News Flash - Deer Located in Unit 6B

You may recall from my last post that I portrayed a somewhat negative attitude toward hunting unit 6B, but as of yesterday my attitude changed a bit. It appears that Cade located several bucks and one was big enough to call Sam at school and have him drive out to make a quick drive in the area that Cade last seen the deer.

Here is how it happened as explained by Cade. I'll just quickly catch you up to the point of interest, that is when the buck was spotted.

Cade and Sam go out before dawn to hunt deer, none seen before Sam has to go to School. Cade continues to look for deer, spots a nice buck, size unknown and a decent two point. To far up a canyon.

12:44 PM - Cade text dad, "My heart wants to, but my legs tell me otherwise (I assume hike up the canyon).

Cade drives back road in opposite direction from Friday. Climbs hill and spots nice 3 point buck trotting across a flat. Calls Sam to get out there as fast as he can. Cade calls dad to tell him he called Sam to get out there as fast as he can and report his finding (a 3 point buck).

He said the buck trotted across this big flat, Cade claims he could have shot at it at least 100 times, this may be a slight exaggeration. First, I don't know of many people that would have that many bullets on hand. Second, it also assumes that you never hit the deer. I don't see the point of continued shooting when the deer is down.  At any rate the deer came a road and again in Cades words, "looked both ways to make sure there were no white trucks coming." The Johnson legend is that white trucks freeze big bucks. I have personally witnessed two occasions where that was the case, once with Kameron (the deer had time to write his will before Kameron could find his bullets and get out of the truck and shoot the deer) on the Kaibab and this year with a big deer Bevin shot (It stood and watched him get out of the truck, put a bullet in and get a rest on the door). Back to Cades story, once the deer determined it was all clear to cross the road it did so then went up into some tree's. At this point the deer may have been out of the 100 shot range as Cade reported that he now had to use his spotting scope to see the deer. He said it just grazed around, scratched himself, went to the bathroom, for over 30 seconds and maybe a full minute before disappearing into the trees. The bathroom thing may be some type of ritual that deer do when they sense death is close. Interestingly enough, with humans it is the smell of smoke. My brothers have had a few brushes with death and they claim they always smelled smoke.

That was the end of our phone conversation, other than I think I did say something like "keep me up to date on what is going on".

1:44 PM -  Email from Cade with distress message, "Deer down, Deer down!"

1:48 PM - Received email with picture attached.

Some time later received a couple more pictures.

Here is a picture of Sam sluffing 6th hour.

The hunter, the hunted and the scouter. I wonder where a person can get a pair of those red gloves they are wearing. 

Pretty impressive deer. The report is that the rack is 22 inches wide and a 3x3. Pretty casual hunting gear (Sam does claim to be wearing his hunting boots). I guess Sam posted up on a hill and Cade drove through the trees that he saw the deer go into. He drove it right to Sam, about 30 yards, and Sam nailed him with one shot. Way to go Sam.

A final note. The deer is now cut up, thanks to the help of Fred Najera and safely stored in Cades freezer. Anyone worried that Caryn will hog it all up for herself? Hummmm, probably not, gums to sore.

We are still hoping for a speed recovery for Caryn. Cade reports that she is doing well and reported that she did try and get pictures for us to see, but they turned out fuzzy.