HUNTIN'

The Deer Hunt is over now, but my gosh it was a good one! I got a nice 4 point, Kelsie/my mom got a big 2 point. My cousin Brogon and Beverly both got their 1st deer which were both 2 points. Kelsie Gut her first deer, and she enjoyed it! And of course there was breakfast........de-freakin-liosious.

Look at how good that food is

Dad grillin' up the HashbrownsDerek and I cookinKelsie and BevBronson, Kelsie, My mom, and I in the jeep. A couple of years ago I built that bench that me and my mom are sitting on. We call it the Crows Nest.Beverlys husband Duke was working so we took her to shoot her 1st buck.Kelsie guttin it, I know it is sick!sorry, but I had to put this pic up. It shows how gross Kelsie is. That thing in her hand is called a heart, which was once inside that deer.KLC is a messBrogons 1st buck. A 2 point... nope now it is a 2 by spikeIf you look close you can see the antler he shot off. the side closest to him.

The last night neither my mom nor Kelsie had shot a buck. We wanted to find them one. Whenever we are hunting we go with our feelings of where the deer might be, just something funny we do. With about an hour left of daylight, I said, "you guys lets head up Sheep to the guzzler and maybe we will catch a buck crossing." So, we did and when we got up by the guzzler Bronson said, "oh ya, I have a good feeling about this too.

With about a half an hour of day light left Kelsie spotted a deer headed towards the guzzler on a ridge. I look in the binos ans said, "It's a buck, a good buck!" Kelsie and my mom jumped out and loaded a bullet. My mom told Kelsie to tell her when she was ready and that they needed to shoot at the same time. So, when they were both ready I did a lil count down...3...2...1...BOOM!! They shot at almost the exact same time and I was watching in the binoculars and yelled, "YOU GOT HIM!" He jumped up and ran, but didn't go too far. We don't know who hit it, or if they both hit it, but Kelsie Tagged it.

This was a perfect ending to a great hunt!

Ok, so this is kind of a long story, but I am going to try to shortin’ it up. If you don’t wanna read it you don’t have to, just skip down to the rest of the post.. I just thought I would type it because, well I can, and also maybe if any hunters out there want to read it. I am just thinking that Uncle Richard will enjoy it

Opening morning my Dad, Derek, and I went out on four-wheelers and my Mom, Bron, and Kelsie went in the truck. My Dad said he was going to go down into the flats and Derek said he was going to go through Sky Valley to the bottom of the flats where he had seen some nice bucks on the muzzleloader hunt. Before I left Derek told me that if I am down in the flats to go look in the draws that run down to Sky Valley in case he scares some bucks up to me. I had seen a few does and fawns in the morning then I decided to go look through the draws Derek was talking about. The first one I went to look in there was a hunter, and in the second one there was also a hunter. I then went to the next draw and didn’t see a hunter, but a buck standing behind a tree. He was about 350 yards away and I could see antlers, so I decided to shoot at him. I leaned over the fourwheeler and shot at his neck, since I could only see his head and neck. I totally missed and he took of full speed up the hill back towards the north. Two other bucks ran with him, but they were smaller. I shot 2 more shots at him and missed. He was running fast and was getting away quick. My fourth shot knocked him to the ground and he rolled about 50 feet down the hill. I was hoping he was dead, but he jumped up and tried to run back up hill and couldn’t. I was glad he headed down hill, which is a good sign that he was hit hard. I was trying to watch him and reload at the same time. He ran to the bottom of the draw before I could get reloaded.

I called my Dad and Derek and told them I had shot a buck and they headed over. Derek was the guy in the draw next to me so he just walked over. I began my descent down the drawn when all of a sudden I see our white truck pull up. My mom, Bron, and Kels jump out. I figured that my Dad had called them to come and help. So I just said, “I need Help finding him.” (they were like “Jonie, Jonie!” and I said, “Help me Help Me!” Not really but after words Bronson said that it was it reminded him of when I said I needed help.)

My dad didn’t call them; they just saw my fourwheeler up on the ridge and came to see what I was doing. So I explained to them where I had shot and they started lookin for blood. They never found blood, but did find were he rolled down the hill. We figured he was gut shot since there wasn’t blood.

I continued walking in the bottom of the draw when I soon met up with Derek. He told me that earlier in the morning he had missed a nice buck with 4 other bucks in the draw next to this one. He also said that he ran into Stan, the UPS man, and he had also missed a nice buck. So, Derek, Dad, and I kept walking down the draw to find him. All of a sudden Stan comes walking through and Derek said something to Stan that I thought was hilarious, he said, “Stan we are too late, she beat us to him!” Stan was not happy for himself, but he was for me.

At the bottom of the draw it widens up into Sky Valley with a wash running east and west. My dad went west, Derek went east and I zig-zagged back and forth. All the sudden I hear Derek yell, “ Jonie I jumped him.” I went over there and Derek said he saw the buck jump up and he ran off before he could get a shot. So, Derek and I took of walking down the wash. I was on one side and he on the other. About a half mile down the wash I was getting discouraged that we would never find him, and I could tell the Derek was too, but we kept trudging on. We walked about another half mile when I heard on the other side of the wash something crashing about. My heart began to pound and I cocked the ol Lever Action and was ready to shoot. I yelled to Derek, “Derek! I hear him, He is in the wash but I can’t see him.” Then I got a glimpse of him and he was trying to run, but he was hunched over so I knew he wasn’t going far. The buck saw Derek and then looked at me and froze where he was at, we had him trapped.

Derek Yelled back that he could see him too, and I said, “Get down I am going to shoot, oh I am shaking! Are you down? I am shooting”
Derek yelled, “I am down, Just shoot.” BOOM! I shot. He was 30 yards away and I was shaking so bad that I hit him in the back leg. Kinda Embarrassing.
Derek said to shoot him again.
I said “I gotta sit down, I am shaking way too bad.”
I shot him and he was down. Derek was the first one too him and he said, “Good job Jonie, way to go!” we were both so excited that we had got him after walking forever and being so discouraged that we would never find him. The buck was still kinda breathing so I let Derek give him one more shot to completely kill him. Derek ran back to get a fourwheeler and to find service to call the rest of the fam and tell them that we had finally got him!

Afterwards Derek just kept laughing about how I told him to get down and how I said I was so shaky. In fact, five days later, he is still laughing about it.

I like this pic cause it makes him look bigger than he really is.

21 inch 4x4

The Camera was in a weird mode, so this pic looks funny, but I like it.

Loadin' em in the truck