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I had a great weekend, finally got to go out on a trip with my son Mike. He's 27 now, a grown man all his own, and we find it harder and harder to find time to get out together often enough. So we really tend to enjoy and cherish the times we do get out together. We took off right after work Friday evenin' and drove to the same mountain I had hunted last weekend as I knew there were a few more good bucks to be hunted in there. By the time we got up to where we were to camp it was 20:00 hours and the fog had socked in all around us so we had to set up camp not real sure where we were but found drinkable water near by and made a good campsite of it. I enjoyed a cup of joe after we got the tent up and our gear stored in the dry. We enjoyed an hour or so of BS and then hit the bags for a short nights rest. I was up before the alarm at around 03:30 hours and making coffee and freeze dried bacon and eggs by the time Mike rolled out at 04:00. We started hunting at 05:00 and were spotting a few animals by 6 or so but nuthin big and mostly far away. Glassing a hill top I spotted 3 bucks bedded down at about 1200 yards through the Leupold spotting scope. I could tell one was nice enough to warrant a closer look so off we go. We cut the distance down to 800 yards or so and I could tell he was 4 on at least one side and I thought 3 on the other, so we made up our minds to cut the distance down to shooting range and look him over then. The three of them were in a place that was almost inaccessible and it took us over 2 hours to get above them to where we could look them over without being winded or seen or heard. I tried to laser range them but they were so steep below us I couldn't get the laser to bounce back to me I'm sure it just glanced off and is still going for all I know. We did get the spotting scope set up and got to look them over, the big one of the bunch had to be the same buck I had seen last week running with the one I had taken. He was 4x4 with a nice set of eye guards, making a total of 10 points. I'm betting he was the twin brother of the one I had killed just 8 days earlier. I told Mike that I thought he should take him and he concurred. He set up for the shot, which had to be in the neighborhood of 200 yards, or maybe 250, and steep down hill. Mike is shooting a Browning stainless stalker in 25/06 loaded with Nosler Accubond 110 grain over 51.5 grains of IMR 4831 hammered by a CCI 250 primer. I was watching through the spotting scope when he tripped the trigger and made a solid hit, although a little far back, as the buck was laying down facing away from us. He shot for the lower back of his neck and kind of hit him right between the shoulder blades, driving out through the front of his chest. He never got to his feet before succumbing. It took me much longer to make it down to the buck than it did Mike, but I made him wait for me before sticking a knife in it so I could get pics. It was a nice young buck. He has kilt nicer but it is a nice one none the less. We were an easy two hours farther in than I had been the week before and it took us almost 5 hours to get back to camp. It was after 16:00 hours before we made it back. This Mt. is one of the most broke up cliffy, rocky mountains I've hunted, and it is just plain slow going in most places. Anyway we made it to camp, rested, had a good meal and even went out before dark and looked around just in case a nice buck decided to show himself. We had a good evening reliving the stalk and the rough climb and just spending time together. Then we settled down and slept well. I awoke the next morning at 04:00, made coffee and oatmeal and let Mike sleep an hour or so while I sat on a hill side, watching morning dawn. We broke camp together and started out, stopping once on the way to drop our packs and hunt a small part of the Mt. we had never been to before. I didn't need to take an animal to make this hunt a success but if I had seen the right animal I would have taken him. All in all I had one of the best times of my life and its a hunt I'll remember always. I hope you enjoyed my story and here is a proud papa's photo of his son, a man among men. Dennis Eugene
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