Introspect and Imagery: Mule Deer Hunting Fall 2016

Our deer hunt went pretty dang quick. You know how it goes, many years you can go hunting and either not see a single thing to shoot or get mighty few opportunities. Last year I did not see a single buck the entire time I went hunting. This year was different. We did not see any does this time.

On Mt. Harrison looking North toward the Magic Valley. I'm angled approximately toward where I grew up in Rupert. This is just with my iphone. Its lame I didn't even bring a nice point and shoot camera. As good as an Iphone is, it doesn't compare to any of my other cameras. Bummer because up here I could have had some phenomenal scenic shots with the clouds and landscape.

It had taken 3 years to draw this particular hunt. It started out with me and Hugh showing up at dad's house Tuesday night, Oct. 4. After work I drove to Hugh's house and picked him up and we got to Elba way late. We made a plan to get up and take the ATV's up through his neighbor's land and onto the slope of the mountain about due west of his house. We got up before dark, ate breakfast and jumped in the Wildkat and Mule. Hugh rode with dad ahead of me in the Mule down the highway toward Elba. Typically the Mule doesn't go super fast, and so just as we started to turn left off the highway a white car passed us going really fast. Like so fast that I had looked in my mirror and seen nobody, looked down at my gears, shifted my gun and started drifting over to the center getting ready to turn. WHOOOOSH!! The white scar shot right by me and really startled me. Dad was turning and he had just about turned into the car. Hugh had yelled look out by screaming like a girl, which alerted dad just in time to not swerve into it. It really startled me because it had only been seconds since I looked into the mirror. I bet he was doing 80 or 90.

We crossed the road and stopped to count our blessings and breath because that had been really close. We then started to meander up the two-track dirt road to the west and up the side of the slope before the mountain. Dad and Hugh were still ahead of me and I was looking up at the base of the mountain at a tan pickup truck that was parked up there. I wondered how they had gotten up there. As I was pondering that thought I caught some movement below and to the left of the truck about 100 yards. I stopped and threw up the binoculars. HUGE! I saw a huge rack of horns. I started panicking because dad and Hugh were still going and by now were quite aways ahead of me. I thought they were going to spook the buck. I jammed the pedal to the floor and went tearing up behind them and as soon as I could get around and wave them down I did. The sagebrush was so big it was hard to catch them and get their attention.

We all stopped and we looked the deer over with the binocs. We decided we could probably stalk up toward it. Un-beknownst to us there were several bucks in that group. We just happened to see the biggest one first. I couldn't understand why he hadn't taken off yet. Big bucks are supposed to be some of the smartest creatures. And they were not far from a pickup where obviously some hunters had parked it. Anyway me and Hugh started walking up keeping the junipers in between us and the deer. They were moving off to the south while feeding and we were heading west toward them until we realized they were going south. We slowly worked through the junipers and sagebrush until we were going south as well. We would see a few tracks and at one point we saw horns over the sage brush about 50 yards away but couldn't get a shot. I kept thinking this was the dumbest big buck ever because we were that close and he had no idea we were there. Turns out I was wrong in thinking he was dumb.

For awhile we didn't see or hear anything as we continued south. We got to the top of a small draw and from that vantage I was sure we would see the deer down below but we saw nothing. We waited and watched and then I went forward about 50 yards still wondering why I didn't see anything. Hugh had hung back and was watching something else I think. I went forward a little more and then heard a stick crack. I looked behind me and about 40 feet behind me Hugh was saying "oops". I turned back around to forward and I saw a bunch of horns sticking up over the sagebrush as the deer had heard the sound and had their heads up listening. I didn't realize the sagebrush was so tall that it covered the bodies and we were a lot closer to them than we thought.

We moved a little bit more down and cleared the sagebrush and found that we were looking at about 4 bucks, all nice sized. I threw up the gun and shot at the first one. After the shot he disappeared and I thought I had missed him clean. For a few minutes there were no deer and then BAM! Hugh shot right next to my ear. I was like "what are you shooting at?" and he pointed to some deer on a sidehill to the west of us and on the other side of the draw. He shot again. About that time another buck showed up to the south across the draw which I am sure was with the first group of bucks and had a heavier set of horns. It looked like the same one I had shot at. I threw up my gun and shot. I heard the solid thud that time and knew I had hit him. He went running off as fast as a deer can go. Hugh was setting up to shoot again and I was like "whoa, lets stop for a sec and make sure we didn't shoot the entire herd." There were two really nice bucks standing at the top of the hill which we had not seen before. It was hard not to shoot because they were probably bigger than the ones we had shot. There was also a really nice big two point down lower than them looking at us like we were weirdos.

Hugh's

Mine

We go down to look and I crossed a fence and before long found one down under a juniper. It was a nice tall 3x4 which Hugh had shot. I yelled at Hugh and then he found dad while I went to look for the one I had shot that ran off. Pretty soon I found a blood trail and followed it along. He had ran about 75-100 yards and then collapsed in some dense junipers thinking he could hide. He was still somewhat alive and made a lunge so I shot him in the neck. His lunge took him to a road and he dropped right on it. How lucky was that? Two nice bucks and one right on a road and the other close enough to hook the winch to it and pull it up. That was the road that other pickup must have come in on.

As I'm walking back to where dad and Hugh were, I saw the really big buck that I had seen right at the beginning. He was about north and west of where we had been shooting. He was standing out in the open looking at us and was quite a bit higher around 700 yards away. He had a couple smaller bucks around him, that looked tiny, but in actuality were the same size as the ones me and Hugh had shot. The two big bucks that we saw at the top of the hill were heading to join him and even they looked small compared to him. He looked at me and I looked at him. He looked a little smirky and smart-alecky. I then knew he had led us into this group of smaller bucks to throw us off his trail. I guess he didn't mind they got shot and not himself. Knowing he was safe, he then started to mosey up the hill toward the canyon with the other bucks following him. They all took their time and then I saw them all hop a fence one by one in typical mule deer fashion. Quite a pretty sight!, and I wish I'd had a camera with a long lens. They went up a little further and disappeared into the trees before the canyon and disappeared out of our lives. Those guys with the truck were up on the mountain above that canyon and we found out later that they had not seen a single deer. Dang these deer are smart.

Dad was over there by then and had gotten one down on the other hill. It turned out to be that big two-point that was looking at us like weirdos. He was the dumb one and didn't run. All those other bucks were learning what to do from the big guy but this one didn't pay attention. I guess we were to interesting being weird.

Dad and Hugh were currently pulling Hugh's deer up the side of the mountain with a long rope and his winch so they could get it through the fence and then clean it. I asked them if they had seen that really big buck at the end and they had not.

I've never had a hunt go like that. We now had 2-3 days of just relaxing. It's usually a lot of hiking and busting through brush creating a lot of sore muscles. We have been rewarded mostly, but its usually the last day we are there and at the last light so we are taking care of them and taking them out at night. I think it was for that reason we were so quick to shoot at the first nice set of antlers. Had we been a little more patient and not blasted away right at the beginning we would have eventually seen most of the bigger bucks and could have had even bigger.

Not to belittle these bucks, they were all heavy, even the dumb two-point. We decided to take them down to Burley to a guy who processes wild game. We were supposed to hang up our own deer in the cooler. We had a heck of a time getting them up on the hooks. In comparison to all the other deer in the locker hanging up already, ours were considerably larger. We all got a lot of good meat which may be a benefit of not shooting something bigger. The larger deer seem to not be as good eating.

Hugh

Mine all roped up on back of the little space in my wildkat

Dad and the big 2 point

Behind dad's house and the mountain we had just hunted. We got our deer on the bare mountain slope on the right that you can see between the junipers.

Since we now had a lot of time, me and Hugh decided to relax and explore a little after taking our deer to Burley. We decided to go up to Lake Cleveland and Mt. Harrison to see if we could find a couple rocks to put in our garden. We mostly drove up and down Mt. Harrison. Lake Cleveland was quite low. The funny thing is as we are up on top of Mt. Harrison and just starting down, a car is coming up. I recognized the hair of Lola Nelson in the passenger seat. They didn't notice us and so I started backing up the hill. The only problem was I had the trailer on that we had hauled the deer into town with. The road was so narrow and I was in a weird spot that I couldn't really back up very far. Joan still didn't realize who it was and was starting to drive down the other road to get out. I had to get out and run and flag them down. It was really a funny coincidence.