Opening day, which was a week ago, dawned something less than bright and cheery. In fact, it was yucky. That's a technical term for cloudy, overcast, windy, been raining off and on for several days type weather. This day was no exception. We left the pickup about 7:45 to walk down Pierce Gulch in search of the wiley muley. We did manage to see a doe and fawn before it started to rain...
Clint was trying to get over a cold. He called me on the radio and told me he really didn't want to get soaking wet and get sick again, and that we probably should bail out and go home. We had been kicking the idea around of going to Nampa to see that new western movie, Appaloosa, and the rain looked like a good excuse. I needed to go to Costco anyway. The movie was great....
The next morning we started hiking down at creek level, headed for the top of the ridge between Sisley Creek and Quartz. We hit an old ditch line that would take us quite a ways without having to do a lot of climbing. Just before we rounded the hill into the Peach Orchard Draw, a shooter buck showed up across the canyon. He really wanted to come down the hill and cross the creek to our side, but the neighbor's pickup was parked at the cattle guard, so eventually the buck stayed on his own side and went out of sight with some does and fawns...
As we climbed up the draw, we bumped a couple of does and fawns out, but nothing with horns. We split up and Clint graded around to the trough while I climbed up to check a promising pocket which turned out to be unoccupied. I stayed at that level and went around to the top of the next ridge to wait for Clint. Once we got together we climbed up to the top and stopped for a snack break...
The next draw has a trough in it too. We climbed up the old road to the top and started grading around. There were some does and fawns in the head of that draw and what turned out to be a shooter buck. Clint dropped down and got tucked in behind my shooting sticks just as the buck decided to leave for parts unknown, so Clint didn't get a shot. We followed the deer's tracks for quite a ways but never did catch up with them so we decided to head back to the pickup and go get some lunch...
Clint had class the next day, so I went up in the timber by myself. I didn't see much for deer, but I did see lots of bear poop, and the bunch of elk that my niece's husband saw during archery season. The bull he missed was still with them. He's a pretty bugger. His horns aren't super tall, but really wide. I might have gotten a picture if I had remembered that I had a camera with me...
On the way back to the bike I was playing with the timer on the camera I finally remembered that I had in my pocket and snapped a picture of some sort of strange creature packing binoculars and a huge pistola...
So last Saturday was Clint's birthday. The wind was howling, and it was cold, but we were going hunting anyway. He was supposed to be there 7ish and finally made it at 7:30ish. By the time I got organized and we got going, we got to the top of the ridge where we'd seen the buck last weekend about 8ish. My plan was to walk the downwind side of the ridge where the sun would be shining, figuring the deer would be where it was warm. That's where I'd be if I was a deer. Of course my past record doesn't really indicate that I know how deer think, although I have helped Clint fill 4 tags out of the five he's drawn over the years...
We parked the bikes at the top of the ridge in a frigid hurricane and beat feet down the side of the ridge far enough to get out of the wind. The first pocket we glassed had a couple of does, a fawn, and a spike buck with horns about four inches long lounging around in it. There was no way I was going to pack something that tiny out of that hole, even though it would have been a relatively easy pack. I figured that if we were gonna have to haul it up, it might as well have some size to it...
The next pocket looked empty at first glance. I was looking uphill and was just about to take a step when Clint started going "Dad! Dad! Dad!" in a loud whisper. When I looked at him, he was pointing down into a little brush-covered bench below us. There were some deer bedded down there, then in the binoculars I found one that wasn't bedded but had its head down in the bushes browsing. Then it picked its head up...
"That one's a buck! Can you see it? Do you want the stick?" I have a two piece walking stick that I made that converts into shooting sticks that I've been carrying lately. He took the stick and braced his .308 on it, waiting for a shot. It was about 75 yards real steep downhill. The buck had moved into the brush with just his head showing and Clint wanted a body shot. Then the buck stepped out and the rifle boomed. Even with my fingers in my ears I could hear the bullet smack, and the deer went part way down and stayed there for a minute, then started to walk, very slowly...
My philosophy, which I've taught Clint, is that if you hit it and it doesn't go down, you shoot until it stops moving. His second shot was with the buck moving straight away down the hill. He was trying to shoot it in the neck instead of the butt and he just barely missed to one side. Third shot clipped a horn, and the last shot broke the buck's neck. The Good Lord was looking out for us, because the buck went down on the last place he could go down before he started rolling to the bottom of a very deep canyon...
Clint with his deer...
We parked the bikes at the top of the ridge in a frigid hurricane and beat feet down the side of the ridge far enough to get out of the wind. The first pocket we glassed had a couple of does, a fawn, and a spike buck with horns about four inches long lounging around in it. There was no way I was going to pack something that tiny out of that hole, even though it would have been a relatively easy pack. I figured that if we were gonna have to haul it up, it might as well have some size to it...
The next pocket looked empty at first glance. I was looking uphill and was just about to take a step when Clint started going "Dad! Dad! Dad!" in a loud whisper. When I looked at him, he was pointing down into a little brush-covered bench below us. There were some deer bedded down there, then in the binoculars I found one that wasn't bedded but had its head down in the bushes browsing. Then it picked its head up...
"That one's a buck! Can you see it? Do you want the stick?" I have a two piece walking stick that I made that converts into shooting sticks that I've been carrying lately. He took the stick and braced his .308 on it, waiting for a shot. It was about 75 yards real steep downhill. The buck had moved into the brush with just his head showing and Clint wanted a body shot. Then the buck stepped out and the rifle boomed. Even with my fingers in my ears I could hear the bullet smack, and the deer went part way down and stayed there for a minute, then started to walk, very slowly...
My philosophy, which I've taught Clint, is that if you hit it and it doesn't go down, you shoot until it stops moving. His second shot was with the buck moving straight away down the hill. He was trying to shoot it in the neck instead of the butt and he just barely missed to one side. Third shot clipped a horn, and the last shot broke the buck's neck. The Good Lord was looking out for us, because the buck went down on the last place he could go down before he started rolling to the bottom of a very deep canyon...
Clint with his deer...
It's a nice fat three point, estimated live weight 175 pounds. We found his first bullet under the hide just behind the left front leg. He was shooting some of my handloads, which are super accurate out of Clin'ts .308, and they pack quite a wallop. The cool part of this whole thing was that I was able to get the bike to where we only had to pack the buck about 50 yards. I left Clint to gut it and climbed back up and got the bike, we tied the buck on the front rack, and away we went...
This is the Japanese packhorse with the deer on the front rack. It's Susan's bike, and she was nice enough to have the rear trunk stuffed with bungie cords. Of course Clint had to give it a bath once we got the deer skinned. There were a few red streaks here and there that showed up really well against the yellow of the bike...
Clint seemed to think this was a pretty good birthday present...
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