My dad is the kind of role model that hopefully many are. He brought me up in the outdoors, and never left me behind. I remember being 4 years old having my own tripod and binoculars glassing with dad and friends.
As I came to the age where I could legally hunt he put me through the NRA and from the graduating day forward selflessly he devoted his hunting career to me, then my brother, and my cousins as each came to age. He went years without hunting with his own tag in pocket and enjoyed being out with us. As I grew older and my hunting senses started evolving I remember wanting so bad to see my dad kill some dream animals. After many of years not having a tag and me being older he started applying again. He ended up drawing a tag in our home area for coues and I remember how excited I was for him to be the trigger man after several years of tag drought. We loaded up and headed out just him and I. After a short morning of glassing he smiled and said, "theres a big buck", As we sat a few yards apart glassing the same country. I asked where at? He looked at me laughed and said he walked over that mountain. I said lets go then, and he laughed and said not that mountain the one WAAAAY over there. OOHHH!!! I was quick to say piss on that deer thats too dang far with the odds not in our favor of getting him located and on the ground by dark. He laughed and said lets glass and see what else our area had to offer before we come to a decision. He knew I wasn't excited about a deer that far out haha. He kept smiling and finally said "That buck was too big to let walk I'm gonna go after him" "Ok have fun here's a radio" haha being a lazy little brat. He packed up and was off for his venture. Make a long story short he got to the far ridge and set up for his evening glass. He let me know that he immediately found a big buck but knew it wasn't the same that topped the ridge earlier. After watching that buck for a few hours another buck came out of the canyon and he knew that was the animal he was after. Set up made the shot and said "come get me he's down" haha. I got to him just after dark and was happy that my dad killed a great AZ buck.
He then went another few years hunting for my little brother Gabriel and after another few years of tag drought drew another tag in the same unit and we got to hunt for him again. This time we had a buck on our hit list that was too big to mention to even the most intimate of friends. After passing on several bucks that were very worthy of his tag and many fun days together my dad was ready to pull the trigger. We left the truck about 330 for our hike and got to our point well before sun up. We napped and woke up to a great movement morning with deer everywhere. I looked up the canyon and said " I found one of the most massive bucks I've ever seen" and it immediately got all our attention. We knew he wasn't the measure breaker that we had hoped for but my dad liked his look and we don't get caught up in the numbers anyway. We put a stalk on and killed the buck. It was a very cool deer that ended up with a 7 inch mass measurement between his G2 and G3 but unfortunately didn't match on the other side. The deer broke 100 inches but the smile on my dads face was one to remember! Now he's on another 5 year tag drought awaiting his mule deer tag!!
 |
| Our three bucks that year. My dads in the middle. |
No comments:
Post a Comment