Perfect Guide
After several years hunting around my home in north central Montana, I really got to know the places to go, especially on the almost 50 square mile ranch I had permission to hunt. Having spent hundreds of hours prairie dog hunting, I knew where all the creek beds were, what patches of idle croplands the deer like to bed in, and where they liked to be feeding- mornings and evenings. It was the second season that my brother, Gary, came out to hunt with my good friend from Chicago. This time though, Tim was also bringing a new “virgin” hunter named Dennis, who had never been out west, or even taken a deer before. He was in for a treat getting to hunt Big Sky country!
Early in the cold morning, we headed for the large ranch between home and town. After opening the first gate, Dennis kept asking why we were driving by so many places that look good to walk. But I assured him we are going to a great spot. One more gate… and then another, and another. We were maybe five miles in and had not yet started hunting. The boys were getting restless. Finally, as we pulled up to a very large flatland area, the only thing we could see was a plateau, maybe 200 feet high or so, to the south, southwest, but it was just short of a half mile from us. I pulled my crew cab 4WD pickup in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, facing due west, and shut it down.
“Grab your guns and let’s take a short walk here guys, I think we’ll find some mule deer does here,” I directed as I was getting out myself, not taking my rifle. This was their chance to get some does; I lived here and could get freezer meat anytime. They looked at me like maybe I was a little nuts. Pretty much dead flat land, very short grass, no trees or bushes… what could possibly be out HERE, they all wondered?
“Let’s just walk up here a bit. Due west there is a dry creek bed… we should kick up some deer.”
No such feature was at all visible to the three amigos. I had pulled up to within 25 yards of the creek which had cut down into the soft soil and was invisible until we got right up to it. I discovered it a year ago while prairie dog hunting, and kicked up deer as I walked along the top edge. The bed was maybe 20 to 25 feet across at the top and at least six feet or so down below the level flat land.
“Come on guys, it’s just right up here.”
Surely they thought I was losing it. Dennis was...
to my left, Tim just in front of me, and Gary to the right. They were all within twenty steps of each other. As they kept walking, I held back so I could see all three of them at once. We had not traveled more than twenty yards when it happened. As if driven by a giant sweeping hand on cue, mule deer does started to
POUR OUT of the creek bed right in front of the three hunters! A group of five or six burst out in front of Gary to my right. At least that many exploded from the creek bed directly in front of Tim, and Dennis, at the far left, also had five or six to choose from! All told, around twenty does clambered out of the creek bed and began to tear out across the flats away from us.
All three of hunters were quite taken by surprise; guns were being casually carried down by their thighs. It was so fun to see each of them get into the hunting mode, throw up their rifle and watch each of them drop a doe with one clean shot. From the time out of my truck, to does on the ground took less than 30 seconds.
We all stood there in awe. Two does were lying before us in the short grass on the far side, and one had rolled back down into the creek bed. We watched as a dozen and a half mule deer ran off. Some dropped down into the creek bed a half mile or more to the west, while others headed southwest and ran up the leading edge of the plateau, disappearing over the top. There was a lot of whooping and hollering, laughing and back slapping. Then, they all turned to me and thanked me profusely. They all said that in their eyes, I was not just a guide, but I was THE GUIDE…the PERFECT GUIDE!
Distant Mulie
That night, the temperature fell to around ten-below when a storm came in, dropping six inches of light, powdery snow. As I still had a buck tag left, the happy guys thought we should all go out so I could fill my tag. Pushing our luck, I suggested we go back to the very same spot, and could try walking the edge of the flats along the creek. With two guys on each side, the deer would be pushed out onto the flats. We did the same routine, driving and opening gates to finally getting way back in to the exact spot I had parked the successful day before.
It is so cold...
that we all are looking forward to a walk, even with the mild wind that brought the storm from the north still blowing. Tim was carrying his Ruger No. 1 single shot that morning. It had been a .30-06 that he had rechambered for .300 Weatherby. With its 26” barrel, the way he loads hot, he said it was giving him over 3,300 fps with a 168 grain match bullet. As usual, Tim likes big scopes with high power. I think it was a 6-18 Leupold. When we got out, I grabbed my trusty .338 Win Mag, while Gary and Dennis leave their rifles in the truck, having filled their tags yesterday. Tim still had a doe tag left.
It is so cold we all are looking forward to a walk, even with the mild wind that brought the storm from the north, still blowing.
So we were parked in the very same spot as the day before, perhaps a bit too hopeful for a repeat performance, but this time with at least one nice buck in the herd. The snow was almost boot-high as we walked up just short of the drop-off to begin following the creek from above on the edge of the flats. Amazingly, not immediately in front of us, but about 200 yards due west, out pops a very tall 3 x 4 Mule deer buck with three does in tow.
At first, they are trotting, but then they change to the distinctive bouncing motion called “stotting,” where all four hooves push off at the same time. While they only jump about two feet high while doing this, they can cover up to 15 feet per bounce. Initially, they appeared due west of us. The wind is coming from the north, and they now are heading southwest for the base of the plateau about a half mile to the south. The early morning sun was behind us and with the fresh snow, they were very easy to follow in the short grass and sage. They appeared to be on a non-stop flight, away from us to the top of the plateau. But with more experience under my belt now, I was certain they would stop and give one look back before heading to obvious safety above us. I knew this, but the other three in my party did not since they have only hunted whitetails before, and those never stop until long out of sight.
“Hey, Tim, can I have a look through your .300 since you have a bigger scope?” I ask.
“Here you go, Ken. It’s loaded, but the safety is on.” We traded rifles, as I handed him mine.
I went prone in the deep snow and bury both elbows snugly in. I was as steady as a...
benchrest like that. Turning the scope all the way up, I saw that the deer were getting out there a ways, so I started “deciphering” the conditions. Everyone thought I was just having a look; nobody knew I intended to shoot. I thought to myself-
mild wind right to left, Tim’s hot load will be shooting low that far out, so I’ll need to hold high, and into the wind for bullet drift…
Finally a looooong way out there, all four deer stop, with the buck in the lead.
Finally, a looooong way out there, all four deer stopped, with the buck in the lead. He was in a 10 o’clock/4 o’clock orientation to me, when while standing, he turned his head and looked back at us. While he was only a 3 x 4, he was very tall- the biggest mulie I’d ever seen. Dennis was watching the deer, as was Tim; my brother had turned around and was walking back to the truck. Everyone thought I was just looking. I aimed about a foot above his back for bullet drop, and I held about a foot to the right of his tail into the wind; I was aiming at an imaginary spot in the air..
“POW!” the .300 roars.
Gary turned around, not believing I had any intention of shooting. The does milled around, then the buck took one, two, three steps… then fell over on his right side and lay motionless! The does quickly took off for the plateau, deciding there were safer places to be. Everyone was screaming and hollering, jumping up and down, pounding my back while I still lay in the snow. As I got up, it was hard to make
“We thought you were just looking!”
“Never thought you were going to take a shot!”
“Where the heck were you holding your crosshair?”
“That was a heluva shot!”
On and on, the chattering continued. I handed Tim his rifle, and thanked him for letting me use it. It was time to go and have a look at my trophy. Knowing that Dennis had never experienced this before, and that he probably never will again, I asked if he would pace out the shot, and we’d work at getting the truck up as close to the buck as we could. He was only too eager and happy to, and I could clearly hear him counting out loud as he headed straight for the distant buck.
“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…” he is on a mission.
...
We showed up at the deer just before Dennis, but heard him as he approached; he was still counting.
“Five-hundred fifty-one, five-hundred fifty-two, five-hundred fifty-three… five-hundred and fifty-four paces!” he proclaimed, as he stopped and stood at the buck with us. Everyone was totally amazed at the great distance, and the congratulations start flowing again.
“Where did you hit him?” someone asks.
We started going over him carefully, but could not find an entry or a drop of blood anywhere. Turning him over, the left side also showed no trace of an exit. We looked and looked for a few minutes, but couldn't find anything at all. With some of the excitement worn off, the below zero temps and the breeze got us motivated to field dress him and get back to the heated truck. I opened up the buck, and there was no trace of blood anywhere! How could this possibly be? With all the organs out, we carefully started examining things. There was just a very little bruising to the lungs, but that was it- nothing was torn up, no massive injuries. Then I suddenly noticed a tiny hole in the hide. There, on the white/brown belly line, just in front of his left hip was a bullet-size hole in the hide- the bullet went in low on his flank. But where did it go from there? Why did he drop in just a few seconds from the shot?
My brother went back and started carefully going through everything. He keyed on the bruising of the near lung and then picked up the heart again. In the membrane covering it he saw a little hole. Taking out his knife, he cut across the center of the heart- his blade hit something metallic! There, in the center muscle wall of the heart, between the two main chambers, he discovered the mangled remains of the match bullet. The buck apparently died of a heart attack! While I resisted...
claiming, “That’s where I was aiming for!” the guys were in awe.
I never would have taken that shot if I had not religiously practiced calling out distances to prairie dogs, and estimating wind hold off for two summers before I calculated where to hold on that deer and had the confidence to make that shot from such a stable position. The best thing was my brother, my best friend, and a virgin hunter all got to be there with me and witness it first-hand. Hunting does not get any better than that!
We continued walking and walking through the wheat, always staying about 50 yards apart
Wheatfield Whitetail
We had permission to hunt a new ranch, on which I had never even been before. Just south of town, for a change, it was more crops than just sage and grasses where cattle were free to roam. I was given the boundary lines where we could be and where the neighbor’s land started; otherwise we had free range of the area. Comprised of very gently rolling hills, at most the ground would rise or fall only two or three feet over a hundred yards. Being mostly wheat ready to harvest, it was like hunting in a golden ocean. We drove down dirt roads a bit and then parked the truck. My brother and I were going to make a big circle on foot. The walking should be pretty easy. With just whitetail doe on the menu, we were both carrying .25-06s loaded with 100 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips to almost 3,400 fps. I had used this load with great success on antelope a few weeks earlier.
It was midafternoon when we headed south on our two-man walking “drive.” After about fifteen minutes, we approached an extremely old and weathered wood “barn”, the paint long since worn off it, probably decades ago. It was barely the size of a one-car garage, and what its function was, or why it was so far from anything was a mystery to use both. As we walked by, we could see it had a large 8 x 8 foot opening on the side. Glancing inside, we could see there was a matching opening on the far side also. Amazingly though, on a board running across the middle inside, we saw the silhouette of a HUGE barn owl that had to be well over two and a half feet tall! Not wanting to disturb him, we just kept on our way. But moments later, the owl flew out and directly over our heads by only a dozen feet or less. The amazing thing was, though he beat his wings as he...
passed over us, nature had made him so stealthy that we heard no noise at all from the beating wings. I immediately thought that rabbits and such little critters would never hear him swooping down to grab his next meal. It made the hair on the back of our necks stand up; we still talk about that chance meeting to this day.
We continued walking and walking through the wheat, always staying about 50 yards apart, hoping we might kick up a doe or two. Perhaps the area had been hunted hard before, because after almost an hour, we had yet to even see any game. We were headed east with the sun at our backs, still walking in the ocean of wheat, which was well above our knees. Suddenly, about 200 yards before us, two whitetail does jumped up and started trotting away, broadside to us, heading north. Gary was still about 50 yards to my right, and slightly ahead of me. He stood and looked at the deer, and when he turned back to look at me, I was down on my right knee, scoping out the lead doe. By now they were quite a ways out.
“How far do you think they are,” I asked him, still peering.
Counting as he walked, he reached five-hundred and five paces when he stopped
Gary had been playing a lot of golf that summer and started estimating the range. It was very hard. It was only a sea of waving, golden wheat with nothing for distance reference.
“Got to be around 500 yards, but you’re not going to shoot are…”
POW! He instantly whipped his head back to look at the deer, just to see it fall in the golden sea.
“MARK THAT SPOT!” I yell.
We both instantly tried to locate a reference point in the distance. All I saw was wheat, but from his angle he saw a cottonwood tree far on the horizon. At least he knew it was between us and the tree. My eyes stayed riveted on where I thought the doe dropped as I walked to that point. Gary never took his eyes off the tree, walking straight to where he believed the deer dropped. Counting as he walked, he reached five-hundred and five paces when he stopped. Not too surprisingly, no deer was immediately found. So we came to within 20 feet of each other and kept spiraling out for what we thought was a broad area. No success, so we did it again. Finally, after over a half hour, Gary found the doe; she was more to the north than we thought. We quickly examined her to see where my...
shot struck.
“Wow! You dropped her with a neck shot at around 500 yards!”
“Wow! You dropped her with a neck shot at around 500 yards!”
“Uh…but… I was aiming at her chest.”
I didn’t have to say that to him, but I did. Sometimes you are just lucky. Not accounting enough for the wind at that distance still resulted in a fatal shot, but it could have gone the other way. If given the chance again, I would not risk wounding an animal with a kneeling shot at that distance. You have to respect the animals you hunt; “wishing in” a shot should never be the case.