West baby!

[Scoot]

I'm leaving work at noon with a buddy and we're heading to Western ND! We'll stop at his land near Valley City and try find a whitetail, then we're headed to the badlands of ND after the evening sit. I can't wait! I'll check back in on Tues or Wed of next week with a full report. Muley numbers are not very good, but I think we'll be able to scrape up a few critters to chase. I sure hope so!

[mrklean]

Good luck scoot

[DonBo]

Good luck Scoot! Always look fwd to the write up of your hunts.

[CC Hurl]

Good luck out there Scoot. Travel safe now and bring us a good story as we know you can.

[96trigger]

Good luck man, have fun, be safe.

[sticknstring]

Good luck Scoot!

[Stratosman]

Hope the weather cooperates for you!

Good luck

[Archerysniper]

Good luck Scoot,stick a big one

[dukhnt]

Go get em scoot! I had a buddy out there over Thanksgiving. He saw alot of buck activity.

[Boar]

Go get em' scoot shoot straight an be safe buddy, Great luck to you.

[Scoot]

I'm back from the Western part of the state and we had a great trip! I got to hunt with two good friends and we saw enough deer to keep us happy and interested. In 2 1/2 days of hunting, we got five different sneaks on deer. Did we fill any tags and make good on one of those five sneaks? Well... time and a few pictures will tell. I'm waiting for some pictures from my buddy- he says he'll get them to me by e-mail today. Once I have those, I'll post up a report all up for you to see. With any luck I'll get to it today, but I'm at the mercy of my buddy and when he gets me the pictures.

[DonBo]

[mrklean]

Come on details

[Scoot]

My buddy shipped me off some pics right after I posted, so I'll get started. I'll post a little today, then probably finish up the trip tomorrow.

This trip was with my buddies Slevy and Briggs. Both are great guys and I knew we'd have a fun trip, arrows flung or not.

On the way out, we stopped at Briggs' land not too far from Valley City. We could leave town on Fri in time to sit there, but no chance to get out West for muleys that day. We had a good evening- he saw 14 deer, but nothing to fling an arrow at. I only saw one, but it was a pretty decent buck. He walked by me at 12 yards and stood there broadside. I chose to pass- he was an ear wide 8 pointer. It was dark and the picture isn't very good, but here he is as he walked away from me.

We got out to my buddy's relatives late that night and hit the rack for a few hours of sleep. We were up at 5:00 AM and we each headed out our spots. Slevy had hunted out there the night before and had a great night! He saw three nice whitetail bucks and one very nice muley. He watched a whitetail breed a doe. He tried to get a pic, but the guy was a very "quick trigger" . He sneaked to 50 yards of a 140" whitetail, but eventually get busted. He bedded the nice muley and that's where he went in the AM.

Briggs and I went further South to an old spot I really have come to like. This is relatively "big country" and you can glass a lot of ground from a decent vantage point.

The pics above give you a feel for the country and the pic below shows you the bottom of the draw we were glassing. It's reasonably flat in the bottom, but with lots of little bumps and folds to provide nice hidey holes for deer down there too.

Not long after the morning started I spotted this buck bedded.

He was a respectable 4x4 and I kept an eye on him for most of the morning.

[Scoot]

Later that morning a nice 4x3 came through the bottom of the draw, from my left to right. He had a respectable rack- maybe 22 inches wide and relatively thick. His body, however, was like that of a horse! He was thick and muscular and really a heavy buck. These pics don't do his impressive size justice.

He walked from my right to left across the draw and eventually wandered to the West, where I lost him.

I decided to find Briggs and give him a chance at the bedded 4x4. I teamed up with him and we went back to where he was. We found him bedded where he was before and as a great bonus, the bigger 4x3 was bedded on the hillside immediately behind him, about 80 yards away. Briggs headed down to the bottom and I spotted and ran hand signals for him from above.

Unfortunately the area was quickly socked in with thick fog and I couldn't see the deer anymore from where I was. I cut my distance in half and when I could finally see where the deer were, they weren't there anymore. We're not sure if they spotted us through the fog or if they just got up and left. Regardless of why, they were gone.

[Stratosman]

So far so good... I like it.

[Boar]

Cool so far, time for Paul Harvey to chime in "And now for the rest... of the story".

[96trigger]

Pretty good story, can't wait for the rest. Looks pretty positive so far.

[mrklean]

Great read so far

[slimngrizzly]

Very cool! I hope it panned out so we can get a close up of one of those monsters!

[DonBo]

Looks like a very promising start. Must...Have...More.

[Scoot]

I'm running my mom around to several doctor appointments this morning. I'll get the rest up as soon as I can.

[Scoot]

On the walk out of there I took a little time to take notice of the cool landscape features- here's one example of something cool that you don't see in Fargo, ND every day (or most other places around here).

That evening I went to an area closer to where we were staying and hunted a lot "smaller country" than the morning. The fingers and cuts are nice and hold deer, but you can't get up high in them and see for a mile or more like you can in the place we were in the AM.

On the walk into this area I bumped into this future rocket scientist. He saw/heard some grouse spook ahead of me and came up to investigate. I was belly crawling across a small peak so I didn't skyline myself and when I looked over to my right, he was standing at 90 yards staring at me. Being the genius he was, he promptly walked over to 40 yards to check me out. Unfortunately I had put my camera away by then, assuming he'd run away when I started to belly crawl again. He better get smarter or he won't be around for long.

Here are some examples of the country I hunted that evening. You might not be able to tell it, but the terrain from the AM allow you to see well over a mile. These pics max out at about 300 or 400 yards- that's all the further you can see. The good news is that when you spot a deer, it's typically fairly close and you can get to it fairly quickly.

Unfortunately a thick fog moved in for much of the evening and it made it really tough to see more than about 100 yards.

I ended up seeing 10 deer in the little folds and bumps back away from the main road about a mile. However, they were all does and fawns and I decided to hunt my way back to the truck. I felt like it was tough conditions and a tough afternoon hunt on the way out. I distinctly remember thinking, "I just need to catch a break and spot a bedded buck as I slowly come up over a rise." Soon I was slowly climbing a small hill and carefully peaking on the other side. When I crested the hill, I was greeted with a buck's rack silhoutted by the setting sun. I had to reposition for a picture, but this is what I saw.

I noted several landmarks, backed out, moved around to get the wind right for a stalk, and began my stalk. The bad news was there was a good bit of snow I had to cross (very loud snow). The good news was that I was close enough to the road to drown out a good bit of my noise if I timed my steps with the oil trucks passing by on the highway, about 1/2 mile away. A truck would come and I'd get about six or eight steps in. I'd wait, then another truck would come and I'd repeat the process. It wasnt' fast going and I only had about 20 minutes of legal shooting light left.

Eventually I made it to a crest where I could spot the bedded buck. I peered up over the crest and immediately found the buck's rack, again silhoutted against the setting sun beautifully. I could only see two tines, but it was clear to me that I had underestimated this buck and he was considerably better than I first thought. I ranged a sagebush near him- 48 yards. I decided to put a piece of sage between us and move in another eight or ten yards. As I moved in to within about three yards of my target sagebush, I noticed something funny- the buck's tines moved, but in opposite directions. What? Carefully keeping the sagebush between us I lifted up my binocs slowly and checked out the buck. As it turned out, I had been stalking two long, dark weeds that stuck up above the horizon. The very second I realized this I caught movement out of the corner of my eye- the buck swung his head around and busted me big time.

He was on high alert and staring right at me. I had no good options, so I leaned out and ranged him. He was at 40 yards and had just gotten up on his feet. He walked away from me for a few steps and I ranged him again- 48 yards. I leaned out, just started to draw my bow, and unfortunately watched him bound away, stotting as only a mule deer does.

[Scoot]

The next morning Briggs and I went to some more "big country". We got a looong way off the main drag and as far from the chaos of all the oil related work. We both got up high and glassed from different spots, about a mile apart. I spotted does fairly early in the morning and soon after found a decent buck. I watched him mill around and feed for over an hour. Eventually, he bedded under the juniper in this tree that is in the middle top of the frame. He's not in the line of small junipers in the foreground- he's in the juniper right above them, immidiately behind the piece of sagebrush in front of it.

I cut some distance and got a closer look. After 30 minutes I was 100 yards from the deer. However, nothing looked right- none of my reference points made sense to me. Eventually I decided that it's just normal for everything to look different and that I needed to get closer to the tree I had now convinced myself he was at. I remember thinking "I'm 40% use that's the right tree, but nothing else is even close, so it must be it."

Long-story-short is this: I sneaked to the wrong tree and got busted. Although you can't tell from the pic above, and I couldn't tell while sneaking, the sageflat with the junipers in the foreground was about 12 feet higher than the little flat behind it where the deer was bedded. While I was sneaking to the wrong tree I didn't even realize that flat was back there- it all looked like once nice flat spot from where I glassed. Dang- he was a nice buck! He was about 24 or 25 inches wide and had reasonably deep forks. He bounded away too fast and I never got a picture of him.

Here's the tree I sneaked on:

Here's the tree the deer was actually bedded at:

Here's his little bed- tucked in nicely under the juniper.

...and that, was that! Briggs got blanked that morning, so we packed up and left.

Slevy had a great morning that day and got to 70 yards of a beautiful 5x5 muley. The buck had an eyeguard on one side (plus four points) and no eyeguard, but a sideways running kicker on the other side (plus four). He was a neat buck. Slevy needed to cut just a little more distance on the buck, but a doe picked him off and the jig was up. In the pic below you can see the closest doe staring at him- he was pegged! Seconds later they all ran off.

Here are a few pics from Slevy that day.

Busy beaver:

Notice both the pheasant and deer in the pics below.

That night Briggs and I went to some more "big country" and glassed from a high point that gave us a great view.

It's a great spot, but we got blanked on that night. In spite of being able to see a very long ways in several directions, we didn't find a single animal.

We had one morning left to try find a muley and that was it. Time was running short and we hoped for one last chance.

[HooknHorns]

Thanks for sharing. Awesome story and pics, thanks for taking the time to post.