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Jesse's Hunting > Hunting Articles > Hunting Gear > Hunting Utah Mule Deer with the Ameristep Grizzly G-10
Hunting Utah Mule Deer with the Ameristep Grizzly G-10
Dave Blake - JHO ProStaff
- Los Angeles, CA
October 19, 2007
Grizzly G-10
The G-10 is light enough to pack in, and allowed the author to settle into a prime area without alerting game. |
This year I decided to try to limit my movement within a given area by hunting from a blind. The blind I chose to hunt from was the Ameristep Grizzly G-10, outhouse-style blind.
I took the Grizzly out on my first morning hunt of the Utah archery deer season. The spot I had in mind has a small spring, halfway up a steep trail, surrounded by plenty of food and thick cover. The well used game trails were evidence enough that the deer were around.
I wanted to get an earlier start, but as it was I was about 30 minutes later getting up the hill than I had planned. As I stalked up the hill, a buck stepped out about 100 yards ahead of me in the aspens and looked directly my way. I froze and waited, only to find out that there were two more bucks behind him.
The lead buck had a beautiful, tall rack with at least four points on both sides. I wish I had been close enough to shoot, but all I could do was stand and watch him and his smaller buddies walk into the dark pines to bed down. The good thing about it was, I knew where I would set up my blind for the remainder of the day.
Being careful not to make too much noise I set up the blind and staked the corners. The Grizzly G-10 is lightweight enough that even a moderate wind can tip it over, so staking it is a must. Once the blind was set up, I climbed in to wait for those deer to come back out.
While waiting out the day I noticed that once I was in the blind, nature stopped noticing me. Birds flew close to me, chipmunks and squirrels were not a bother. My movement was hidden by the blind, so any animals in the woods would not have noticed I was there. I was able to get off of my stool and lay down to stretch my back out. Moving for food and water wasn’t a problem either.
About nine hours into my wait, a couple of nice bucks appeared about 15 feet from the blind. I didn’t hear them come out, they were just suddenly there. They could obviously see the blind, but it didn’t alarm them. Hidden by the blind, I was able to nock an arrow, move the bow to shooting position and get ready to shoot the first one to give me a shot.
Success speaks for itself!
The author with his Utah mule deer buck, taken at close range from the Grizzly ground blind. |
The larger of the two, a nice 3X3 came up broadside at 20 yards, so I raised the bow to draw back. My blind is tall and narrow, so to get the bow to full draw, I had to push it against the front of the blind with the stabilizer sticking out the window. This made enough sound to catch the buck’s attention, so he turned and looked directly at me.
Since I was inside the blind and behind my bow, he couldn’t tell I was human so he just stood there looking. I was able to take my time and make sure that I had the shot lined up perfectly before releasing the arrow. When I did shoot, the arrow hit its mark and the buck went about 80 yards before he piled up.
If you want to have more of your hunts go the way you plan them, give a ground blind a try. Blinds eliminate many of the factors that normally make getting close to deer impossible and provide the opportunity for closer, more accurate shots.
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