By STEPHANIE BUNKER
Moapa Valley Progress
Nevada’s Area 27 can be a hard hunt, and it was no exception for Logandale resident Jacob Jensen. Jensen put 8 days of hunting in before he found the buck he had been looking for. Then the hunt was over in an instant.
“That’s usually how it works for me,” Jensen joked. “I’m as sneaky as a fat old cow!”
Jensen had scouted all through the summer and had seen plenty of deer. Throughout his time on Bunkerville Mountain Jensen saw plenty of small bucks and doe’s, but nothing worth pulling the trigger for. That was true up until the morning of Thanksgiving. And thankful for that day he was.
Jensen was out glassing the hillside in the morning with his son Jace, his brother in law Jared Hollingshead, and his nephew Trevon. They had seen nothing in that particular area so they moved to another location where they spotted some doe’s.
Jensen was puzzled that they had seen so many doe’s without bucks, especially as they were entering into the buck’s rutting season. The group was positioned behind a rock so Hollingshead decided he would move over to be able to see on the other side of the rock. Jensen had his gun out and set up glassing the deer through his scope.
Jensen was just about to express his surprise at not seeing bucks with the does to his nephew when Hollingshead yelled, “Big buck!” The buck ran from behind the rock and Jensen trained his cross hairs on it and shot.
No one knew where the buck had gone after that. It was decided that one man would search above and the other below, but that was unnecessary because the buck dropped 5 feet from where it was shot.
Lucky for Jensen, his brother in law wasn’t lying when he said it was a big buck! It was a 6×4 and was 25 inches wide, the buck scored 188 inches.
“It was the best Thanksgiving I’ve had,” Jensen said. “And it made it even more special that my boy Jace was there with me.”
Jace was excited about witnessing the end of the hunt. He told his dad, “That’s weird; you usually don’t get a deer.” And just to keep his dad humble he added, “That’s different, you hit it on the first shot!”
Due to the prayers of his loving family, the Jensen boys were able to go home and shower before Thanksgiving dinner. Jensen chuckled as he said, “My wife only prayed I would find a nice buck so I could finish her fire place.”