This past application period I decided to quit applying for mule deer hunts and try to draw a less sought after late blacktail tag. I made this decision due to the poor mule deer numbers and the fact that I'm turning 50 this year. I told my son my plan and he chose to apply with me. Well sure enough, we drew our tags! I was very happy I was going to be able to hunt high country bucks in full rut. We talked about it all summer. No need for scouting or planning for I knew right where I wanted to be. The only hard decision was if we should hunt the early high hunt and then the general season hunt before our late hunt started. We decided we should mostly to get into good mountain shape.
This is when things went sideways fast. Out of nowhere I blew a disc in my lower back requiring surgery. The disc was pressed against a nerve eliminating the feeling in my left leg from my knee to my ankle. Praise the Lord I still had full use of my ankle and 25% of my knee. Both early hunts were out of the question now and so was the high country for my late hunt. The tricky part now was to keep this info to myself. There is another local hunter who knows where I hunt and I feel would "sneak" into there if he knew I wouldn't be there.
My son decided to skip the high hunt and hunt mid-range for general. It was very tough not going with him! He passed a couple of bucks up and that season ended with him still having a tag. I was surprised because he hunted almost every day. I took the whole late season off from work and was just starting to feel healed enough to get out. (ish) Since we had the Weyerhauser permit we decided to hunt the higher elevation clearcuts as my son had killed a dandy there a couple years ago.
The first couple of days were pretty slow with warm weather and only 1 deer sighting. My son did find a nice 5 pt elk shed however. His first.
