bobvonb
New member
Whew! I need to get in better shape; that was a workout! Hunting at 7,500’ is real work for a flatlander.
X9A in California is a premium deer zone with lottery draw for tags. The zone is mostly in the Inyo National forest and runs from Bishop up past Lee Vining on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. It’s incredibly beautiful country with awesome 13,000’ plus mountain peaks. This year I used my 5 preference points and drew the X9A tag for the first time. The season there is late September into early October. I decided to avoid opening week and went the second week of the season.
In July I had gone up for a scouting trip and have decided that the ‘Buttermilk’ area above Bishop looked good. My son, Joe, went with me on the hunt and we used his Toyota 4Runner truck. Joe didn’t have a tag but wanted to do some trout fishing and would help me with the drag-out if I got a deer.
California has mule deer of pretty decent size. I’ve hunted in a different zone for the last 5 years, but unsuccessfully. My other previous deer hunting experiences includes many whitetail bucks in the Hill Country of Texas and two 3x3 mule deer in Colorado on the Uncompahgre plateau above Grand Junction…but Colorado was 40 years ago. The success ratio in X9A is above 60% and it was only around 15% for the other California hunt area, so I had high hopes.
A quick word on firearms: I used a 7x57 Mauser custom rifle. It has a Hogue over-molded stock that I’m not afraid of getting scratched or dinged and has a 2x-7x scope mounted. I just keep it set at 3x. Other popular guns for the area are the 7mm magnums, .270s and 30-06s. Shots up to 400 yards are not uncommon. I used hand-loaded 140 gr. CoreLokt bullets. Pretty soon I’ll have to switch to no-lead bullets and then I’ll use GMX bullets then.
Day 1: We arrived in Bishop at mid-day. We had considered camping but my buddy insisted we stay at his house and truthfully it was nice to have a warm shower available each night. We dropped our gear at his house and headed up to the Buttermilk's at about 3pm. I did a short still hunt near McGee creek in a light drizzle but saw nothing. I still think it’s a good area to hunt and wish I had gone higher up the creek.
Day 2: I hunted up at the top end of Pine Creek and Joe fished the creek. Pine Creek was another area that I had scouted in July. Joe caught 3 trout in the creek and I saw 4 does late in the day but that's all. That night I received a text from my son-in-law suggesting that we should go further north, up to the ‘June Lake loop’ near Mono Lake. He had killed a big buck up there the previous week.
Day 3: OK, we took the advice and went to June Lake loop. Going around the loop we had deer crossing the road in front of us and when we turned off the loop up the Parker Lake road there were several does skylined on a scrubby ridge. We turned off the Parker Lake trail-head road toward Parker Creek proper. Just beautiful! Joe explored the creek and I climbed the ridge running parallel to the creek. I saw no deer, but lots of fresh sign and several bedding areas. Joe tried his luck with the fishing pole in the stream and only had 1 bite. I still hunted until noon up on the ridge. We met back at the truck for lunch and then crossed the creek and sat above a meadow. We were at 7,500’ altitude and it was clear and sunny, but in the shade it was cool so we’d sit under a tree for a while then move into the sun to warm up every now and then.
At 5:30 p.m. we were crossing the creek back toward the truck when a buck suddenly materialized about 40 yards away, looking straight at us. Deer just don't walk into view; they seem to materialize from the ether don’t they? Anyway, he had a wide rack, well out past his ears and I could tell that he was not a big bruiser but this was not a trophy hunt and I decided he was good enough for me. We froze and the buck just stared at us waiting for movement. But we didn’t move and finally he turned toward the creek and I was able to get a good shot. After the shot he was nowhere to be seen. After a few seconds we saw legs above the brush as he rolled down the hill toward the creek. Why do they never fall UP-hill?? I’m not a good judge of weight but we were both impressed with his body when we got to him. He's a nice sized buck, maybe 150 lbs. according to the meat market we took him to for processing. But looking at him on the ground we guessed closer to 175 lbs. In any case a nice deer. I was glad I had my son there to help pull him back up the hill.
On the way up to the June Lake loop we had noticed that a film crew was at work on Hwy 395. There was a highway patrol car there and we hoped he would still be there as we headed back toward Bishop. It was about 7 p.m. and dark when we got there but the CHP officer was still on duty. As required by California hunting regulations, I got my tag validated. CHP is one of many authorities authorized to validate tags. The next morning we took the deer into Bishop to be processed at a local meat market.
It’s now November and I got all the meat back from the butcher. We had breakfast sausage this morning and it was very good. I’m going to make some chili with the ground meat this weekend.
This is the biggest body deer I’ve harvested although some of the Texas whitetails had more ‘impressive’ racks. A great experience to share with one of my boys. A great hunt. All is right with the world… at least for this moment.
X9A in California is a premium deer zone with lottery draw for tags. The zone is mostly in the Inyo National forest and runs from Bishop up past Lee Vining on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. It’s incredibly beautiful country with awesome 13,000’ plus mountain peaks. This year I used my 5 preference points and drew the X9A tag for the first time. The season there is late September into early October. I decided to avoid opening week and went the second week of the season.
In July I had gone up for a scouting trip and have decided that the ‘Buttermilk’ area above Bishop looked good. My son, Joe, went with me on the hunt and we used his Toyota 4Runner truck. Joe didn’t have a tag but wanted to do some trout fishing and would help me with the drag-out if I got a deer.
California has mule deer of pretty decent size. I’ve hunted in a different zone for the last 5 years, but unsuccessfully. My other previous deer hunting experiences includes many whitetail bucks in the Hill Country of Texas and two 3x3 mule deer in Colorado on the Uncompahgre plateau above Grand Junction…but Colorado was 40 years ago. The success ratio in X9A is above 60% and it was only around 15% for the other California hunt area, so I had high hopes.
A quick word on firearms: I used a 7x57 Mauser custom rifle. It has a Hogue over-molded stock that I’m not afraid of getting scratched or dinged and has a 2x-7x scope mounted. I just keep it set at 3x. Other popular guns for the area are the 7mm magnums, .270s and 30-06s. Shots up to 400 yards are not uncommon. I used hand-loaded 140 gr. CoreLokt bullets. Pretty soon I’ll have to switch to no-lead bullets and then I’ll use GMX bullets then.
Day 1: We arrived in Bishop at mid-day. We had considered camping but my buddy insisted we stay at his house and truthfully it was nice to have a warm shower available each night. We dropped our gear at his house and headed up to the Buttermilk's at about 3pm. I did a short still hunt near McGee creek in a light drizzle but saw nothing. I still think it’s a good area to hunt and wish I had gone higher up the creek.
Day 2: I hunted up at the top end of Pine Creek and Joe fished the creek. Pine Creek was another area that I had scouted in July. Joe caught 3 trout in the creek and I saw 4 does late in the day but that's all. That night I received a text from my son-in-law suggesting that we should go further north, up to the ‘June Lake loop’ near Mono Lake. He had killed a big buck up there the previous week.
Day 3: OK, we took the advice and went to June Lake loop. Going around the loop we had deer crossing the road in front of us and when we turned off the loop up the Parker Lake road there were several does skylined on a scrubby ridge. We turned off the Parker Lake trail-head road toward Parker Creek proper. Just beautiful! Joe explored the creek and I climbed the ridge running parallel to the creek. I saw no deer, but lots of fresh sign and several bedding areas. Joe tried his luck with the fishing pole in the stream and only had 1 bite. I still hunted until noon up on the ridge. We met back at the truck for lunch and then crossed the creek and sat above a meadow. We were at 7,500’ altitude and it was clear and sunny, but in the shade it was cool so we’d sit under a tree for a while then move into the sun to warm up every now and then.
At 5:30 p.m. we were crossing the creek back toward the truck when a buck suddenly materialized about 40 yards away, looking straight at us. Deer just don't walk into view; they seem to materialize from the ether don’t they? Anyway, he had a wide rack, well out past his ears and I could tell that he was not a big bruiser but this was not a trophy hunt and I decided he was good enough for me. We froze and the buck just stared at us waiting for movement. But we didn’t move and finally he turned toward the creek and I was able to get a good shot. After the shot he was nowhere to be seen. After a few seconds we saw legs above the brush as he rolled down the hill toward the creek. Why do they never fall UP-hill?? I’m not a good judge of weight but we were both impressed with his body when we got to him. He's a nice sized buck, maybe 150 lbs. according to the meat market we took him to for processing. But looking at him on the ground we guessed closer to 175 lbs. In any case a nice deer. I was glad I had my son there to help pull him back up the hill.
On the way up to the June Lake loop we had noticed that a film crew was at work on Hwy 395. There was a highway patrol car there and we hoped he would still be there as we headed back toward Bishop. It was about 7 p.m. and dark when we got there but the CHP officer was still on duty. As required by California hunting regulations, I got my tag validated. CHP is one of many authorities authorized to validate tags. The next morning we took the deer into Bishop to be processed at a local meat market.
It’s now November and I got all the meat back from the butcher. We had breakfast sausage this morning and it was very good. I’m going to make some chili with the ground meat this weekend.
This is the biggest body deer I’ve harvested although some of the Texas whitetails had more ‘impressive’ racks. A great experience to share with one of my boys. A great hunt. All is right with the world… at least for this moment.
