Thread: Skunked AGAIN

Before opening day 3 years ago I had been scouting a particular area with my buddy for a few months. We found one decent buck, which we saw repeatedly over the months of scouting.
Since the area was fairly open, we decided that it was more a rifle, than bow situation. I had a bow tag, so my buddy would get to take the buck. The rack on this thing was odd; not huge, but the buck was a decent size for what we typically see. It was easily identifiable from a distance.

The hike into the area was not difficult. The elevation change was probably only a hundred feet max, but it took about 2 hours to get in. I noticed the wind typically came from the southwest in the a.m. so we ditched the idea of using the only trail in, which came from south southwest. There was lots of high brush in the way of the direction we needed to hike in, so we came back with pruning shears and loppers, to cut a path in.

Over the time we scouted, we only saw one other hunter, two smaller bucks and a handful of does.

The day before the opener, my buddy crashed at my place, since it was way closer to the area than his. Sunrise was at 6:20. In California, like most of the U.S., it's only legal to shoot 1/2 before sunrise, and 1/2 hour after sunset. It takes about 1.5 hrs to drive to the spot, and 2 hrs to hike in, so I told him we should leave at 1a.m, to give us a safe amount of time to set up, and let any animals return that may have been bumped by hiking in.

Some people are not able to function on less than 8 hours. Not sure why, as you would think that the prospect of shooting your first buck would be enough to keep you awake, or at the least make you eager to do whatever is necessary. Not my buddy. He wanted to leave at 2a.m. I asked if he was sure, and he said we had hiked in so many times that he felt comfortable going later. I reiterated my concern, which had little effect. Since it was his buck, I let it go.

We left at about 2:10, as he had "bathroom issues." If everything went smoothly, we'd get to the parking lot (small city equipment lot) by 3:40, and get to the hunting spot by about 5:40, leaving only 10 minutes to legal shooting light. That was if everything went smoothly.

We got to the lot at about 3:35ish, cuz my buddy sped, and there was no traffic. But, there were 3 other cars in the lot, which forced us to park on the other side of the lot, about 200 feet away. We were concerned about the other trucks, but there were several different directions to go hiking out, so we were still hopeful. My buddy couldn't find the mag for his .308, so we lost about 6 min's going through all the crap, until we found it in one of his extra socks. We left the truck about 3:50, after a few other minor inconveniences sucked little bits of time away. Since we parked farther away, that added about a minute or so. You can see where this is going...

We started getting close (within 15 min's of getting to the spot) and we had to slow down because we were making WAY too much noise. We had been scouting during a part of the year (and in an area) that's gets a little more rain than other areas, making the hike in semi-stealthy at that time due to the green ground cover. San Diego county gets sporadic rain for a few months, things green up nicely, then we typically get no rain for about 9 months. Since it hadn't rained in over a month, the ground cover had dried, turning crunchy. We literally had to move at a pace normally reserved for spot-and-stalk. This was the final nail in the coffin.

Although the sun was still hidden behind the eastern slopes, it was causing the sky to go from ink black to a beautiful indigo when we heard the first shot.
My heart sank, as I had a pretty good guess what waited for us. We heard a second shot, and my buddy picked up the pace. We got to the spot a few minutes later.

Across the meadow, where the tree line started again, we saw a hunter and his son standing over a buck. My buddy's buck. We went over, and talked to them for a while as the father snapped a grip-n-grin, and then proceeded to show his son how to gut my buddy's buck. Turn's out they got to their spot only 20 minutes before we did. They had been to this area several times before, only spotting smaller bucks. The were super nice people. I gave the kid a fist bump, congratulating him on his first take.

As we walked away, I turned for one last glance over the shoulder, and noticed that my buddy's buck's guts reflected a cool hue of amber from the changing sky, as the sun just started peeking over the ridgeline.

BTW, this is NOT the buddy who's coming with me to NZ. The buddy coming with me gets up earlier than I do.