Family Man's 2020 Season Log

[jeremy.b]

Hunt time!

Travel day

Andy headed up to our hunt area on Sunday (11/1) and the rest of us would follow on Tuesday.

Andy made it up without issue Sunday evening after dark, parked for the night and Monday morning located a camp spot for us. He spent the rest of Monday getting acquainted with the area near camp and found some cell service to get us a pin for the camp spot. He did find plenty of deer sign and a grouse to throw in the pot for his dinner, but no real deer sightings from my understanding.

Tuesday I rolled out of town, made it to Meridian noonish to meet up with Tim. We grab a few last minute supplies and headed up the road. Mike got off work and hit the road about an hour or so after us and would end up meeting us at camp.

The drive up from the Treasure valley was also uneventful and we made it into the national forest with 20 minutes of shooting light left. We jumped one doe along the road to camp and a grouse too, which I nicely missed because I made an attempt to hit it high and shot right over it instead...

We got to camp, set up the tent and got settled in waiting for Mike. Andy had not had much luck finding anything other than some sign that day unfortunately.

The evening wore on a bit so we made a quick run to find cell signal and along the way bumped into Mike (he decided to take a 11+ mile detour on his way to camp). We made sure Mike was in good shape, got to cell service, touched base with everyone at home and jumped back to camp caught up and laid plans for the next day.

Tim and I would go check out a ridge that was a mile or so from camp that looked to have good habitat. Mike & Andy would spend the morning behind camp.

Day 1

We all did a quick breakfast the next morning Mike & Andy headed their way with Tim and I heading over to our ridge.

We chose to walk the road up to the ridge instead of driving so we could get a good look at any deer sign going across the road and have a better chance of catching something along the way and not bumping anything when we split off the road onto the ridge.

We did see plenty of sign along the road but made it to the ridge without seeing anything else. Our target ridge had a road that does a big loop out the ridge and then back again to the main road, gated at both ends.

We hit the "back" side of the ridge first which overlooked heavier timber mixed with occasional open pine ridges. There was no recent human sign on the roads which was a good sign.

Within 1/2 mile we jumped a cow elk off the road which moved off over the top of the ridge without being especially spooked. Within 100 yards of where we found the cow we took a minute do a quick range check on a open ridge across draw from us. While we were looking it over Tim caught some movement and said it was at least a couple deer. I eventually was able to pick out a couple does near the top of the ridge. I was working to pick out more deer when they flagged and took off (it was 4-5 does).

I made a comment that it was weird they were taking off to Tim (they were 300+ yards away and no wind going in their direction) and then he's like "dude, there's a wolf!"

My immediate response: "no way man, its gotta just be a coyote..." I'm watching the ridge and finally pick out what he saw: "Nope, definitely a wolf!!" and it was gone that fast. Neither of us had picked up wolf tags (nor did we have a real shot), but that's the first time I've run across one out in the woods. I'm not a fan of their impact on game populations and behavior, but even with that said they are pretty cool.

We continue our way out the ridge when eventually opened up a bit. We finally found a semi-recent scrape. We made plans to have time work a draw while I would hang back to watch for movement. Before even getting settled we jumped another set of does. We probably would have had a chance at them but neither Tim or I were quite ready to shoot a doe just yet.

We continued to work the upper edge of the open ridges but didn't turn up anything new.

We also got a look at an isolated ridge that I half considered checking out (if I felt like dropping a ton of elevation that I would have to gain back).

We eventually rounded the end of the ridge and found another good draw to work. We made plans to have Tim set up on one side and I'd go work the draw from the other side his way.

As we split and I headed back to drop down the opposite ridge I caught sight of a deer trotting out onto my ridge. I put glasses on it and it started off again and I saw that it was a small buck! It was headed right into the draw that Tim was going to cover and I hoped that he was in a spot to see it. I took my sweet time working down the ridge and then eventually through the draw but there was no shot from Tim.

We met back up and he never saw it and the buck likely slipped right under him in the brush, or between us. We were overlooking camp from our location and could see that Mike and Andy were back now (it was midday). We had a few more draws that could be worked and since we were finding deer we decided that I would head back to camp to grab Andy and/or Mike to help us work the draws. Tim would stay put until we made it back.

I hustled off the ridge and back to camp (~2 miles). Mike had headed back up the hill behind camp but Andy was still around and was happy to hear we were into deer and to join us for the last couple hours of daylight.

We worked our way back to Tim, eventually settle on the plan to have each of us setup on a separate ridge and draw for the evening.

Nothing showed for any of us though, and I snuck into a different spot for the last 30 minutes of shooting light, but still nothing.

Darkness was settling in and on the way back to meet up with Tim and Andy a deer blew somewhere below the road system we were on. I caught up with Tim shortly after that and he said it had been in the draw that was right between him and I. Which means it probably had been there the whole time, no more than 100 yards from either of us. It was a good (re)learning experience on how hard deer will hold to cover if they need to!

We made it back to camp (with maybe finding a dead end to a road we thought would take us out and having to crawl up to the proper way out) and caught up with Mike. He had a doe he tried to make a move on but he was using his 45-70 and she spooked before he could close to a comfortable distance.

We spent the evening bs-ing and eventually working on plans for the next day.

 

[jeremy.b]

Day 2

Mike and I teamed up the next day for a little bit and headed up behind camp. Mike would work the open face of the main ridge behind camp and my plan was to drop off the back side of that ridge to work some heavy timber and some old cutting units.

We worked the ridge splitting for a bit to cover different portions of the main ridge.

I hit a saddle we planned to meet up at a bit before Mike and bumped into a couple grouse that made it aweful hard NOT to shoot and drop in my pack... Mike wandered in a few minutes later and we went our separate ways, and I worked off the back side of the saddled through an old cutting unit.

A couple does ended up winding me when I reached the back side of the unit and while I got a look at them they didn't stick around long. I dropped down off the rest of the ridge through some dark timber finding plenty of sign along the way, eventually hitting another old cutting unit that covered the ridge across the drainage.

I worked through the cutting unit up onto some benches and ridges back into heavy timber. Sign thinned out as I worked deeper into the unit and into the timber, but didn't disappear completely.

Since this was officially "big woods" I took my time, stopping often.

Eventually I circled back to a 3rd old unit, jumped another deer (never saw it in the thick brush).

I climbed back up to the main ridge above where Mike had planned to go. I then dropped down off that ridge and found a little finger ridge that would take me all the way down to the road 1/2 from camp. That little finger turned out to have quite a few older scrapes. I sat the ridge a couple times looking over the adjacent brushy draw/hillside through openings in the timber. One doe ended up winding me and blew her way over the opposite ridge.

I wandered back into camp with a little of an hour of daylight left and no one around. I though Mike might be back further up the road so I hopped in the truck and headed in that direction. I didn't run into him but I did find a better spot for cell service, touched base with home.

I trucked on up the road a bit, then decided to drop down another gated road for the last 30 minutes of daylight. I ran into another grouse and the opportunity was too good to pass up and it went into the pack.

I wandered down the road until the last minutes of daylight, ran into another couple grouse but didn't have clean shots on them (and the 270 is a bit much to use if you don't aim just right!)

I wandered back to the truck and got back to camp with everyone already back. The other guys did jump a couple deer that day but no shots were offered. Tim and Andy ran into some "interesting" noises where they went and maintain they located sasquatch... The jury is still out on that one!

Another good night of hanging out and a rough plan was made for the next day.

 

[Sheffield5k]

... I stand by the Sasquatch reports.

 

[jeremy.b]

... I stand by the Sasquatch reports.

I can't say since I wasn't there...

Day 3 (pt 1)

We made breakfast and nailed down plans for the day. Mike would once again hunt behind camp (he's establishing a habit here...). Andy and Tim would go work the on the "camp-side" of the ridge we hunted on day one and I would work the top and back of the same ridge and probably meet up with them sometime that afternoon. I also told the guys I planned to drop in on that isolated ridge if I could to see what I could turn up.

The weather had been really warm for the two prior days but was finally changing with low clouds and cooler temps rolling in. The forecast showed snow/rain possibly later that night and into the next day.

As of day 2 (and day 1 for Mike) the guys were all officially in shoot-any-deer-that-offers-a-shot mode. I was still stubbornly holding out with something with some kind of antlers (although not at all picky on size!)

We drove two rigs up to the two gated ends of the road. Tim and Andy jumped a couple does on the road and tried to make a move on them without success.

I hit the back side of the ridge and really took my time working the road. I cut a couple new sets of tracks crossing the road but no deer. About mid-morning I made the turn onto the open end of the ridge.

I climbed above the road and worked over to a good spot to look over plenty of country.

I settled in for a bit, napped for a few minutes and pondered the drop into the isolated ridge.

It would be a good 1000 ft elevation drop and gain to come back up again (the ridge bluffed out on 3 sides so back up was the only option). Finally I made a plan to loop back on top of the main ridge, and then drop down through a patch of timber and eventually down the draw.

As I shifted to get up I heard a deer blow and stomping right behind me. I look back and there are two yearling does not more than 50 yards up the hill from me. Right near the two trees in the center of the pic.

I still couldn't bring myself to shoot a doe, especially yearlings so they got a pass and eventually slipped back up the ridge. I got up and modified my plan a bit to just hit an adjacent ridge and sit overlooking a little mixed brush draw for a bit before making the final decision to drop down to the ridge or not.

Shortly after settling in over the draw I caught a doe moving across below me @ about 100 yards. I pulled up on my sticks hoping for a buck to follow and watched two more does follow her into some brush. No luck on a buck!

 

[jeremy.b]

Day 3 (pt 2)

I had been in touch with my wife and was sending her a text when BOOM! a shot rang out follow by a shout/woop. Initially I couldn't locate it, but it was either right across the main canyon over by camp or really close on the ridge I was on. I fired off the text to my wife that I heard a shot and at the same time I got a text from Andy saying Deer Down!

Since Andy and Tim had to be relatively close I asked for Andy to send pin and a rough location so I could head his way. Within 5 minutes I had both and he was literally around the next ridge (within 1/4 mile or less) from me, very close to where Tim was going to set up when I jumped the buck the on day 1.

I headed on over, got above Andy and figured out where he was. He had shot the deer down in one of the steep brushy draws below the lower spur road. I made a comment of why did he have to shoot her down in a hole, which Andy promptly retorted with something along the lines of "hey I just took the shot I had man" (I vaguely recall Andy using more colorful language though!)

I asked if he had found her and he said yes and I finally spotted him in the draw and dropped down to him congratulating him. Right as I got down to Andy he made a comment about euro mounting this one and I thought, wait, what, euro mount a doe... Nope, it was a buck! Andy didn't even see that it was a buck when he shot!

It looked a lot like the buck I had seen on day 1 and given the location it very likely was the same deer.

We celebrated for a minute, grabbed some more pictures and waited for Tim to work his way over to us (he had sat the ridge to keep watch when Andy went over to find the deer).

Tim is fairly green at the hunting thing and wanted to take care of the deer. Since we were down in such a hole and also had about 1 1/2 miles back to the truck we decided to do the gutless method and quarter him out. Andy and I both had our Mystery Ranch packs so we'd be able to pack him out in a single trip.

There was a good size pine tree a bit above where he had died so the three of us hoisted him up above it so we had something to keep him from trying to slide down the hill.

Andy had taken an off-hand shot across the draw (~150 yards) and had hit the deer fairly far back but the 300 WSM did its work and it only went 15 yards. I guided Tim through the process, helping out a bit along the way and we finished quartering the deer in about 1 1/2 hrs. (Tim is WAY too focused in this pic!)

Andy was running meat bags and our rifles up to the main ridge for us while we worked (he was perfectly glad to let Tim get all kinds of learning in!)

After bringing our packs and the last meat bags up to the ridge we loaded the packs up. Tim would carry the rifles for us while Andy and I would do the meat hauling.

Now somewhere in between when we started working on Andy's buck and we hit the ridge we heard a shot over above camp. We all looked at each other and thought maybe Mike finally had some luck too!

Tim had to take a little trip to retrieve his hat which had came off in the draw on the way over to Andy and I. While we waited for him and loaded the packs up both Andy and I noticed how much the temperature was dropping. The weather was definitely on its way in! We fired of a few texts to our wifes/families, Tim rejoined us and we strapped in and headed up the hill.

We had a couple hundred yards back up to the first road, then a couple hundred more backwards to where the upper road that would take us out starts off. Shortly after turning the corner to catch the upper road Andy spots a doe up in the brush above the road. Tim (carefully) drops the extra rifles and tries to get settled on her but she's moving and he's not able to get a clean shot before she clears the ridge line and is gone.

I have to admit I was a bit glad we didn't have to deal with a 2nd deer right then!

We marched our way back to the truck, thankful for a decent road to use and that we didn't have to come back in for a second trip. I said "one trip" as we were closing in on the last 300 yards to the truck and Andy's response was "that's a lot of words right there!".

The guys drove me up to my truck and we all headed back to camp. Mike wasn't around and with hearing the shot we decided to load Tim up on the 4-wheeler to go see if he could locate him behind camp and help if needed. There was around an hour of shooting light left in the day.

Tim headed out and Andy and I weighed the packs (we wanted to see what we slogged out with) and hung the meat up.

Within 30 minutes of Tim leaving Mike walks up to camp. He hadn't shot anything though. Tim eventually came back down the hill shortly after dark and we settled in for the night sharing our stories. We learned that while Mike didn't shoot anything, he WAS the one that shot. He was checking his rifle and when he closed the bolt on a live round the gun went off (he's very good about firearm handling so the round went in a safe direction) and while he was glad nothing else happened it was a bit disconcerting. Even with that said, the rest of us are thinking about giving Mike the nick-name of "Warning Shot Mike" due to this event and another event on an antelope trip he and I went on in 2007/2008 (a story for another time!)

The weather was also shifting over and while not raining we were covered up a mist that was getting everything nicely damp for the next (and last) day.

 

[jeremy.b]

Day 4 & Travel Home

The next day was Saturday and with weather coming in we had made tentative plans to hunt most of the day and break camp that afternoon/evening.

Tim and I made plans to drop in on the gated road where I had shot the grouse on day 2. That road dropped into a ridge that then tied back into the road system where Tim and Andy had gone on day 2 (and roughly where they encountered *something*).

Mike was planning to maybe wander behind camp, but hadn't slept well and would probably just goof off for a bit of the morning.

Tim and I did a quick breakfast and off we went. We parked the truck about 1/2 between the road we would start on and the road we would come out on and off we went.

It was still plenty misty and had quieted the woods down. Tim and I hit the gated road and worked into a the top of a cutting unit. There was some sign and we decided to send me down the road to cover the bottom edge of the unit and then Tim would work to me. Other than finding wet brush nothing came of that split and after meeting back up we continued down the road.

We hit the end of the newer portion of road and stumbled into a old tree stand.

It was in a fairly odd spot, and had been there quite a while so I'm not exactly sure what the original owner had in mind.

We continued on now on a much older (but recently cleared) portion of the road out the main ridge, working out slowly. We had a steady breeze that made it fairly cool out, but didn't offer much in the way of cover noise so we did our best to go quietly.

The further out the road/ridge we went the more sign we found including some semi recent scrapes. Eventually the older road petered out and we were left working the top of the ridge. This was still good though as were continued to find sign and the top of the ridge was really open pine timber

We took our time but still managed to bump 2 groups of deer, does from what we saw. Looking back on it we probably needed to slow down and stop way more often along that ridge, something Tim and I discussed afterwards.

At any rate, we did slow down a bit more trying not to bump more deer. Near where the ridge dived off the timber closed up and we jumped another deer off the back side of the ridge without much of a look at it.

We then dropped off the front of the ridge and hit the road that Tim and Andy had checked out on day 2 and slowly worked our way back up toward where it eventually met the main road again. With limited luck and increasingly wet feet (the gortex finally gave out in my boots) we picked one last set of ridges to work up off the road and to finish the climb back out. We split up and eased up each of our ridges but didn't turn anything up.

As I was reaching the top of the ridge the first snow started to fall and within 10 minutes it started picking up a bit.

Tim and I met up, it was after noon by now and both a bit stiff from the previous day and not getting any drier we decided to call it good and head back to the truck. Just as we got back to the truck a bit before 1 PM Mike and Andy rolled up. They had heard some shots in our general direction and came to make sure it wasn't us. All was good though so we loaded up and headed back to camp to start breaking it all down.

We all went to work and within an hour and a half had it all broken down, packed up and ready to roll. The weather only picked up as we headed down the road.

We hit the closest town, gassed up and made plans to meet up one more time on our way south. Mike has a place in McCall we considered staying at. I also also considered heading down to Boise if the roads were in decent shape. Personally I was already leaning to going to Boise so I could shorten the drive back to Utah the next day and Tim would run convoy with me too.

The snow made it a bit touchy in a couple high spots along the way but when we hit our next meeting spot it had tapered off a ton and the roads were clear. We met up the last time and I decided to head down to Boise. I called up a couple buddies and secured a place to crash (Tim lived a ways out of town and I wanted to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen for over a year).

We made the trip without much issue, but the weather was coming in hard and alternated between low visibility snow and pouring rain. Thankfully the roads were all just wet since it had been so warm before the storm hit and I made it to my buddies house in decent time. We had a good time catching up, I crashed, shared breakfast with them and their girls (roughly the same age as Joshua and Caleb) and hit the road back to Utah. The roads were messy coming out of Boise for ~50 miles then great all the way down until I hit the last 30 miles in through SLC where lake effect snow made a mess. But I made it without major issues and dumped out the truck to start drying all the gear off.

Final(ish) Thoughts

While we worked hard for only getting one deer, we all agreed we had a great trip. Getting Andy his first whitetail was super satisfying and getting a chance to introduce those guys to that neck of the woods was just a ton of fun. It was a ton of fun hanging out with the guys in general and we're hoping we can cobble something together next year. There are tons of areas that I had planned out for back up plans that we may well hit up first next year, we'll see!

And that likely is the end of this season for me. My tag is still good for a bit in Idaho but I don't know if I'll be making a trip up to use it any more. There is a chance we'll go see my folks in north Idaho at some point but we have no idea if that'll work out yet. So, overall a quiet year for my big game hunts. There is a decent chance I'll draw out some anterless tags here in Utah next year and heading back to Wyoming for antelope is always a target too!

 

[Crossbowguy]

Awesome hunt! Thanks for sharing