Trick or Treat Buck by Blake Amon

Sunday morning, the day before Halloween, my dad and I headed for a ridge I had found the day before that overlooked a great bedding area. It got very cold the night before and frost covered the ground so I had a feeling the bucks may be out a little bit longer before heading back to their bed.

It’s hard to describe the view I had with my dad as we sat on top of a ridge overlooking the Missouri breaks. There was absolutely no wind, and the pine trees had a little bit of shine to them due to the frost. The only sound we could hear were geese flying in the distance and peacefulness of a cool, crisp October morning in eastern Montana’s badlands. All of this and plus the sun slowly rising up with the lake in the background had me wondering if there was any way it could get better than this. It would.

I was glassing the breaks directly underneath us and found two does and two small bucks just grazing. It’s like trying to find a needle in a hay stack when they are down in rugged breaks, having good spotting scope is a must. I was just about ready to get up and move another 100 yards north of our current spot when my dad spotted a doe skyline herself. She quickly dropped right over the ledge into the basin we were glassing. Not thirty seconds after her, a very nice buck with some great looking character skylined himself and followed the doe into the basin. I knew right away that he was the type of buck I was after.

            I crossed the ravine they came out of and got the wind in my face for the stalk. I never skyline myself because they will pick you off easily so ditching my pack I started to crawl into the little clay crevice with some cover. This is the same ravine they used to get down from the ridge and into the breaks.

Getting down to the bottom, I was surrounded by sage and cactus so I slowly peeked my head up to try and spot him and instantly found him directly below me. I settled myself in, ranged him at 180 yards, and set up my bi-pod. He was facing me head-on for about five minutes. During that time I was trying my best to judge him but because of the steep angle from above and the brush behind him it wasvery hard to get a good look ay his rack.

  He then tilted his head just enough and I could see he had good mass and unique right back fork. He followed that up with a lip curl and I decided right then and there I was going to take him out. At this point he was about two steps from the start of a real steep drainage that lead down to some thick cover along the lake and I knew if he made it in there he would be gone.

I put my cross hairs on his chest for the next minute or so and waited for him to give me a broadside shot. The second he turned to go into the break I squeezed off a round of lead and he folded up and hit the dirt. It was a great feeling knowing we had worked pretty hard trying to find a mature buck and I was able to close the deal in an area I had never been to before and it was still about a month before the rut. My dad had watched from a few hundred yards away, came over to congratulate me and we exchanged a few fist pumps and laughs.

I went back and grabbed my pack and then my dad and I made our way down the ridge to the buck. Upon hitting the ground, the buck apparently slid down about 80 yards into an extremely steep break so I had to take pictures of him down in the ravine as well as cape and bone him out there. It was a little extra work but completely worth it. To me, the pack out is the best part because that means you filled your tag and reached your goal.  
  
                                                                                                                                        

                                    


            I was very happy with this buck. He has great mass and great character to his rack. I gross scored him at 173".  There is always going to be bigger ones out there but I couldn’t bring myself to pass on a 170 class buck on public land, especially when sharing the whole weekend with my dad. This was my first Halloween weekend hunt and a very memorable one at that. It was a hunt that I will never forget and I can’t wait to get out there next year! 

   

 














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