Ducks, Deer, and a Poacher

This might be a little drawn out. I am going to try my best to keep it simple with a few words, and lots of pictures. I make no promises. After killing my elk we hustled home to relax. Those that know me, know that I can not relax. I went up to South Park to hit the duck season opener. I was not disappointed, but at the same time, I was. I fired about a box of ammo at the air but I did happen to score just a few small Teal

I said I was a little disappointed. It was not the fact that I missed almost everything that flew in front of me, including a slow-moving goose, it was in the fact that one of the Game Wardens was hot on the heels of a poacher. A buck antelope was poached from the road and the Game Warden gave it to me. He DID catch the poacher and threw down the hammer on him, which I am glad about. I got the goat quartered and then de-boned and gave the meat to some folks up near Spinney Reservoir

I kept the antlers but cut them off of the skull. I can not Euro mount something I did not take. What seemed like five months was only 4 days and I was off back to Utah to try my hand at buck mule deer hunting. Before I got to Utah I stopped in Wyoming to pick up my elk. My buddy Jeff does taxidermy as a side gig and I believe he should quit his day job, he is AMAZiNG!! Jeff runs Wyoming Wild Things Taxidermy

Here is a before picture

Here is the after

You HAVE to check out Jeffs taxidermy business, you can find him on FaceBook right here

It looks great in the office and my buck is going to go in between his antlers

Once I got to Utah, Nathan (my nephew) and my brother in law's Garrett and James said I need to start looking right away for deer, so I followed their advice and started scouting the best I could. For the record, I am as quiet as a drunk elephant in a china shop but, I think I did fairly well

After being as silent as I could, a few hours later, some deer started to show up

I had thought I found the odd-ball guy I wanted and watched him for a few days

Thing is, the season was still a few days away. So, I did what any red-blooded American would do. I went into town with Steve (pop's in-law) and had some In and Out

Once that settled my fat boy urges I went hunting. I found deer almost everywhere

The start of the season was cold and full of snow, which is a good thing. I was able to walk upon a couple of smaller deer fighting each other

That was insane to see. Nathan had spotted a few deer a mile or two away and we snuck over to them. He saw a nice three-pointer and we had crossed two separate draws and a large knoll. Once we had hustled across all of that he lazed it at 177 yards. He told me I would have to take a standing shot and to take my time. I popped up, aimed, and fired. The first shot we know hit the deer because it jumped like it had been hit with a perfect shot. It just stood there for a moment. I took a second shot and it fell down a very steep mountainside. What we think had happened was, since we were so high above it, I hit it in the leg and the bullet ricocheted upwards and glanced off its front shoulder right into its vital area and it died instantly. Once we got down to it we realized it was a dandy little buck for someone who had never shot a buck deer before

The easiest way to get it down was to...well... drag it down! I was pouring sweat but we got him down

We got him quartered and packed away and I went to the house to clean clothes and head out to Colorado to meet my dad to try and find some elk. On the way out I found this cute little guy

Once I got to GMU 62 in Colorado I was astounded by the views

I was able to see a total of four elk several miles away across a canyon but we did manage to run into the LARGEST mule deer buck I have ever seen in the wild. He was a tank and stared at us for close to ten minutes. I am a little upset I did not get a picture but oh well, dad saw it.

I have two more Colorado deer tags to fill and am thinking about an antelope tag but will likely sit antelope out since I have a freezer almost full of meat

A huge thanks to Nathan, Dad, pop's in-law Steve and Garrett for the opportunities they allowed me to have. Pheasant hunting starts soon!