By Taylor

March 6, 2018

I would like to introduce you to Taylor. My adopted son but for all intents and purposes, you can remove the word adopted. This was his first year hunting of any kind for Taylor (2017) with a brand new rifle I bought for he and his mother to use. And to boot, the first time he shot it (I sighted it in the day before). We had arrived on my family's property two days before and had seen this and several other bucks on the adjacent state land and property.

The following day we decided to see what we could do about resolving the issue of having an unfilled tag with a brand new hunter and rifle in the family. Pressure is usually high as the state land is only a mile or two from the small town my parents claim residence in but we were hopeful we could get close and maybe make a shot that would count and put meat in the freezer.

When daylight broke, we woke to a brisk 20 something degrees with no wind and quite a few deer in the fields. This made my son and I very optimistic about the morning's future success which never came to fruition. Now hold on there. I know what you're thinking. What do you mean "never happened". "I can clearly see from the photos he got a deer!" is what should be going through your mind right now. Everything about that is factually accurate. Taylor did shoot that same 3X2 Mule Deer. What we didn't account for is darn critters to see us on our approach.

See, what I have to hunt on here in Montana is sandstone plateau where ranges can be from point-blank to 500+ yards depending on which direction you look. That morning we were on the unfortunate end of the 200+ yard range and the does we had seen that morning were extra observant as one had caught us coming around a hill where she promptly decided to briskly move from point A to point B. This made Taylor's buck decide, because he was in full rut at that time, to follow the crowd of rapidly exiting critters down into the washouts and valleys that makeup the majority of mid-Montanan geography. At this point we decided to not continue pursuit on this buck. This type of buck is "typical" for this region as it is a 3X2 but not for how tall and wide he is making him a decent specimen. I most definitely did not want to drive him out of the area as I wanted my son to get a crack at a half decent deer for the area.

The rest of the day consisted of walking around the rest of the property and adjacent state land looking for bucks to no avail. As I was afraid of, the state land proved to be less than productive due to pressure on the local herds making us return home where I was able to get my son some trigger time on an AR with a junky trigger so he could learn to “feel” the trigger. I figured this would be the most practical way to get Taylor used to the loud crack of a rifle without developing a flinch from the 6.5 Creedmoor rifle he would get his future deer with. With daylight quickly fading, we packed up our rifles and equipment and headed home to hole up for the night and glass for deer on the way back.

The following morning found my son sound asleep in his bed while I was on the deck glassing anywhere from 200 to 500 yards for the same buck we saw the day before in the fields. To my surprise, I spotted the same buck coming out of the trees almost where we had lost him the day before. It took me a couple of minutes watching him to figure out we had not driven the herd quite as hard as I was afraid of. I made the decision to go get Taylor up and any of you guys out there that have 13 year-old sons know that is an endeavor in-of-it's-self. That all changed quickly at the mere mention of the buck we had pursued the day before. Taylor was ready to go in about five minutes and we were out the door in 10.

We took almost the same route as before but we were more careful this time around. Taylor was also more aware of his surroundings and made a conscious effort to remain close to me and not deviate much from my lead thus not making us more observable on the stalk. Most of the stalk consisted of walking in the pine trees and staying inside of the rather shallow dips in the local terrain. This finally proved to work in our advantage as when we finally were spotted by the herd, they were in an area where there were few places which afforded them an escape route because of the sandstone cliffs surrounding the plateau we were on.

Now came the magic. Taylor and I were within 200 yards of the buck and he had finally caught on that something was up because of the way his harem kept trotting back and forth trying to decide who was following who to the closest trail. That's when he spotted us and faced us head on. We were less than 175 yards away at that point. Taylor and I briskly walked behind a Juniper bush where I explained to him the game plan. I told Taylor that he was going to walk normally to the right of the bush about 10 yard and sit down with his bipod fully extended. Taylor was nervous about sitting out in the open because the buck might see him. I told Taylor if the buck was still there when came out he was more than likely going to still be there by the time he was ready to shoot. Taylor and I came out of cover with Taylor on point and sat down and readied his rifle. I whispered into Taylor's ear that I wanted him to place the cross-hairs on the neck of the deer. I knew that this was a much less than optimal shot and Taylor was unsure about it as well as he had just recently completed his Hunter's Safety training and the instructors were quite adamant on broadside shots. I reassured Taylor that he was in the OK with this shot as if we didn't take him now, he was quite likely to bolt and we would probably not see him again.

At this point, the deer was 147 yards away looking almost straight at us but pivoted slightly to our left. I had told Taylor to slowly squeeze the trigger and to keep the cross-hair on the buck’s neck as much as possible and to not worry about the report of the rifle. Upon the report of the rifle, the buck crumpled up and fell to the ground like a ton of bricks almost as if Thor had come down from on high and struck the buck with Mjolnir!

If you look carefully at the picture you can see where the bullet entered the buck's neck just south of the white patch on his neck and traversed the spinal column fracturing two of the vertebrae and finally coming to rest in the inside right shoulder blade. This is the bullet we recovered. It is a 120 grain GMX Superformance in 6.5 Creedmoor. The only thing missing from this bullet is three of the very end petal tips and the ballistic point. Perfect expansion and darn near 100% weight retention. Especially after slamming into some of the hardest parts of a critter one can try and go through. As a side note, there is a little white piece caught up in the petals. It happens to be some of the shoulder blade the bullet broke and tried to punch through!

All said and done, I didn't care how big the buck was and neither did Taylor. I was only concerned with Taylor’s huge smile after getting his first buck and the 120 grain GMX certainly held up it's part of the bargain.