Rifle Hunting in ND with My Dad

I’m back after a grueling couple weeks of hunting 3 states. So here is a quick recap of my ND Rifle trip with my Dad. Man was that fun. We saw a ton of deer and some nice bucks. We had some great times in and out of the stand. Something about just being up there reenergizes and brings things into focus for me.

So, I was up in ND the weekend of November 16-18th for the second weekend of their season, hunting with my Dad. We have 2 doe tags to fill and I have my Bow tag. First, we encounter E or SE winds all weekend, not the best for the farm we are hunting. We need a Westerly wind to hunt this farm. My buddy Paul’s farm has a double ladder stand set up that is perfect for the Easterly winds we were having. A perfect spot for my Dad and I to sit together. Saturday morning we have a perfect wind to hunt this stand and it is a short walk from the house for my recovering Dad. So we have a few does and fawns come out to feed on it as the snow is falling before they go to bed. WHAM, just like that doe down. After a few minutes of chatting aobut the doe, we get down and verify that the doe is down just off the field edge. We get back into the stand and decide to see if anything else comes by that morning. This season my Dad is hunting with a 243. in fear of his usual 30.06 would be too much recoil for his tender torso to handle. As we were sitting in the stand and we were joking only a month previous, his guts were laying out on the operating room table, similar to a gutted deer. We both got a pretty good chuckle out of that one. So as the sun continues to rise, we end up electing to pass up a few more does come by that morning so we can sit & hunt that afternoon.

Well like clock work that afternoon the deer start piling into the food plot. There were a couple of 4×4’s out sparring a little bit and a few does are coming closer. One doe gets out about 45 yards and he decides he wants the 2.5 year old. He lines up on her and takes a shot. WHAM… I watch the doe spin 2 complete circles and runs of the field hurting, but makes it as far as I can see in the woods. Wanting to pick up the blood trail in good light we wait 5-10 minutes and get down and start to track it from impact point. We track it about 20 yards into the woods and have a hard time finding the next spot of blood as it crossed trails with the doe from the morning. With about 15 minutes of shooting light I look back towards the stand as my bow is still hanging in the tree and low and behold what do I see??? My stomach instantly drops and I have a real sick feeling brewing as I see a BIG and I mean BIG buck less then 30 yards from the stand in the little nook corner of the field. I draw my binocs up to my eyes to see a SHOOTER BUCK staring me down back in the binocs. A lump in my throat begins to form as I hand my Dad the binocs and told him to take a look at the corner of the field. Here we stand approximately 100 yards from the stand with a definite shooter coing out right next to the stand. The night gets worse as we find the blood trail again from his doe, but end up losing it a 2nd time a few hundred yards later and never recover his deer. My buddy Paul and I finally gave up on this deer at about 10:30 at night as we lost blood in a thicket and the main bedding area for that area. Sunday morning the last day of the 2 day hunt the wind is whipping about 30 mph out of the South and it is 20 degrees and we saw only one fawn that morning. So we ende dup with one doe, I saw my big buck I have been chasing all season up there. Not sure which one it was, but knew it was one I would have shot. I’m guessing with the height of the G2’s that it was either the 140-145" deep forked 4×4 or the 160" 5×5. As the other 140" inch 5×5 has real long brows that I did not see on the deer that stood less then 30 yards from the stand.

Just reaffirms my thought that those big bucks might be smart, but for them to get that big, they must be lucky from time to time and have 9 lives. That big boy just lost one of those 9 lives that Saturday evening along that field edge. I guess that is why they call it hunting.

All in all a great weekend and definitely a weekend I will remember for a long time, as I had a blast and I’m pretty sure my Dad had even a better time! Man, do I cherish the time we spend together like this.

Thanks again to our ND hosts Paul and Miranda Muscha for putting up with us (my Dad, Stacie, Rufus & I) all weekend! It was like going on a outfitter hunt as we had 3 hot awesome meals every day! Thanks for all the hard work Paul & Miranda.

Next on the agenda My SD Muley trip!

**CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE**