My brother-in-law and I traditionally put in for the late season muzzle loading rifle buck hunt at Devil's Garden in Modoc County, but with only ten tags available there is a 98% chance of not being drawn, and my luck ain't too good as it is! With a preference point system established ten years ago, we had maximum points and decided it was time to change tactics to take advantage of those points. Studying the results of last year's hunts, zone X5b right on the Nevada border had 2,627 first choice applicants for the 110 regular season tags, and 63% of those tag winners got a buck . If my math is correct, that's still only about a 5% chance of being drawn, but that's double the odds of what we had been doing, so we applied for X5b and darned if we didn't get it!
We've never hunted that area before, so a good deal of scouting will be in order. I suppose I ought to dig out my Browning A-Bolt .270 as shots in that open sage country can be long. It will be a good back-up for the gun I really want to hunt with, my 1895 Winchester .38-72 ... no wait, my 1894 Winchester .32-40 ... or maybe my Uberti 1876 .45-60 ...or how about the USRAC Winchester 1886 takedown .45-70? Decisions, decisions. Good thing I have a few months time to sort it out!
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
I haven't been this excited about deer hunting in a long time!
SHASTA