Tags notched in two states! What a great season!

[hirshey]

Excited by my tall tales of the day, my mother decided to accompany me for another early morning attempt at the same hillside. We arrived at the frost-covered trail and got after it with the promise of what could be an exciting day.

We covered over 5 miles by mid-day and had shared smiles with each other at the melted out deer beds we'd been seeing all morning, as well as all the mushrooms that had been demolished by these crazy deer.. but where were the critters? We snuck over this razorback ridgeline and our hearts sank; bright orange vests and two folks enjoying the sunshine were all we were met with. We tiptoed back over the hill, hit a subdraw, and headed out of their hunting area. We found another little ridgeline headed back towards the vehicle and started slowly working our way back.

[Widgeondeke]

So far so good.
Can't wait for the rest of the story

[hirshey]

At this point (a point we've all been at and most likely regretted) we were losing focus; as we traversed a small sidehill section under some douglas firs, we were careless about our foot placement and crunched a few cones. The hillside below us turned to chaos; three to five deer we never got to see tore down the drainage. We gave them about five minutes to calm down, got on the tracks and started our pursuit. The tracks hit an old decommissioned road and we lost them. Discouraged but not defeated, we hit the road and followed it down a switchback hoping the animals held up in the land between the two roads. Silently stalking down the road, we stopped, listened, and glassed each drainage we arrived at to no avail. The road started to carve deep into the hillside making it impossible to glass the upper valley, so we climbed high and sat down to listen. No luck.

We stood up and moved only about 100 feet from our resting area when a small gap in the timber betrayed that beautiful white face; I froze. He froze. Slowly, I pulled up my binoculars... he was a buck, but no eyeguards and I could only see two points on each side due to the lighting and timber. We stood in stalemate for what seemed like ages. Finally, he turned his head and revealed his four-point rack. I looked at my mom, nodded, and pulled up my rifle as she plugged her ears.

The shot rang out; the buck kicked... the rest is history. My mother and I had completed the cycle; we boned out my deer and hiked him out to the harvest moon. I smiled, looked at her in the headlamp and said "MEN? We don't need no stinkin' MEN!" 

What a fortunate daughter I am to be able to share such amazing adventures with my mom.

[hirshey]

[hirshey]

Now, for Idaho...

I had gone last season and enjoyed the wild, cold, challenging hunting that Idaho had to offer; I really wanted to go again. I bought my tag only to find out the folks I went with last year wanted a guy's trip... well, since I have ladyparts that meant I was the odd one out! A member of this site and someone I had started to shed hunt/build a friendship with (Co) stepped up and said he'd try to fill a tag with me.

So here we had it; two sort-of friends headed to Idaho for a freezing, steep, tempestuous hunting environment. Should be interesting, right? 

[Widgeondeke]

Nice muley buck 

Keep it coming

[hirshey]

Well, the season rolled around and with two seasoned backcountry hunters and a little planning, we had a pretty bomb-proof gear and food list for our 10 days in the wilds of Idaho.

The first day, we arrived and set up camp. Due to weather and traveling conditions, a good portion of the day had been burned by the time we were set up, so we decided to hike the hill behind our living quarters and get a good orientation of the landscape. The short hike proved fruitful; we were spotting bucks and finding some good holding areas... it was going to be hard to get any sort of sleep with the promise of what tomorrow held!

We pulled anchor before sunrise and headed out together on the frosty trail. We had decided on the rule that "(s)he who spots it, gets to decide if they want to shoot it" so spent plentiful time glassing each hillside and picking apart any critters we were finding. At noon, we sat down to enjoy some "breakfast" before the daunting task of gaining some serious elevation on a sandy hillside... the kind of hillside where you take one step up and slide 3/4 of the way back down. As we started to tackle the hillside, I looked up to see a lone animal working across the hillside above us. I pulled my binoculars up and exclaimed "Buck! A good one..." Co and I steadied ourselves and watched as a beautiful mainframe 4x4 worked across the hillside.. he looked like he had a kicker but was gone too fast to be sure.

[h2ofowlr]

Nice work.  I don't see to many gals out in the field, but always cool when I do.

[hirshey]

We both agreed he was good enough to take a second look at, but he was about 800 feet in elevation above us (in that sandy, rocky crud) and on the move.. we weren't sure if we'd ever catch up to him.

The last terrain feature he'd worked past was a rock outcropping.. we agreed to work up to that and see if we couldn't get lucky.

What seemed like hours later, we arrived at the rock outcropping and slowly snuck under it to a small bush. We glassed fruitlessly.. slightly discouraged at the buck's disappearance.

Then, Co nudged me and whispered "Kari! Your buck!" Two does and the heavy-horned mule deer had worked out of a small stitch in the hillside back in to view roughly 200 yards away. He grabbed the rangefinder. "214".

I tried to make it to a rock feature to use as a rest, but the "sandy" hillside was slippery rock... "shhhh" Co urged. "Freeze".  The rock outcropping was out of the question, so I had to make due.

My .243 is sighted in for 200... I squeezed the trigger and saw stars; I had scoped myself AND shot over his back. The mature buck and his two gals didn't know where the shot had come from; they ran closer..

This time, I connected, and after a little more to-do, my buck stopped rolling right before a rock cliff... my up-close introduction of my beautiful trophy looked like this:

[hirshey]

A handful of hours, a small snowstorm, two heavy packs and 4 miles later we were back at camp with our first tag notched. Now it was Co's turn.

[hirshey]

[hirshey]

[hirshey]

The next day, we set out with the same goal in mind; tackling the ridgeline we'd taken a detour from to harvest my buck. Roughly a half mile up the ridge, Co spotted a bedded buck; we put the spotting scope on him and looked at him for well over an hour trying to decide if he was a shooter... he was right on the edge, but because it was only the second day of the hunt and there was plenty of daylight left, we left him in the basin as he lay. Throughout the day, we spotted many other bucks, but just not THE buck. Heading back to the tent by headlamp, we discussed a strategy for the following day and put it into action.

That night was cloudy, frosty, and cold; the day was looking good for deer activity. Although the air was sharp, we quickly worked up a sweat trudging up the frozen, compacted slopes. Just as we crested the most laborious portion of the hill we encountered two other hunters; excited about a close encounter with the 4 point buck we'd let lay two days prior (a buck Co hadn't quite forgiven himself for letting go )

Due to those hunters' plans, we altered our route and headed straight up the mountain to put some distance between us.. putting us on a steep, hazardous, timbered north slope.

[haugenna]

Nice bucks and great story.

I see you are not married to a brand 

Kuiu Pack, Sitka Jacket, First Lite base layer.  All good gear. 

[RB]

Awesome pictures and cool stories!