story, Kid. Post a photo would ya?
Humpin' out a big buck is one of the toughest jobs there is.
We usually throw an inexpensive plastic snow sled in the truck. Makes the drag easier, although nothing is easy in blowdowns.

[357tex]

Good job kid! Hunting is such fun,nowdays if I can't drive up to within 100 yards with my tractor or truck or even my golf cart I pass up the shot.But then I'm old.And there are no big hills and blowdowns on my land.Are you go
ing to kill an elk this year with cast.I look forward to that story. :redneck:
Again congratulations.

[The Nyack Kid]

well the unofficail BC score is ..... 163 5/8 . 17 points shy of book minamum oh well maybe next year
i used a logging tape of course
elk was the main goal . the deer are a target of opurtunity ,i intend to get a elk though . im taking a four day weekend to go down west of Helena ,with my brother , to hunt elk .
i would love to post some picks but i aint that good with a computer i'm going to have to buddy up with some one here for that .
nothing like being young and dumb , ive got loads of "tales to scare the grandkids" with , but its a pitty i cant remember all of them ....plus im going have to find a girl who will put up with me first .

[waksupi]

Good going, Kid. If you get back up on the Fisher river, go down to the T, and go left to the Fawn Creek campground. Walk up through the meadow, and an old skid trail runs up the canyon. Good place to find elk, but you already know what the country will be like. You'll like seeing ther big ol' pines in there, if you've never been.

[SharpsShooter]

Kid

Sounds to me like you made good meat and memories too. Congrats !!

[The Nyack Kid]

i seem to have left some info out of my report .
the load that i used was the 490 gr WFN,as seen on Mountain Molds home page with the 46grs of reloader 10x 1750fps .

i took a four day weekend to hunt elk down on the Little Blackfoot River. noluck ,seen a lot of fresh sign went out of a basin in the evening went back into it in the morning and the elk had been all over our tracks ...dern elks.
i had lots of fun hauling my 8500 lb trailer back though the winter storm that struck western montana sunday evening . got back to Nyack at 1:30 am .
i boned out my deer monday and took the meat down to Lower Valley to be made into sausage and pepperonie . i got 99 lbs of boned out meat out of my buck . there was about 10lbs of trim waste the meat lost to bullet damage was maybe a 1/4 of that waste . i am very imprested with the proformance of the boolit the farthest the blood shot went in was about 1.5 inches from the hole . compare this to the deer my brother got with his 7mm (meat mangler) last year . we lost a front 1/4 to boolit damage . ... now if only i can get close to a elk....

[The Nyack Kid]

got my meat back from Lower Valley Prossesing . 99 lbs of boned out meat makes a LOT of sausage , two big boxes worth . We almost didnt have enough freezer room for all of it , we wouldn'tof , if i hadn't of eaten as much as i did on the trip home ..... i dont feel so hot right now .
On my to do list is to edit my earlier posts on this thread , they are kind of hard to read . Also i need to post some pictures of my little buck on this sight .

[waksupi]

Dang, you hauled your meat quite a way to get it processed, but Lower Valley is about the best around! If I shoot a deer this weekend, I'll have them do me some pepper sticks from the front shoulders, and give the rest away.

[NVcurmudgeon]

Kid, you sure earned that buck. Sounds like a big animal, and with a good rack. You said he was stinky, and that he was with a bunch of does. I'll bet he had a great big neck, too!