Well my partner and I headed down to central Idaho Sunday and hiked into a spot we picked on Google earth, ready to give it hell all week looking for a couple big muleys. After a day in there and only turning up 4 does and 9 bull elk we were starting to question our area. We probably should have stayed and gave it more time but decided to try to find more deer, in better numbers. The next few days consisted of heavy wind and small bucks. I had set a 160" goal until Thursday, then decide on what to shoot based on what we were seeing.
Thursday rolls around and the storm rolls in. Starts raining and makes visibility very tough. Not much out. We grind it out. It then starts dumping snow on us in the high country and can't see 40yds. We decide to bail and look around in the lower country. We couldn't find much. That night we rented a motel room, showered and had a real meal, not a mountain house
and a Good night sleep. We had discussed our game plan for Friday. We decided to try one more time up where we got snowed out just in case it might have cleared up. We drove up the mountain as it was getting light we arrived at the trail head. Pouring rain and foggy! Not ideal for glassing up bucks. We decided to pull the plug, take a long drive to different country and look for whitetails for the rest of Friday, and Saturday. Our last couple days to hunt. I had already passed 11 mule deer bucks up, so now wasn't going to be to picky with what I shot.
We got into the area we were thinking of and pulled out the GPS with onx maps chip and hit the gravel road. The map showed a small chunk of blm so we pulled over and started glassing. Instantly turned up a whitetail buck bedded. Game on! One thing was confusing, some of the fence posts were painted orange off the road, clearly on the blm land the GPS showed. We were very confused, and didn't want any trouble. We decided to drive back and up to service to call idaho fish and game. We explained the situation, and they transferred us to blm. We gave the coordinates and the guy looked it up. Said we were good to go! he checked one more thing, to see if the land had recently sold and it had not. He told us to go kill the buck. Off we went.
We got to the spot, glassed again. This time the buck was up and sparring with another buck! Maybe we would both get one. Up the hill we went and crested into the little bowl. There they were, about 150yds out. That is all she wrote! Whitetail buck double! My partners 1st whitetail at that. They aren't much for size, and not the big mule deer we had came to idaho for, but what a humbling experience, and we were greatful to fill our tags. My partner with a 5x5 and me with a 4x4. We quartered them up and packed our bucks off the hill on one trip. That hill was brutal!
