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After some extremely wild weather in Maupin, with the deer going completely underground for a few days, the weather finally broke (although there was ice on the bucket this morning). Most years it's dawn and dusk and you're shooting about 100 yards. As the weather began to normalize the deer were feeding at noon and hitting the heavy cover at night...crazy, I know. All bets were off as far as scouting prior to the season. There were no new tracks and no new activity anywhere that scouting indicated would be high traffic areas. The deer were just all over...whenever and wherever you bumped into them. This resulted in some 200-250 yard opportunities for shots, prompting me to take the bipod off my Bushmaster and install it on my S&W (Howa) Model 1500 .30-06.
Then today everything fell into place. We had bluebird weather, with hardly a breeze, no moon, and just a little frost. At 7 am this buck (3x2) appeared from between a couple of junipers in between the canyon and the wheat field, in an area of sage, juniper, and volcanic moguls. I was sitting behind some sage brush on top of one of the moguls. He's at the processor tonight. Don't let the modest rack fool you. He went 110# hanging weight.
The last two shots are taken from the same spot, one facing north and one facing west. About 15 minutes later I had a 250 yard shot with a herd of 8 deer (one buck) standing in the middle of one of these wheat fields with no way to get any closer to them.
Then today everything fell into place. We had bluebird weather, with hardly a breeze, no moon, and just a little frost. At 7 am this buck (3x2) appeared from between a couple of junipers in between the canyon and the wheat field, in an area of sage, juniper, and volcanic moguls. I was sitting behind some sage brush on top of one of the moguls. He's at the processor tonight. Don't let the modest rack fool you. He went 110# hanging weight.
The last two shots are taken from the same spot, one facing north and one facing west. About 15 minutes later I had a 250 yard shot with a herd of 8 deer (one buck) standing in the middle of one of these wheat fields with no way to get any closer to them.
