Howard's my cousin, on the wife's side of the family and back in the early 1990s he had come over my house during one of those wife arranged family ' get -together deals all wives seem so fond of, " where all the female members of the family swap stories about how their husbands are less than ideal. and discuss kids and marriages etc.
well the guys got together and we quickly went out from the house back into my shop/garage and had a few beers while I was working on Howard's 1955 Chevy truck, that he had just installed a 377 sbc engine and 4 speed trans in.
and while we worked ,we were discussing the previous years hunting trip when Howard expressed a desire to go the following year, now Howard had up to that point never showed any interest, so I stopped and wrote out a short list of the license cost's, trip costs, time frame, dates, equipment and assorted other mandatory requirements and we had a brief discussion of what would be required, expected and I asked him to see if he could get the time off from work and get his wife to approve of the trip, as those always seem to be the areas that cause issues.
Well to my surprise I got a call from Howard a week later and he had arranged,for the time off, got the wife’s approval, or had asked for more detailed info ,and too my surprise it looked like he was serious!
we spend the next several months gathering and checking equipment and sighting in Howards fairly new , Winchester M70 ,300 win mag rifle he had purchased several years previously when he had first showed interest in hunting deer locally here in Florida.
after several trips too the range , and B.S, sessions over lunch ,over a dozen weekends prior to the trip, we found that his rifle was extremely accurate if loaded with sierra 165 grain boat tails, loaded over 72 grains of h4831 and a 215 federal primer. Which according to my chronograph slightly exceeds 3100fps
https://www.sierrabullets.com/store/pro ... 165-gr-SBT
http://handloads.com/loaddata/default.a ... le&Source=
when the time, eventually came, we all met at my home, did a last equipment inventory , then, as most years, we,jumped in my 1987 ford F350, and spent the next 43 hours driving out to franks house who lives in woodland park Colorado.
After spending the night at franks home we all jumped in my ford f350 or franks bronco and drove out to the area were frequently hunt north of gypsum, we hunted hard for the next 7 days and everyone except Howard filled at least one tag, for either a deer or elk, the two 160 quart coolers , in the back of the trucks we use for transporting meat,were packed with dry ice and carefully de-boned,wrapped ,and labeled meat.
We had only two days remaining in the season for Howard to fill a tag , and we all spent those days seriously scouting the area to help locate a deer or elk for Howard.
On the next to the last day , we were driving slowly down a logging road that had rarely been used, in recent years,a road that was seriously in need of repair , when Ray spotted movement on a slope about 600 yards away, we stopped the truck and got out to glass the area, only to find we were looking at a nice mule deer buck and a couple does , the deer were not concerned and we soon noticed why, the only issue was that the long slope in the meadow our logging road traversed was separated from the rocky and brush dotted slope the mule deer buck was on, by a substantial stream that was about 70-90 feet wide , and that appeared too be rather deep and fairly fast moving and the outside air temp that l;ate afternoon,was in the mid 40F range, I knew from looking at the topo maps , of the area, that getting to the other bank would be a huge problem as the nearest crossing was at least 3 miles distant , and there were no roads that we could easily access near the deers location , on the far bank behind the deers location,as it might be BLM land but it was basically restricted access, due to steep canyons beyond the far streams bank.
I explained the problem very quickly, explaining that If Howard shot the buck he would be forced to wade the stream... or if it was too deep...he would be potentially forced too swim the stream in 40F temps to tie a rope to the deer he had shot to allow us to drag it back to our bank, of the stream.
I advised we just look else ware but Howard was very insistent that with only about a day and ½ left in the hunt it was likely to be his only chance. Howard was insistent that if it was required he would do what was required to retrieve the deer., with that firmly in mind Howard and I started walking at a crouch toward the deer which was feeding , and the deer seemed to be totally unconcerned with us, as we kept a few aspen, visually between us, and the feeding deer, until we ran out of cover at about 270 yards, from the deer.
we had sighted Howards 300 mag in at 3.4” high at 100 yards so the deer would be almost exactly the correct distance for a dead on hold so when we reached the aspen, I laid the back-pack out as a rest and Howard got into a steady prone shooting position.
Howard, forced himself too calm down take a few deep breaths and he slowly got the deer in the scope and cross hairs too appear steady, and then he carefully squeezed off a shot, with the rifle laid across the back-pack rest, like he had done hundreds of times at the range.
the shot from that 300 mag, was darn loud! As the sierra 165 grain bullet impacted the deer , it dropped like a instantly deflated balloon!
Now we could walk closer up to our bank of the stream, and at the shot the does bounced out of the area, in that mule deer way they cover steep slopes on their side of the stream.
we could see the buck laid out on the far bank, but when we reached the stream it , it soon became very obvious that the water was just a degree or two from freezing into ice , we tied a long rope to Howard's waist and both Howard and I stripped to blue jeans and waded out to about just over waist deep, then Howard dove in and swam about 50 feet to the point his feet touched the gravel bottom of the stream again while I fed rope , the ice cold current pulled Howard about 60 feet down the stream flow too the far bank from directly across from the start point,even though the deep part was barely 20 feet wide, Howard soon had the rope tied tight to the deer along with an empty gallon bleach bottle he, had thought to bring, that he tied to the deer carcass too hopefully keep it from getting snagged on rocks in the bottom of the stream as we hauled it back across, knowing dead deer are not really buoyant.
Howard had pulled enough extra rope , so he could feed it out as we pulled to hopefully control the deer crossing and once we had the deer Howard started back, dove in, holding to the rope, and the current quickly swung him down stream but back too our stream bank.
We both were soaked and freezing cold, but while the other guys were busy gutting and dressing out Howard's deer we quickly changed to dry clothes and sat in the truck with the heater on full heat and fan, it took a few minutes to stop shivering, but we had gotten Howard's first mule deer!
that sierra bullet had turned to glitter on impact but blew the whole deers internal chest into bloody pudding.
that was the last time we used sierra bullets, we swapped to speer 200 grains in Howards 300 mag,on future hunts and had better results,
I was actually glad I was busy changing clothes and half frozen rather than dealing with that deer and dressing it out after seeing the damage.
But it was A deer Howard will NEVER forget!
well the guys got together and we quickly went out from the house back into my shop/garage and had a few beers while I was working on Howard's 1955 Chevy truck, that he had just installed a 377 sbc engine and 4 speed trans in.
and while we worked ,we were discussing the previous years hunting trip when Howard expressed a desire to go the following year, now Howard had up to that point never showed any interest, so I stopped and wrote out a short list of the license cost's, trip costs, time frame, dates, equipment and assorted other mandatory requirements and we had a brief discussion of what would be required, expected and I asked him to see if he could get the time off from work and get his wife to approve of the trip, as those always seem to be the areas that cause issues.
Well to my surprise I got a call from Howard a week later and he had arranged,for the time off, got the wife’s approval, or had asked for more detailed info ,and too my surprise it looked like he was serious!
we spend the next several months gathering and checking equipment and sighting in Howards fairly new , Winchester M70 ,300 win mag rifle he had purchased several years previously when he had first showed interest in hunting deer locally here in Florida.
after several trips too the range , and B.S, sessions over lunch ,over a dozen weekends prior to the trip, we found that his rifle was extremely accurate if loaded with sierra 165 grain boat tails, loaded over 72 grains of h4831 and a 215 federal primer. Which according to my chronograph slightly exceeds 3100fps
https://www.sierrabullets.com/store/pro ... 165-gr-SBT
http://handloads.com/loaddata/default.a ... le&Source=
when the time, eventually came, we all met at my home, did a last equipment inventory , then, as most years, we,jumped in my 1987 ford F350, and spent the next 43 hours driving out to franks house who lives in woodland park Colorado.
After spending the night at franks home we all jumped in my ford f350 or franks bronco and drove out to the area were frequently hunt north of gypsum, we hunted hard for the next 7 days and everyone except Howard filled at least one tag, for either a deer or elk, the two 160 quart coolers , in the back of the trucks we use for transporting meat,were packed with dry ice and carefully de-boned,wrapped ,and labeled meat.
We had only two days remaining in the season for Howard to fill a tag , and we all spent those days seriously scouting the area to help locate a deer or elk for Howard.
On the next to the last day , we were driving slowly down a logging road that had rarely been used, in recent years,a road that was seriously in need of repair , when Ray spotted movement on a slope about 600 yards away, we stopped the truck and got out to glass the area, only to find we were looking at a nice mule deer buck and a couple does , the deer were not concerned and we soon noticed why, the only issue was that the long slope in the meadow our logging road traversed was separated from the rocky and brush dotted slope the mule deer buck was on, by a substantial stream that was about 70-90 feet wide , and that appeared too be rather deep and fairly fast moving and the outside air temp that l;ate afternoon,was in the mid 40F range, I knew from looking at the topo maps , of the area, that getting to the other bank would be a huge problem as the nearest crossing was at least 3 miles distant , and there were no roads that we could easily access near the deers location , on the far bank behind the deers location,as it might be BLM land but it was basically restricted access, due to steep canyons beyond the far streams bank.
I explained the problem very quickly, explaining that If Howard shot the buck he would be forced to wade the stream... or if it was too deep...he would be potentially forced too swim the stream in 40F temps to tie a rope to the deer he had shot to allow us to drag it back to our bank, of the stream.
I advised we just look else ware but Howard was very insistent that with only about a day and ½ left in the hunt it was likely to be his only chance. Howard was insistent that if it was required he would do what was required to retrieve the deer., with that firmly in mind Howard and I started walking at a crouch toward the deer which was feeding , and the deer seemed to be totally unconcerned with us, as we kept a few aspen, visually between us, and the feeding deer, until we ran out of cover at about 270 yards, from the deer.
we had sighted Howards 300 mag in at 3.4” high at 100 yards so the deer would be almost exactly the correct distance for a dead on hold so when we reached the aspen, I laid the back-pack out as a rest and Howard got into a steady prone shooting position.
Howard, forced himself too calm down take a few deep breaths and he slowly got the deer in the scope and cross hairs too appear steady, and then he carefully squeezed off a shot, with the rifle laid across the back-pack rest, like he had done hundreds of times at the range.
the shot from that 300 mag, was darn loud! As the sierra 165 grain bullet impacted the deer , it dropped like a instantly deflated balloon!
Now we could walk closer up to our bank of the stream, and at the shot the does bounced out of the area, in that mule deer way they cover steep slopes on their side of the stream.
we could see the buck laid out on the far bank, but when we reached the stream it , it soon became very obvious that the water was just a degree or two from freezing into ice , we tied a long rope to Howard's waist and both Howard and I stripped to blue jeans and waded out to about just over waist deep, then Howard dove in and swam about 50 feet to the point his feet touched the gravel bottom of the stream again while I fed rope , the ice cold current pulled Howard about 60 feet down the stream flow too the far bank from directly across from the start point,even though the deep part was barely 20 feet wide, Howard soon had the rope tied tight to the deer along with an empty gallon bleach bottle he, had thought to bring, that he tied to the deer carcass too hopefully keep it from getting snagged on rocks in the bottom of the stream as we hauled it back across, knowing dead deer are not really buoyant.
Howard had pulled enough extra rope , so he could feed it out as we pulled to hopefully control the deer crossing and once we had the deer Howard started back, dove in, holding to the rope, and the current quickly swung him down stream but back too our stream bank.
We both were soaked and freezing cold, but while the other guys were busy gutting and dressing out Howard's deer we quickly changed to dry clothes and sat in the truck with the heater on full heat and fan, it took a few minutes to stop shivering, but we had gotten Howard's first mule deer!
that sierra bullet had turned to glitter on impact but blew the whole deers internal chest into bloody pudding.
that was the last time we used sierra bullets, we swapped to speer 200 grains in Howards 300 mag,on future hunts and had better results,
I was actually glad I was busy changing clothes and half frozen rather than dealing with that deer and dressing it out after seeing the damage.
But it was A deer Howard will NEVER forget!