My name is Mike Marchese and I love Sporks: spike by forks. After Joe shot his buck Jon and I decided to go after the non-typical spork (he was sick) while Remi and Joe boned out Joe’s deer.
Jon and I worked our way over the ridge when I spotted the buck. I watched him walk behind a small bush and never saw him come out. I told Jon where the buck was and he suggested that I walkover there to see if we could find him. “Screw that” I said, the deer was only two hundred yards away. Then a light bulb turned on, “I am going to take a warning shot!” before Jon could ask what that was I blasted a rock with the .284 up the canyon. The percussion from the rock was almost louder than the shot itself. I figured that should get the buck out of hiding, however, nothing materialized. To this day I have no clue how that deer just straight up and vanished.
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| Mike surveys the land as Remi and Joe hike up. |
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I thought the warning shot was hilarious and quite fun to me but Jon was less than impressed. I could not help from laughing the rest of the trip every time I thought about it.
The next day we started glassing in the same spot where we started the first day. After a few minutes Remi had spotted a group of bucks with a nice wide three point in the mix. The deer were feeding on a cactus covered hillside as me and Jon moved in. We moved our way up the canyon to a small rock outcropping 250 yards from where the deer were last seen. When we got there we saw three bucks on the hill, but the one buck that we were looking for was not there. The next minute seemed like an eternity as we both scanned the cactus covered terrain, then all of sudden the buck we wanted stepped out from behind a giant octotillo plant. Jon quickly ranged him and said 200 yards, I then settled the cross hairs down on his shoulder only to find his nose nestled into it. I wanted to shoot, but Jon convinced me to wait – as soon as his head turned bang!! By the time I was reloaded and had my gun back on him he was hanging from a cactus that he had accidently ran into.
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| As the buck lay - suspended in Staghorn Cholla. |
This was by far the best stalk of the hunt so far because from start to finish it was roughly 10 minutes. This was much to the pleasure of the spectators with the spotting scopes, so that they didn’t have to sit on a freezing hillside forever and wait. After Jon and I made it to the deer Joe and Remi quickly followed so that we could do a full picture shoot. Once that was complete, Remi and Joe went on their way Jon and I were left to do the dirty work. In no time flat we had the deer in the packs, and were on our way back to meet Hans who was more than ready to go back to camp have a cold one, shoot some quail, and suffer through yet another night of tenderloins.
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| Hammin' it up on another poor'boy sheep hunt in AZ! |
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| Mike shows how the Washoe Valley boys do it: Short, Sweet, and to the Point! |
My name is Mike Marchese and I love Sporks: spike by forks. After Joe shot his buck Jon and I decided to go after the non-typical spork (he was sick) while Remi and Joe boned out Joe’s deer.
Jon and I worked our way over the ridge when I spotted the buck. I watched him walk behind a small bush and never saw him come out. I told Jon where the buck was and he suggested that I walkover there to see if we could find him. “Screw that” I said, the deer was only two hundred yards away. Then a light bulb turned on, “I am going to take a warning shot!” before Jon could ask what that was I blasted a rock with the .284 up the canyon. The percussion from the rock was almost louder than the shot itself. I figured that should get the buck out of hiding, however, nothing materialized. To this day I have no clue how that deer just straight up and vanished.
