Coues Whitetail Deer

by JimT, Texas, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, 10:17 (864 days ago)

Dad and I finished up breakfast just after daylight and then we headed down to the corral to gather up the horses. It was Opening Day of Whitetail Season and we were after the little Coues Deer that inhabited the hills and valleys around Oracle. In the early light we caught the horses and got the saddles screwed down tight, then we tied our gear on and headed out. Riding out our back gate took us in the National Forest and thousands of acres of prime hunting country.

Dad was packing his old Marlin .30-30 that he had used for years. His handloads were the Sierra 125 gr. JHP with Paco's load behind them. During Mule Deer Season I had watched Dad drop two Mule deer with one shot each at close to 200 yards with that load and it had made a believer out of me.

I was hunting with a strange (to me) gun .. a Pachmayr Dominator in .44 Magnum. I had gone to an NRA Banquet with a friend and he had won the gun as a door prize! He had not figured out how to get it into his house past the guard .. his wife ... and so he left it with me. I worked up some loads for it and found it to be a very accurate gun. But it was a single shot. And the action and controls were different than any gun I was used to.

We rode up the jeep trail for a couple miles, then cut off through the country following some game trails. I was riding the Appaloosa named Hud and Dad was on my Quarter Horse Shays Gal.

Our trail took us through some steep washes and canyons and at one point it climbed a rocky stair-stepped cliff. The horse were used to this country and made it look easy. Eventually we emptied out into a valley that ran back up toward the mountain. The valley averaged about 100 yards wide, though there were narrow and wide spots. It did not have a lot of brush in it, just grass and various kinds of cactus. We turned back up toward the mountain and began riding slowly, looking over both the right and left hillsides. After 10 minutes or so I spotted deer in front of us, going up the bank on the right side. I slid off the horse, looped the reins on my right arm and pulled the pistol out of the holster. I cocked the hammer and wiped the Pachmayr safety off ... unaware that when I did I wiped the 1911 safety ON! I put the sights on the deer .. maybe 75 yards off .. and tried to pull the trigger. NOTHING! I fiddled around a bit, figured out what I did and got the 1911 safety off, lined up on the deer and fired too quickly and missed! Now I was really boogered. I began trying to figure out how to reload the empty single shot and as I did I faintly remember hearing Dad's rifle go off. I was caught up with the empty gun and did not pay attention. I tried to get the action open and as I did I hit old Hud in the nose with my right elbow. This caused him some concern and he began moving backwards, not at high speed but faster than I wanted to go backwards. Seeing he was dragging me along encouraged him to go faster.

Now horses do not have a rear view mirror and the ones I have seen run backwards never seem to look behind them. If they are really upset they just go backwards until they hit something that is immovable. Or until they get tired. Hud backed up until he got tired. During his journey he drug me along ... right through some cholla cactus and various other spikey things.

When he finally stopped and I was able to move around I pulled off my jacket and threw it in the cactus patch I had been dragged through. Most of the cholla were on it. The ones in my arms were taken care of later. Some just festered out on their own.

Dad was still up the valley where I started, standing by the mare, holding his rifle and watching me. He was kind of puzzled why I took one shot, then started running the horse backwards. I did not try to explain it.

I asked him if he fired a shot and he said yes and that he had a deer down. He pointed out where it lay and we calmly made our way over to it. He had made a nice 75 or 80 yard offhand shot and put it right in the boiler room.

We cleaned the deer ... took some pictures .. and then tied the deer on Shays Gal. She was more used to hauling dead things than Hud was. I led her and Dad rode Hud on the way back to the house. The buck that Dad had shot was one of the nicer Coues Whitetail that I had seen come out of the hills behind our place. I was tickled that Dad had gotten it.

This was the last hunt we did together in Arizona. We had other hunts in other places but
never on horseback again.