My granddad killed his biggest animal to date. 74 yrs young, our 4th trip to SE Montana and he kills the biggest Muley we have ever taken from this area.
Watching him through the spotter.
We hunted this buck for 3 days. Day one I had him dead at 130yards. The rifle steady on the sticks, all my granddad had to do was crawl a bit further. Unfortunately and unknown at the time he had a bad case of bronchitis. He just couldn?t catch his breath, I was worried that he was having heart issues. He told me to shoot, I considered it for a split second because it was one of the largest bucks we had ever seen, but I told myself ?no, Papa is gonna kill this buck?. So as my granddad painstakingly made his way up to me I watched the buck disappear over the rise.
Day 2, we spotted him a mile off bedded with absolutely no way for us to put a stalk on him without being busted. Not to mention his breathing and coughing was getting progressively worse. We marked the last place we seen him before dark with hopes he would be close the next morning.
Day 3, persistence paid off and some how we were able to catch him going from his feed grounds to bed. We intercepted him and with perfect stalking conditions and excellent terrain we got within 100 yards. The buck had no idea we were there and with a steady shot from his 30-06 BLR his biggest buck dropped dead.
I?ve never seen him so excited after a kill. Honestly, he didn?t know how big the buck was but I think he realized that we had hunted pretty hard for this buck and he fed off my determination for it. Add the fact that he simply couldn?t hike much do to his lack of breath, it was quite the accomplishment.
I?m humbled to spend time with him on trips like these.
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