I had a tag for 2nd rifle season deer tag for private land here in Colorado. The tag just happened to be where the ol' homestead is. Sat morning opened up with a fork horn and a 4 point that had crossed our land a few time with a doe. Unfortunately, the doe was not with them. That usually happens to me for some reason, a tag for something that doesn't show up but the other does.
Sunday morning nothing showed up for the first hour or so, time for breakfast. While eating my wife looked out the window and said there is a deer and it doesn't have antlers. I got up, grabbed the rifle to find there were four deer. Two does, a yearling and a fawn. I took the largest doe and she went down immediately. Normally, I would go down right away, drag the deer up to the hangin' tree, gut and skin. However, I still had half my breakfast to finish.
While I'm finishing my breakfast, she hollers again and tells me to get up NOW!!! So I mosey my way into the kitchen with the last of my breakfast and look out the window. I see a VERY nice buck that I've seen a couple of time over the last week or so. First thing I do when I see it, closest I've seen it, is that this buck is a definite wall hanger. I turn around and head towards my rifle, and my asks if I am going to shoot it. I tell her no, I am going to get a picture. My camera was right next to the rifle.
So I slip out through the back door onto the deck and take a couple of pictures. I didn't shoot because I do not have a buck tag, but my wife does...for 4th season. Here are the couple of pics I took of this bruiser. Notice the sagging belly, a true mark of a mature buck. I would put him between 5 1/2 years old to 7 1/2 years old. The good news he showed up this evening, so hopefully he will be around in about 3 weeks for the wife.
I know this is not hunting, but it is putting meat in the freezer. The state allows this and I am not hunting for antlers, I hunt for meat. I'm just hoping he will still be around for the wife, and if she gets him, he will probably end up on the wall.
As for tags 2 and 3, no. 3 is the wife wife's tag her at the house. No. 2 is a cow elk hunt that starts in about a week and a half on public land. I'll be hunting in a unit we know very well as we have been hunting it for over 20 years. Really look forward to this hunt every year. My wife got a nice cow last year, and I'm hoping to do the same this year.
Anyways, here are the pics of the buck. Oh, and I used my old 1951 Winchester Model 94 in .32 Winchester Special. I mentioned this rifle a few years ago, and it is very special to me. My mom bought it when she was the ripe old age of 17, with money she worked hard for, so she could hunt with her dad, and gave it to me for my 21st birthday. My wife, oldest grandson and myself all shot our first deer with it, along with my mom. It has a few scrapes and scratches from years of hunting, but I wouldn't trade or sale it for the world. I'll post up a pic or two of it if anyone is interested later.
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