It's been a week since my late mule deer hunt concluded in the Quilomene, and wanted to share what was an outstanding experience and some great memories for a lifetime.
After a moderate amount of scouting and familiarizing myself with the roads up in the area throughout Sept. and October, left Friday Nov. 9th with a couple best buds and a Dodge Dakota full of equipment, stopped in Cle Elum to borrow some things I don't own but thought I'd need to do this hunt right... THANKS to Rich for the quad and to Steve for the 300 short mag with the amazing long range scope! (Been hunting almost exclusively on the wet side for blacktail and elk all my adult life, and my Weatherby 270 magnum has a perfect scope for that country, NOT so great in the vastness of mule deer habitat..)
After spending too much money on too much grub at Safeway, we headed for the hills. Took Beacon Ridge road up through the wind turbines and found a decent camp site between Quilomene Ridge and the Colockum, set up camp as darkness fell, sat around the fire and talked strategy for the 3 day hunt to come. (my friends had to be back to work Tuesday, so 3 days was it for this first trip... if no luck I'd return as much as possible before the hunt ended on Nov. 20, but really wanted to connect during these three days)
That first night was COLD! 17 degrees and light snow fall. Awoke Saturday morning to a dusting of maybe an inch overnight, headed out for a day of lots of glassing and looking for a big buck track in the fresh snow. Hit Brushy, Quilomene Ridge, down towards the wind turbines, all over looking for deer. Long story short, that first day saw a total of 10 deer.. all does and fawns, no antlers whatsoever. Looked at lots of tracks, not one good big splayed track to be found...
Day two we covered some of the more wooded country bordering the Colockum and down towards Tekison, wondering if maybe our timing was off and the bucks weren't actively rutting. Those fears were laid to rest with the first forky sighting with a swollen neck and not a care in the world other than that little doe tail in front of him. Total sightings for day two were some 35 deer, a number of 2 pts (see last pic I included) and an average three point in the evening. MUCH more sign found in the wooded higher elevations today than in the lower sage yesterday. Very encouraged headed into day three to say the least!
The morning of day three dawned with LOTS of fresh snowfall! Maybe 8-10 inches up in camp. We piled into the truck and headed for where we'd seen the most deer, the plan being to locate some good tracks, do some slow creeps through the woods. Slowly made our way along Crossover road, we'd already seen some 10 deer including a decent forky by this time, and suddenly my best friend John said 'Hold it! Back up a little'.. I slowly reversed and John said 'right there... oh, that's a big bodied deer! That's a shooter buck, dude! I got out OF THE TRUCK, yes THE TRUCK and rest the rifle on the front glass and scoped out the deer I saw about 130 yds up hill in a crack in the deep woods.. after an entire adult life of looking at smaller blacktail bucks exclusively, what I saw left me
.... Not suffering from full blown buck fever, but definitely freaking out internally.. I counted four points and great width, and knew this was a definite shooter, vastly bigger than anything I'd seen so far. He's checking us out broadside, hanging with a doe and no signs of alarm. I took more than a few deep breaths to calm the shakes and racing heartbeat (if you don't get excited you shouldn't be hunting, but this was ridiculous) and focused in on his vitals and squeezed off a shot. John was watching through the binoculars and said that buck got totally flipped like he was hit by a linebacker. The buck gets to his feet and moves uphill left, obviously hurt bad. Kept an eye on my shooting lane, and told the guys to just hold tight for awhile and wait. Maybe 10 minutes later I had them head uphill to the spot I shot the buck... waiting for them to get to that spot seemed to take forever! Then Steve shouts 'He's right here, and he's down!' I head up the hill excited beyond words... I don't know about the rest of you but that first 'hands on' moment walking up on a decent buck or bull is the absolute best feeling.
As I approached the buck I could see how big the body was, and the huge swollen neck, but the head and antlers were buried in the snow. As I pulled his head up out of the snow, wow!
After taking some decent blacktail bucks over the years, but never anything close to this big boy, I WAS THRILLED beyond words!! While not a monster, 27" outside spread and a trophy in my book and all I could have dreamed to be fortunate enough to take. Shouts, hugs, and an embarrassingly easy drag out (sled ride more like) 150 yds downhill to the truck, and this hunt of my lifetime was in the books....
Many thanks to all who provided me some helpful advice regarding this hunt in my earlier post.. BIG THANKS to John for his amazing spotting, to Steve for his mapping and navigational wizardry, and Rich for suggesting I put the Quilomene as my application choice.
