What a trip! We had an absolute blast looking over all of the Book Cliffs bucks. This being my son’s first big game tag, we weren’t too worried about finding a specific class buck. We just wanted to find something he liked and would be happy with.
After a long 15-hour drive, we were driving up the Seep Road, entering what would be our home for the next six days. We were eager to find deer and start looking over what we assumed would be bucks at every turn. After scouting a bit, we had only seen about 30 does and a couple of really small bucks.
Opening morning came, and I had hot coffee and hot cocoa ready. The excitement was palpable. We took off in the direction where we had seen deer the night before in hopes some other bucks would show up. By noon, we had seen well over 60 deer but only three bucks. Feeling a little discouraged, we decided to move a little higher in elevation to see what we could turn up. That evening, we spotted many more groups of does and fawns and finally a few 3x4 bucks. Not big bucks but better bucks than we had been seeing.
Sunday morning found us on the same ridge glassing a snowy mountainside. Almost as soon as I could make out bodies I saw two bucks sparring. One of these looked like a heavy-horned buck. After getting the spotting scope out, I could tell he was just a 3x3 and we opted to wait things out and see what else would come out. After another few minutes, the hillside erupted with movement. We had about 12-15 bucks up feeding, and we spotted a buck my son was excited about shooting. At this point, we were 480 yards out and I knew we needed to close the distance. As we began to move, some of the deer caught our movement and began to move over the ridge. I was concerned that his buck had moved over the ridge with the other bucks, but after sitting there for 15 minutes I caught movement in some of the brush. “It’s your buck!” I said to my son.
Still too far for him to try for a shot, we continued to move slowly into range. I found a perfect shooting rest and got him set up. This buck continued to rake the brush with his antlers and push other bucks around, which gave us the opportunity to get comfortable. I ranged his buck at 300 yards and knew we had a great chance of harvesting him. The buck moved into an opening and he was ready to make his shot. As the shot went off, I could see his buck jump as though he was hit well and then he disappeared into the brush. Paying close attention to where we last saw him, we hiked down the canyon and back up the adjacent ridge. There, 10 yards away from where he stood, lay my son’s very first buck and a moment filled with tears from both of us. It is a memory I will never forget.
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