Last year, my oldest son and I went to a place in the Umtanum unit I hadn't hunted since 2004. Due to schedule conflicts, we weren't able to go until the last 4 days of the season. We saw a lot of deer, but no legal bucks. We thought maybe opening weekend would be better, so we decided to go to the same area again this year.
The plan was to walk in the dark for about 45 minutes to get in position by shooting time. We were discouraged though to see 2 trucks already at our parking spot before we arrived. We decided to stick with our plan though, with my son hiking up one canyon while I hiked up the next canyon over. Just before 8:00 I hear some shots from the direction my son went. A few minutes later he called me on the radio to say he shot a buck!!! This is his first kill without me next to him, so I was very excited and proud! After checking out 2 groups of deer in my canyon and seeing no bucks, I started making my way over to my son to help out.
I finally crest the ridge to the canyon my son is in and spot him on the other side. Then I continue working over his way. I stop to glass in the bottom of the canyon and spot some deer. I radio my son to tell him I spotted a buck but wasn't sure if he was legal. While I am working my way closer, the buck disappears in the brush, but I can still see the 2 does. The wind is at my back though, and they scent me and take off. I lose sight of the does and still can't find where the buck went. Then I spot him off to my left making his way up the other side. After determining he was legal, I was able to make the 300 yard shot count! Amazingly, by 9:30 we had both filled our tags! And even though we started hunting seperate canyons, our bucks died about 150 yards from one another and about 90 minutes apart.
Of course then the work began (after some pictures)! We finally got both deer back to the truck by 6:20.
