A year's worth of planning, map reading, google drooling came to a screeching halt when work would only allow me to hunt the opener. I figured one day is better than zero days, and with that took what I was dealt and stuck to my original plans albeit ‘slightly’ curtailed. The 10 mile hike in was pleasant until mile 8 when it became slug fest to ‘climb’ to my destination. My hopes to be at camp by end of day 1 vanished and found myself nestled in a small patch of live timber and the only flat spot in a quarter mile. We broke camp the next morning to finish the half mile or so and bumped into two legal bucks (2x3 and 4x4) munching on grass without a care or concern that me and my buddy were 60 yards away watching them. I dug my rifle out of my pack, took off scope covers, and watched them through the scope for 3-5 minutes…not exactly what I wanted to encounter the day before the opener and less than a 1000 yards from camp! I let them feed off and proceeded to camp with thoughts of worry that I had spooked possibly the only bucks in that area. Opening day my worries seemed to be realized as nothing transpired between daybreak and noon. At which time I figured we’d still hunt back to camp get lunch and head back out for my ‘last chance’. I managed to walk a few hundred yards when a 2x2 busted from a patch of timber, he stopped 150 yards away confirming don’t shoot. Shrugged and thought that might have been my only chance and continued to still hunt to camp. Made it only 50 yards further and noticed some strange gray shapes in timber above me, a fraction of a second later my mind put the puzzle together and I realized I was staring at two deer at which point they busted from cover! I lost them briefly in the sparse stands of timber , I jogged a few yards to my left, until one stopped broadside 120 yards just out of the timber. My scope was filled with a typical 4x4 that stretched easily 4” beyond ear tips…I touched a shot off and watched in horror what probably would be a buck of a lifetime trot off unscathed with his buddy. Back at camp my freeze dried meal never tasted more horrible! My buddy tried to console me that I’m making progress since I had yet to shoot at anything…didn’t help much. With my only day to hunt quickly expiring I grabbed my pack and headed back out to my glassing position. Four hours passed and I moved off my rock to stretch when my buddy looks at me with eyes bulging from his sockets and whispers “don’t move a deer just walked out behind you!” I reply a buck?..he nods..I reply is he legal?…he nods again…he grabs my rifle resting on the rock above him hands it to me…I slowly turn and see a 3x3 just staring at us no more than 60 FEET away! Just as my crosshair lands on his shoulder he prances and turns around, I find his opposite shoulder just as his body is concealed by two small firs. I jump up run to the opposite side of the timber but fail to find him nor bump him later as we make our way back to camp and consequently my close of my 3rd high hunt. My sleep has been plagued with visions of that buck I missed, questions of whether I should have shot through the tree, and what if I had another day…I guess I have a year to ponder.
