Outdoor Junkie
Active member
Hello all,
On September 17th, my brother and 2 of my closest friends headed off for Wyoming. We drove straight through the night and arrived at the trailhead just as the sun was coming up. The 4 of us hiked about 5 miles up a drainage at which point we split up into groups of 2 and headed off to our base camps which were about 2 miles apart. My best friend (Cory) and I made camp around 4:00 P.M. after gaining 3,000 feet on no sleep. To say we were exhausted was an understatement. After setting up the tent, we ate a little food and then glassed from our tree covered hill for the rest of the afternoon. That night I saw 5 bucks about a 1 1/2 miles away at the very top of an adjacent mountain. The next morning we woke up early and got to our glassing spots well before light. That morning, I saw 3 small bucks feed up into a finger of pines about 1/2 mile from camp and my buddy saw 3 bucks ( one of which was a decent 4x4) just at sun up and a different group of does with a couple small bucks a couple hours later. We were really encouraged to have seen that many deer in the first 12 hours. At around 11:00 we dropped back down about 800 ft and filled our 10L Dramadory bags and our platypus bladders so that we could focus on hunting for a few days. That night Cory decided to head back to where he saw the bucks and I decided to work my way up onto a sage mound that would let me see the most of the top part of the valley. I sat there for a few hours and hadn't seen a thing after non-stop glassing. It was about 45 minutes before season close and I was starting to doubt the basin that I was in. I glassed back down to my right and the very first deer that I saw was an absolute giant ( at least for a guy from Wisconsin). I continued to glass and the other deer with him was a small buck. I pulled out the range finder fully expecting him to be 800 yards away, but to my surprise it flashed 530 yards. This is a shot that I know I can make in calm conditions, but I had a very strong cross wind, so I decided I needed to get closer. After looking over the situation, I could see that there was a ridge between him and I that would provide me with about a 100 yard shot. Game on! I dropped off the back side f the ridge I was on and headed off on a fast walk to that ridge. As I crept up the ridge I knew I was just about high enough to be able to see him, so I stopped and pulled up the binos. To my surprise, I could see the silhouette of his rack right through the sage on the top of the hill. He was looking straight at me, but he didn't seem spooked. After about a minute, he put his head down and kept feeding. At that point, I crawled up onto the top of the ridge and stood my pack up in front of me as a shooting rest..... but the Sage brush was too high. Crap! I looked to my left and about 10 feet up the ridge, the sage brush turned to sage grass which was considerably shorter. I watched the buck and waiting for him to look away from me. about a minute later he turned his head and looked up the hill straight away from me.... perfect! I stood up and slowly tried to side step to the grassy opening. He immediately whipped his head around and looked straight at me. In hind sight, I was so focused on him that I hadn't located the second smaller buck. I'm certain that the smaller buck saw me and spooked the big boy. They immediately took off... NO... HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENNING. I hurried over to the grass opening and set up the pack. By the time I got set up, my adrenaline was raging. I set up and ranged him at 250 yards. I settled in shot.... and he ran. I couldn't believe and I had screwed up twice. We ran a little further and stopped at 304 yards. I settled in and get really steady this time, adjusted the turret 6.1 (0.1 MRAD) and he trotted off another ~ 50 yards. I knew this was my last chance. I left the turret where it was at knowing that I had to aim just a tad high, let out a breath to my natural pause and the world stopped.... the cross hairs didn't budge. A gentle squeeze of the trigger broke the silence and I watched as the small buck ran off and the big buck turned into a dust ball rolling down the side of the mountain. I watched in the scope as he came to rest about 100 yards from where I had shot him.... right on a hiking trail! In my excitement I let out a big yell, which my buddy heard form across the canyon. I watched him for about 30 seconds through the scope and he didn't budge, but I thought that he was sitting up because it looked like his rack was sticking off the ground. As I walked closer I could see that he wasn't sitting up, but rather his rack just stuck up that tall. I was in complete amazement, but the sun was getting ready to go down and I realized that in my exhaustion the night before I hadn't saved my camp location in my GPS. I snapped a few quick pictures and I started hiking back to camp to get Cory. Luckily, he was already on his way and we ended up meeting up and hiking back to the deer together.
After an hour of slicing and dicing we packed up the deboned meat and skull and head back to camp. It was about 10:00 before we got the meat hung back at camp, so we ate a quick dinner and went to bed. In the morning my friend hiked over to the next basin and hunted their until dark. At about 10:00 A.M. I packed the meat down to the small creek about a mile below camp, which is situated in a wooded ravine. I set up some logs about 10" above the water and spread the game bags across the logs. It was easily 30F cooler at the bottom of this spring fed creek than it was up on top by camp. I covered the logs with a large pile of pine branches to conceal it from scavengers and to keep the flies off the exterior of the bag. On the way back to camp I watched as 3 bucks ran up the valley towards where I had shot mine the night before. I guess my yelling didn't scare them all out of our basin
! The rest of the afternoon I napped, ate a lot of food and laid out in the sun while reliving the past evening. About an hour before dark I decided to walk back over to a spot about a half mile from camp that offered a great view of the upper part of our basin. I set up the spotting scope on the greenest chute and sure enough there was a nice buck feeding right in the middle of it. Over the next 45 minutes 6 more bucks fed down out of the same chute. I snuck back to camp to see if my buddy had come back, but no such luck. About an hour later Cory came back and told me that he had seen a few decent bucks, but nothing he could get close to. I told him about the 7 bucks I had seen in the top of our basin and we agreed that the next morning we would head up to the same sage hill that I had glassed my buck from. We set up just before sun up and immediately started seeing bucks all over the top o the basin, 8 in total ( 3 -4x4's, a 4x3, 2- 3x3's and 2 -2x2's). My favorite was probably one of the 2x2's. He had large deep forks, but no fronts. His backs were probably the biggest out of the group, but apparently he got the short end of the genetic stick. We watched for 3 hours as they all meandered around and made their way up to their beds for the morning. On the way up a 3x3 and the 4x3 decided to do some light sparring. The biggest 4x4 saw the action and decided that he wanted in on the action, but the two smaller bucks wanted nothing to do with him.... That morning was probably the single most enjoyable morning I have ever had hunting. The weather was perfect, the bucks were everywhere and I was with a great friend that I don't get to see much anymore.
Once the bucks were all in their beds we snuck off our hill and headed back to camp. I went down to check on the meat and it had ice crystals on it from the night before.... Perfect! Cory and I waited around until 4 P.M. at which point he decided he was going to sneak up to tree line a few hundred yards below where one of the 4x4's bedded. At around 5 p.m. I headed over to the spot I had sat the night before to see if I could spot them coming out of there beds. I no sooner sat down and I heard shot ring out from the top of the canyon followed by a celebratory scream from Cory. I headed up to where I knew he was and found out he had taken one of the 4x4's we had watched that morning. He told me that he set up in small gap in the treeline and about 5 minutes later he saw the buck step out to start feeding. He settled in and shot him literally steps away from where he had bedded for the day. We cut up that deer as the light faded from the canyon and headed back to camp knowing that tomorrow morning was absolutely going to blow!
We woke up the next morning about an hour before light and packed up all of our gear hoping to cover as much ground as possible before we reached the heat of the day. After grabbing the meat from my mountain creek cooler we started the long hike back to the truck. 7.5 miles with a pack that weighed 113 lbs. The first few miles sucked but were reasonable. Unfortunately, that is where we hit all the creek crossings. On one of the crossings, I planted my hiking pole in the center of the stream and tried to step to another rock just below the surface. I pressed down so hard on the pole that it literally flared out in the center of the pole and crushed down like a pop can. Face first I went in a 12" deep creek with a 113 lb pack on my back. We stopped after that, ate some food and dried out my boots as best I could. A couple creek crossings later we decided to take off our boots, throw them to the other side and walk across barefoot. Cory went first and then threw me one of his poles so that I could have better stability during the stream crossing. I made it across the creek just fine, but when I was stepping up out of the stream I made the same mistake. I pushed down as hard as I could on Cory's hiking pole and it snapped under my weight.Luckily, I was almost completely out of the water as I fell to the ground. I laid there on that creek bank for about 5 minutes unable to lift the weight of the pack, but not really making an effort to stand since my body was actually resting. After eating and refilling with water we head off for the final 3 miles. With about 1 12/ miles left we bent over to take a "break". It was easier to rest while standing up than to sit down and risk not being able to get to your feet again. At that moment we heard some voice from behind us and realized that my brother (Bob) and his camp partner ( Shane) were right behind us. They had shot a 3x3 the afternoon before at exactly the same time and decided that they would claim it as "their" deer and head on out. After exchanging pleasantries for a few minutes, we agreed that they should go ahead, drop their gear at the truck and meet up with us as we were gong a much slower pace with ~ 35 more pounds per pack. Seeing them rejuvenated us a bit and we kept on working our way down the trail. With about 1/2 mile left we met back up with them as they had come back to help us out. Cory and I decided that we had come this far and that we were going to finish taking these bucks off the mountain ourselves. As we neared the parking lot, we could see the truck about 100 yards ahead of us. Instinctively, our competitiveness kicked in and we both started "running" to the truck. We must have looked pretty special as we waddled those last 100 yards. As I covered the last 10 yards I broke out in laughter, which unexpectedly turned to tears. I'm not the kind of person to show emotion easily, but the mixture of happiness and pure exhaustion resulted in me breaking down into tears. It was a moment I will never, ever forget. After I collected myself, I sat down and untied the rack from my pack and for the first time I got a picture of me with this buck.
What an amazing experience!
On September 17th, my brother and 2 of my closest friends headed off for Wyoming. We drove straight through the night and arrived at the trailhead just as the sun was coming up. The 4 of us hiked about 5 miles up a drainage at which point we split up into groups of 2 and headed off to our base camps which were about 2 miles apart. My best friend (Cory) and I made camp around 4:00 P.M. after gaining 3,000 feet on no sleep. To say we were exhausted was an understatement. After setting up the tent, we ate a little food and then glassed from our tree covered hill for the rest of the afternoon. That night I saw 5 bucks about a 1 1/2 miles away at the very top of an adjacent mountain. The next morning we woke up early and got to our glassing spots well before light. That morning, I saw 3 small bucks feed up into a finger of pines about 1/2 mile from camp and my buddy saw 3 bucks ( one of which was a decent 4x4) just at sun up and a different group of does with a couple small bucks a couple hours later. We were really encouraged to have seen that many deer in the first 12 hours. At around 11:00 we dropped back down about 800 ft and filled our 10L Dramadory bags and our platypus bladders so that we could focus on hunting for a few days. That night Cory decided to head back to where he saw the bucks and I decided to work my way up onto a sage mound that would let me see the most of the top part of the valley. I sat there for a few hours and hadn't seen a thing after non-stop glassing. It was about 45 minutes before season close and I was starting to doubt the basin that I was in. I glassed back down to my right and the very first deer that I saw was an absolute giant ( at least for a guy from Wisconsin). I continued to glass and the other deer with him was a small buck. I pulled out the range finder fully expecting him to be 800 yards away, but to my surprise it flashed 530 yards. This is a shot that I know I can make in calm conditions, but I had a very strong cross wind, so I decided I needed to get closer. After looking over the situation, I could see that there was a ridge between him and I that would provide me with about a 100 yard shot. Game on! I dropped off the back side f the ridge I was on and headed off on a fast walk to that ridge. As I crept up the ridge I knew I was just about high enough to be able to see him, so I stopped and pulled up the binos. To my surprise, I could see the silhouette of his rack right through the sage on the top of the hill. He was looking straight at me, but he didn't seem spooked. After about a minute, he put his head down and kept feeding. At that point, I crawled up onto the top of the ridge and stood my pack up in front of me as a shooting rest..... but the Sage brush was too high. Crap! I looked to my left and about 10 feet up the ridge, the sage brush turned to sage grass which was considerably shorter. I watched the buck and waiting for him to look away from me. about a minute later he turned his head and looked up the hill straight away from me.... perfect! I stood up and slowly tried to side step to the grassy opening. He immediately whipped his head around and looked straight at me. In hind sight, I was so focused on him that I hadn't located the second smaller buck. I'm certain that the smaller buck saw me and spooked the big boy. They immediately took off... NO... HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENNING. I hurried over to the grass opening and set up the pack. By the time I got set up, my adrenaline was raging. I set up and ranged him at 250 yards. I settled in shot.... and he ran. I couldn't believe and I had screwed up twice. We ran a little further and stopped at 304 yards. I settled in and get really steady this time, adjusted the turret 6.1 (0.1 MRAD) and he trotted off another ~ 50 yards. I knew this was my last chance. I left the turret where it was at knowing that I had to aim just a tad high, let out a breath to my natural pause and the world stopped.... the cross hairs didn't budge. A gentle squeeze of the trigger broke the silence and I watched as the small buck ran off and the big buck turned into a dust ball rolling down the side of the mountain. I watched in the scope as he came to rest about 100 yards from where I had shot him.... right on a hiking trail! In my excitement I let out a big yell, which my buddy heard form across the canyon. I watched him for about 30 seconds through the scope and he didn't budge, but I thought that he was sitting up because it looked like his rack was sticking off the ground. As I walked closer I could see that he wasn't sitting up, but rather his rack just stuck up that tall. I was in complete amazement, but the sun was getting ready to go down and I realized that in my exhaustion the night before I hadn't saved my camp location in my GPS. I snapped a few quick pictures and I started hiking back to camp to get Cory. Luckily, he was already on his way and we ended up meeting up and hiking back to the deer together.
After an hour of slicing and dicing we packed up the deboned meat and skull and head back to camp. It was about 10:00 before we got the meat hung back at camp, so we ate a quick dinner and went to bed. In the morning my friend hiked over to the next basin and hunted their until dark. At about 10:00 A.M. I packed the meat down to the small creek about a mile below camp, which is situated in a wooded ravine. I set up some logs about 10" above the water and spread the game bags across the logs. It was easily 30F cooler at the bottom of this spring fed creek than it was up on top by camp. I covered the logs with a large pile of pine branches to conceal it from scavengers and to keep the flies off the exterior of the bag. On the way back to camp I watched as 3 bucks ran up the valley towards where I had shot mine the night before. I guess my yelling didn't scare them all out of our basin
! The rest of the afternoon I napped, ate a lot of food and laid out in the sun while reliving the past evening. About an hour before dark I decided to walk back over to a spot about a half mile from camp that offered a great view of the upper part of our basin. I set up the spotting scope on the greenest chute and sure enough there was a nice buck feeding right in the middle of it. Over the next 45 minutes 6 more bucks fed down out of the same chute. I snuck back to camp to see if my buddy had come back, but no such luck. About an hour later Cory came back and told me that he had seen a few decent bucks, but nothing he could get close to. I told him about the 7 bucks I had seen in the top of our basin and we agreed that the next morning we would head up to the same sage hill that I had glassed my buck from. We set up just before sun up and immediately started seeing bucks all over the top o the basin, 8 in total ( 3 -4x4's, a 4x3, 2- 3x3's and 2 -2x2's). My favorite was probably one of the 2x2's. He had large deep forks, but no fronts. His backs were probably the biggest out of the group, but apparently he got the short end of the genetic stick. We watched for 3 hours as they all meandered around and made their way up to their beds for the morning. On the way up a 3x3 and the 4x3 decided to do some light sparring. The biggest 4x4 saw the action and decided that he wanted in on the action, but the two smaller bucks wanted nothing to do with him.... That morning was probably the single most enjoyable morning I have ever had hunting. The weather was perfect, the bucks were everywhere and I was with a great friend that I don't get to see much anymore.Once the bucks were all in their beds we snuck off our hill and headed back to camp. I went down to check on the meat and it had ice crystals on it from the night before.... Perfect! Cory and I waited around until 4 P.M. at which point he decided he was going to sneak up to tree line a few hundred yards below where one of the 4x4's bedded. At around 5 p.m. I headed over to the spot I had sat the night before to see if I could spot them coming out of there beds. I no sooner sat down and I heard shot ring out from the top of the canyon followed by a celebratory scream from Cory. I headed up to where I knew he was and found out he had taken one of the 4x4's we had watched that morning. He told me that he set up in small gap in the treeline and about 5 minutes later he saw the buck step out to start feeding. He settled in and shot him literally steps away from where he had bedded for the day. We cut up that deer as the light faded from the canyon and headed back to camp knowing that tomorrow morning was absolutely going to blow!
We woke up the next morning about an hour before light and packed up all of our gear hoping to cover as much ground as possible before we reached the heat of the day. After grabbing the meat from my mountain creek cooler we started the long hike back to the truck. 7.5 miles with a pack that weighed 113 lbs. The first few miles sucked but were reasonable. Unfortunately, that is where we hit all the creek crossings. On one of the crossings, I planted my hiking pole in the center of the stream and tried to step to another rock just below the surface. I pressed down so hard on the pole that it literally flared out in the center of the pole and crushed down like a pop can. Face first I went in a 12" deep creek with a 113 lb pack on my back. We stopped after that, ate some food and dried out my boots as best I could. A couple creek crossings later we decided to take off our boots, throw them to the other side and walk across barefoot. Cory went first and then threw me one of his poles so that I could have better stability during the stream crossing. I made it across the creek just fine, but when I was stepping up out of the stream I made the same mistake. I pushed down as hard as I could on Cory's hiking pole and it snapped under my weight.Luckily, I was almost completely out of the water as I fell to the ground. I laid there on that creek bank for about 5 minutes unable to lift the weight of the pack, but not really making an effort to stand since my body was actually resting. After eating and refilling with water we head off for the final 3 miles. With about 1 12/ miles left we bent over to take a "break". It was easier to rest while standing up than to sit down and risk not being able to get to your feet again. At that moment we heard some voice from behind us and realized that my brother (Bob) and his camp partner ( Shane) were right behind us. They had shot a 3x3 the afternoon before at exactly the same time and decided that they would claim it as "their" deer and head on out. After exchanging pleasantries for a few minutes, we agreed that they should go ahead, drop their gear at the truck and meet up with us as we were gong a much slower pace with ~ 35 more pounds per pack. Seeing them rejuvenated us a bit and we kept on working our way down the trail. With about 1/2 mile left we met back up with them as they had come back to help us out. Cory and I decided that we had come this far and that we were going to finish taking these bucks off the mountain ourselves. As we neared the parking lot, we could see the truck about 100 yards ahead of us. Instinctively, our competitiveness kicked in and we both started "running" to the truck. We must have looked pretty special as we waddled those last 100 yards. As I covered the last 10 yards I broke out in laughter, which unexpectedly turned to tears. I'm not the kind of person to show emotion easily, but the mixture of happiness and pure exhaustion resulted in me breaking down into tears. It was a moment I will never, ever forget. After I collected myself, I sat down and untied the rack from my pack and for the first time I got a picture of me with this buck.
What an amazing experience!
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