Trip Report

[Bwana]

Long story short, I had an AWESOME time hunting in the badlands of western North Dakota where I took a muley buck that is going to be tough to beat!!

The buck was standing here and I shot from the shaded bench on the light-colored ridge located in the upper RH side of the picture.
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As he fell:
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His weak side:
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Strong side:
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Front side:
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[Big Skyz]

...and this time your scope didn't fall apart. ;) Great buck John. He is definitely one for the wall.

[Thumper]

He has a "weak side"???? Nice one buddy. I agree with B/S ... I'd have to slip the taxidermist a few bucks for that one!

Note: That second group of pics (no separation) took me off-guard for a few seconds ... I thought, "Damn! He shot TWO of 'em???" ;)

[DeputyDog]

Nice!! I’m sure that got your blood pumping.


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[Hombre]

Wow he's really wide.... great buck

[BarryBobPosthole]

Nicely done, John! congrats! I’ll bet he was a fun drag. he’s a fat boy. Did you get a field dressed weight?

BKb

[HideHunter]

gorgeous

[Big Skyz]

For the record that buck is bigger than the big one you missed with me. I'd call that your redemption buck.

[Penguin]

Now that is a VERY nice deer. Looks just like the places in that area I've seen Benny Spies hunt on tv. I'm not sure he ever got a deer that big though. Whoa, that's a big one.

Will

[Chicken Dinner]

Man, that would have been a nice buck in another year or two! [emoji6]


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[Bwana]

Yeah BS, I was thinking that if I hadn't missed that one with you I would now have a pretty cool set of book ends.

Two things:
1) Glad I brought my wife's rifle as a backup as I missed a smaller buck the day before at only 180 yards with my rifle so I switched to hers out of fear that the scope had gotten knocked off somehow. Still need to shoot it so see if that was the case or if it was BIG TIME operator error.

2) REALLY glad to have printed out and attached the ballistic chart to the gun as conditions forced me to make what I consider to be a LONG shot on Big Otis!

Rest assured, Otis will have a spot on the wall as soon as I find someone to do the taxidermy.

[Captain]

Now that’s a great trip and report!
Congrats Bwana.

[Arty]

Distance.... do tell!


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[Bwana]

Arty, kind of embarrassed to admit how far the shot was because even though, according to Bucky, that I live in the land of no trees and endless horizons, I could have probably taken somewhere approaching half the deer I've taken in my life with an accurate slug gun. Some of that is because a lot of the hunting we have done amounts to flushing deer out of cattail sloughs and shooting them when they bust out.

The night we arrived for the hunt everything was covered in snow. The next day temps were pushing 50 degrees so a fair amount of the snow melted but what was left had a crusting of ice which made walking on it similar to walking across a bed of 6" deep cornflakes. The morning we spotted my buck there wasn't hardly a breath of wind, so every little sound was crazy loud which made sneaking up on a critter with ears the size of small umbrellas nearly impossible. Those conditions coupled with the fact that this was the biggest muley I had ever seen caused me to take a shot longer than I normally would even though I had practiced at longer ranges this summer.

Long way of explaining that the shot was 467 yards.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Nice! That’s a fur piece.

BKB

[Thumper]

Wow! Nice shot! What'd you do? Aim like 12-feet above his shoulder? ;)

Congrats buddy! :thumbsup

[Bwana]

30" Thumper, per the chart I'd stuck on the gun.