Real quickly I'll say that I drew this same tag 4 years ago and battled the fog almost the entire time I was up there. It was extremely frustrating, especially since one of the most effective ways of hunting around there is to cover as much ground as possible and glass, glass, glass. Makes it kinda tough in the fog.
Anyway....took off Saturday afternoon the 1st, loaded up for at least until the following Saturday. Sunday morning was foggy but still had some visiablity and ended up passing on a 160" 4x4 first hour into the hunt....7:30am. Had him at less than a hundred yrds. and just couldn't get myself to pull the trigger. Beautiful lookin' buck....I thought I must be crazy.
Then almost immediately the fog came rolling in even thicker. Pretty much socked me in for the rest of the day. Ya...I continued hunting and even saw some deer, does and smaller bucks, but it sucked!
Next day, Monday, Foggy and rainy all day! Saw a handful of little 2pts. and a bunch of does. Poured all night that night....and woke up and realized I was now camped right at the snow level. Hunted low below snow line Tuesday morning. Saw some smaller bucks again, but nothing real big. Deer were not moving like I thought they would be. Hit the snow up high in the afternoon and saw a 20" 3pt, 18" 3x4 and five or six 2pts.
Came back to camp and my cousin who had been with me had some work issue come up and had to take off. So after a quick bite to eat I headed back out for the last hour or two off light. Didn't see anything but a couple doe and right as it was getting dusk I glassed up what looked like a smoker buck lookin' right at me from about 250yds. away. Through the nocs I could see his rack was well outside his ears and tall, just couldn't tell if he was a 3 or 4 or what. It was literally getting darker by the second. I decided my only chance was to come around a little corner and try and cut off a hundred yrds. or so. As I did, I looked down and a hundred yards below me there he stood looking away, and all I could make out in the nocs was a big 4 on one side. Thinking he was as wide as I thought and now minutes away from legal shooting light I hammered him.
As soon as I was able to get to a phone I called my cousin and said turn around. He was a little over an hour out, so it gave me time to get back to the truck and grab a head lamp and some other things I thought I might need and get the buck cleaned up and ready for the pack up the hill. We ended up having to cut him in half to get him out. Thought about quartering him, but half worked. Big bodied deer no doubt.
Anyway....here a few pics. I never really got a chance to take any good pictures of the country.
And of course my pics with the buck are in the dark....again (Killed a Bull in MT. last year and had all pics in the dark) Oh well. He is not nearly as wide as I thought he was in the low light, but a good buck either way.
Definitely one of the most symmetrical bucks I've ever seen....let alone taken.
One last parting shot when I finally got him back.
Got home a couple days early, makes the wife happy. Now it's off the Montana in a week or so to fill one more Deer tag.
