Such type of hunting can soon turn stone cold boring, as neither of us saw any type of bigger critter that opening Friday. Saturday was no different, except for about 5 seconds I noticed a grey fox darting along. That’s all for over ten hours a day of being in the same place and glassing again and again and again. And again. No wonder I enjoyed being distracted by company in a dead tree nearby.

By the way, the ‘road’ to camp is the worst. We never saw another truck or SUV come by, only on Friday morning one side-by-side, which left by 10:30 AM. On Sunday at one time things became interesting for me. Deer showed up. Unfortunately, none of the two older ones and the yearling had grown anything between their ears. I could observe them for over an hour before they drifted out of view.

That evening I suggested that Ron should go and sit at a waterhole the next day. It would be Monday, and very unlikely other hunters would venture that far in and disturb him there. He did. Here his report on Monday evening: The road did not get better, took him a half hour to drive the 1.7 miles from camp. Waterhole was almost empty. After selecting a juniper with view to the mudhole, he cut away some low branches in order to set up his chair and be hidden. When he turned around from setting up some of those cut branches to obscure him from in his back, four deer were advancing towards the remaining water. All without antlers. They had come across the opposite berm, never noticed him moving under that low tree. The four kept him entertained for some time.

Doe at 323 yards

Ron with his waterhole buck

Patience and stubbornness must be bedfellows. I had returned to my table. Around 11:15 his shot rang out. A buck had come over the berm. Ron got quite excited, did not make the best shot, and watched the deer flee back over the berm. At first he thought it was a clean miss. A 143 ELD-X at 2985 fps out of his 6.5 PRC from about 60 yards away should have anchored that buck. At least such was his expectation. Then he found a small chunk of what looked like liver where the buck had stood. After searching for a good twenty minutes he found his 3x4 buck. The ELD-X did not exit, so there was no blood trail to follow.

Meanwhile I again saw nothing from my position. Easy decision to also try the same waterhole on my last day due to travel arrangements for later that week.

By the way, driving in the dark makes navigating a bad road easier than in daylight, unless the windshield is clean and dust free. Arriving there at first light I had no problem finding Ron’s hiding place and got situated. It was only about 30 steps from water’s edge. Ideally it should have been at least 30 steps further back, so the critters would not get one’s scent so easily; not possible there.

Water is life! A lot less terrain to see there, compared to an opposite hill side. But the place was busy with little birds, and ravens enjoying the gut pile somewhere nearby. While the juniper provided excellent hiding, it did not offer much room and prevented standing up.

I do not use the safety on my rifles. Here I made an exception while practicing to transition my Mauser M18 with attached suppressor from standing against a low branch to pointing towards the water. I repeated this several times, with an assumed scenario that a buck would come over the berm.

Pretty soon the sun began to bathe the place with its rays. On my right a big bush blocked my view. But around 8AM it allowed enough visibility to see the stomping legs of a skittish whitetail advancing. Now, both Ron and I had remembered the black bear near Prescott attacking and killing a man back in May. For extra insurance my 45ACP was laying on my backpack next to me. Unable to get my rifle onto this advancing deer I carefully reached for the 1911 Kimber and pointed at what I could see of the whitetail. At about 15 yards it stepped into the open, a doe! I smiled, heart still beating faster. She never looked at me, but soon spooked and left the way she came. The reason was a black range cow coming to water, then departing again as well.

Around 10AM my butt started to be uncomfortable from sitting. I reasoned that slowly bending over and stepping out from under the juniper branches to stand up in the shade of this tree for a while would be no harm. No sooner was I standing when movement beyond the berm caught my eyes. Darn, just four more cows coming to water. The lone brown one, a bull, was not even to water’s edge when he began to stare at me, as in “that was not there last time”. I did not move, rifle in the cradle of my arm. Even while drinking that bull would suddenly look up and stare. This went on for many minutes. Then he also began to stare to my left, an area blocked from view for me by the juniper I had sat under. Soon, a deer came in.

It was a buck!! While he walked briskly towards the water, I carefully raised the Mauser. When I had him in the scope, set at 4X, he was walking away but then apparently got intimidated by the cows and turned around. That exposed his broadside. I squeezed – and the gun did NOT fire! The safety was “on”. By the time I had that fixed the buck was back behind the tree. A long stream of very unkind words flushed through my mind, declaring me a flaming idiot. Didn’t matter, the opportunity was gone, wasted. It would have been no more than a 30 yard shot. I sat back down, which of course the cows noticed, got spooked by and left.

Late morning visitors on my last day

But before they passed the far fence the brown bull stopped and began staring again, this time to my far front right. Hmmm, was another deer approaching?? No, four javelina. At least they hung around, eventually closing to about 20 steps. They entertained me, distracted me from my blunder. Lunch at noon. Once the pigs were gone, a covey of quail took over the distraction job. With rifle now resting on my legs and safety ‘off’, a review of the situation clarified that the buck never saw me, never spooked from me, appeared quite thirsty. I remained hopeful. Another might show up, or that buck might return.

Around 1 PM he (most likely the same one) did, from the same direction! This time I did not mess up. Oh so slowly, I lifted my rifle off my legs and pointed it towards the moving deer. When he was about at rest and the crosshairs were behind his shoulder I squeezed once again. This time the suppressed 6.5 PRC hissed viciously. The buck responded to my 140 ELD-M with a high straight-up jump, then ran off fast. I cycled the bolt. By the time that Mauser was on my shoulder again the buck was right in front of me, going hard right. My second shot dropped him, or so I thought, not even 15 steps away.

I went to my buck, thanked the Lord for it, for favorable wind, for that second chance, drug my deer a good distance to the shade of a taller juniper, tagged him and did the red work. After hanging him into the tree and removing its hide to cool the meat I called Ron, telling him we would go home that evening. Skinning also revealed that my second shot had not dropped this buck, had only cut his windpipe, not even nicked the spine. No, that buck had died from the first shot, low through its chest and tearing up half his heart. The second shot was not needed.

Next was getting my Toyota closer, retrieving all the stuff from the hiding spot, then butchering. I was back in camp, and all meat in the ice chest by 4PM.

My drive home provided time for reflection. Around that waterhole all critters acted nervous. Twice in previous years I had taken a buck near water. They also did not drop where they stood. That’s probably because they are more exposed there, with no cover in all directions. Predators have an advantage. None of our bullets dropped those deer in their tracks because they operated at elevated levels of adrenaline.

Watching for how an animal reacts after being hit becomes significant. Later I learned that deer tend to jump straight up when hit in the heart. To be honest, I hope to see that again in the future. Such shot ruins very little meat.

Also, in tight quarters the Mauser with 24” barrel and attached suppressor was outright cumbersome. At a waterhole something with 16” barrel like my Tikka makes way more sense.