The drive home after the blizzard trip was spent planning the next hunt. I decided I would take the Friday off before Thanksgiving making it a four day weekend. I could spend most of Friday, all of Saturday, and a good portion of Sunday hunting mule deer on my favourite mountain. And I can still roast up the wild turkey I shot in the spring for Thanksgiving supper on Monday. Wednesday I get all my gear packed and checked over for the early start.
I manage to get away early and have camp all squared away by 9:30am. Once again I had hiked in during the summer to cut and collect firewood. It sure is nice to have a supply of dry wood already to go when I get into camp. I don't get dirty and waste precious hunting time. While brewing a cup of tea I contemplate what to do for the day. There hadn't been any other vehicles at the trailhead so I almost certainly had the whole mountain to myself.
It is bluebird day, hardly a cloud to be seen, cool in the shade and warm in the sun. The perfect day to slowly make my way across the mountain, stopping and glassing the surrounding slopes and ridgelines.
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I decide to let the wind dictate how the day unfolds. Headed out of camp with a steady breeze on my left shoulder I hike to nearby cut block that gives me long views in three directions. Further than I could shoot to but lots of ground to pick apart with my binoculars and spotting scope.
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I spend the better part of three hours glassing from this vantage point. I have my lunch, drink more tea, I may have dozed off once or twice sitting there in the sun. Something I find myself doing more and more often with turning fifty in a couple of weeks. Every time I do I just know a big mature mule deer buck saunters by. Every time. Eventually the rising thermals cause the wind to switch, I can now feel it on the back of my neck. Time to move on, I've been anticipating the change for a while now so I have an idea of where I might end up next. I decide to head uphill with the wind now on my right, I'll be cutting across the bottom of one block and the top of another. The wind won't be ideal for the first but perfect for the second.
A couple of hours later finds me slowly dropping down a finger ridge headed for my favourite glassing point overlooking a sunny bedding area. Impenetrable alders blocking the prevailing winds, protected from the nasty nor'easter, it's a much sought after bench. It's also very hard to approach, you're in close by the time you can see into it, it's impossible to glass from any distance, I have sent a number of deer bouncing out of there. I've also shot deer on it.
As I'm dropping down the ridge I'm constantly pausing to glass as the block unfolds around me. Every few steps seems to open up new views. On one of these pauses a two point appears to the east 50m or so, we do the mule deer stare down until he loses interest and moves on. Uphill thankfully. I really slow down now because I should soon be able to see down onto this bench. My first glimpse of this small bowl immediately reveals antlers. A legal four point, he's younger, not a mature buck but still a legal four point dozing less than 80m away.
The slope is such that I just have to lean back into the hill to carefully slide off my pack, keeping my rifle in one hand and my shooting stick in the other. I ease back up and over the crest of the ridge and take another look. He's definitely legal and I don't normally pass, but I have most of two full days yet in this hunt and almost a month to go in the season. Plus there is meat still in the freezer. The shooting angle is not great from where I am anyhow. All I can see is a portion of his head(both antlers fully) and a sliver of his left front shoulder. I think if I can quietly shimmy my way down to the point of the finger ridge I'm on I should have a much better shot angle at and on more or less the same elevation as the bedded buck. If I don't spook him.
Luckily the recently melted snow dampened all the dry underbrush allowing me to fairly quietly crab walk and slide down the mountain trying to keep my head below the crest. I couldn't resist the temptation to check on him a couple of times, both times he was bedded in the same location and the shot angle just kept getting better. I reach the point of the ridge and for the final time I ease up over the crest keeping a small group of fir trees and a boulder between us for cover. Now is when I'll decide if I'm going to shoot or not.
He's moved!? The buck is now bedded facing away closer to the middle of the bench less than 60yds away. Plus from this angle he looks much bigger, his antlers are heavier and a lot darker. My adrenaline addled brain was too focused on one deer and not the chance that there may be two. I can't figure out why I would even consider passing on this buck. It has been such a perfect day I see no reason not to make it perfect hunt. In a twisted but comfortable prone position I watch the buck through my scope. Since this is mostly about the meat I wait a while to see if he will stand. I normally caution against head and neck shots but I quickly came to the conclusion that a neck shot would not only be ethical it was also the absolute best shot I was going to have on this deer. I'm prone, the buck is less than 60m away completely unaware of my existence. I drop the crosshairs to approximately half way down his neck. He never rose from his bed.
A second buck leaps up and I instantly had a little panic attack, did I just shoot the wrong deer? I did, sort of, the deer I first spotted couldn't be seen from where I was on the point but the second much larger buck could be. The first deer hangs around for a bit trying to figure out what that big bang was and why his soon to be rival wasn't getting up.
You can see the buck I shot in his bed still and the first deer in the upper right hand, just to the right of the pine tree.
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This is really just your average mule deer. Unless if you're like me and factor in the whole hunt. This will be a hard deer to beat. The day could not have been any better.
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A couple of things could have made it all a bit easier, best of all would have been if my hunting partner(and partner in a lot of mayhem) and friend for the past forty-four years was there. Or if it wasn't already 3:30pm. I had less than three hours before full dark and a hundred pounds of fresh meat in big bear country. I hurriedly took a bunch of pictures, got him cleaned up and by 5:00pm had him skidded the 600-700m down to the trail. By now I feel every hour I've been awake and every km I've hiked. I'm tired and I'm sore and the most nerve racking part is yet to come.
The sun is setting and I still have to get back to camp, break it all down and get it into my pack. There was no strategic placement of items into the pack, it was just get it in there and get going. In what feels like an impossibly short time I'm back to where I can see the deer again.I had taken the time to rig up an elaborate flagging warning device(a branch with 100m of flagging tape give or take and my sweaty long sleeve shirt) so I'd know if something was on the carcass. I study the deer and branch from a safe distance away, undisturbed. I was worried about that. I'm back at the deer by 6:15pm, the shadows are getting really long now. The sun is behind the mountains. It's going to be dark very soon.
Just on moonrise I have the deer somewhat precariously tied onto the cart. I make sure both headlamps and a spare set of batteries are accessible, throw on my pack, shoulder my rifle, check my bear spray for the fiftieth time, grab the cart handles and start singing.
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My singing is my best first line of predator deterrent. I have never seen a bear while I've been singing, in fact I've never seen anything while I've been singing. Solely due to my singing I make it down the mountain. The full moon was something to behold, I even turned off my headlamp a few times just to admire it. Almost immediately I could feel and hear the quiet things with claws and teeth begin to creep in closer. Amazing how such a small beam of light could be so powerful as to banish them into the dark, just out of the miniscule cone of light?
I was home by shortly before ten much to the surprise of my wife and daughter. I got the deer broken down and cooling in the shed just on midnight. Saturday morning was spent cleaning up the meat and getting it all into the old cotton pillow cases I use for game bags, ready for me to butcher on Monday.We got 89lbs of boned out meat.
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For those who are curious about some of the gear I used on these hunts; rifle Tikkka T3 Featherlite 270win shooting 150gr Fusions, scope Bushnell 3x9-40 Elite, tent MEC Spark2, sleeping bag MEC Draco -9C down, game cart Cabelas with a few modifications by me, boots Scarpa Kinesis GTX, binoculars Vortex range finding 10x42, Spotting scope Leupold compact, sleeping pad Thermarest Trail Lite, back pack Serratus(an old Canadian made pack I've been using for over twenty years). Clothing and raingear are just a mish mash of good quality hiking gear and sale item hunting stuff, some camo most just olives and browns.
This will be a hard hunt to top. It was as perfect a day hunting as I could ever wish for. It was a combination of the weather, the views, the smells, the beautiful hike in and the even more surreal hike out under the full moon. Every moment of every hour seemed to stand out and best of all I recognized it. I can't remember the last time I've been so relaxed.
Hope you enjoyed the reading of this lengthy tale I know I certainly enjoyed the making of it. Best of luck with the rest of your season and stay safe.
Mountain Mule Deer 2019 Chapter Two
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