Outdoor Adventures 360°: September 2015

Our long awaited yearly archery deer hunts was a blast as usual! We look forward to this hunt each and every year and its never anything but fun! The typical cast of characters joined this years hunt as Regina, Big Shot and Myself left California on September 6TH and made our way to camp to meet the world renown Tom Unsworth! Tom had the camp spot all dialed in when we got there and before long everything was unloaded and its was on to beers and bullshitting about the next mornings hunt! Tom had been in Idaho a week prior to our arrival and had spotted some bucks of interest so we set out at daylight to try and make something happen! The first morning Tom went one way and us the other to try and bed some good bucks to put a sneak on. We saw some good bucks and blew some stalks the first couple of days but it wasn't until day 3 when Regina put the hammer on a nice 4 X 4! Tom had seen as few bucks hitting a water source at last light a couple of days prior and Regina said she wanted to sit the water hole and see what happened. I dropped her off a half mile or so and she headed in to set up. A couple hours later I got her call on the phone saying she had stuck a nice one and wanted us to give her a hand tracking the buck. Tom, Big shot and I made our way over to her and she was on blood and had found her arrow so we joined in on the search. Just before dark we found the buck in his bed and Regina slipped another shot into him to seal the deal! She was on cloud 9, as she had just harvested her biggest archery deer to date! We were all smiles and I couldn't be more proud of her! She came up with a plan, put it in action and made it count when the opportunity presented its self. After searching high and low the next morning

Big Shot decided he wanted to give it a try at Regina's water hole that evening. We dropped Big Shot off and sent him on his way and we went to go look at some other areas. Just after dark we got a text from Big Shot saying he had a buck down! While not the biggest buck on the mountain he made a hell of a shot at 92 yards and had a nice meat buck for the freezer!

The next day we searched high and low to find a good buck as I was content with going home empty handed. We saw a few bucks that morning but nothing of real interest. It was about an hour before dark when we spotted a small buck. The buck was 52 yards uphill and facing us with his chest pointing directly towards me. This is a shot that gets discussed a lot and gets a bad wrap from other archers but I have practiced it and wanted to see its effectiveness on a mule deer. I drew, settled my pin just on the left side of his breast bone and let it go. The shot was perfect hitting exactly where I was aiming, passing completely thru and burying into the dirt behind the buck. He ran a total of 40 yards and collapsed, game over! Upon further inspection the broad head had entered on one side of his heart and exited the other. It was a perfect shot and one I wouldn't hesitate to take again!

We had to leave the next morning to get home but Tom had a few more weeks off to hunt so we headed west and he stayed to see what he could get done. After several days he found a buck in a good spot and made a good stalk. As the buck rose to his feet Tom put one right behind his shoulders at 82 yards! He gave us the play by play via text message and headed home the next day with meat for his freezer!