I miss the old way of deer hunting.

[bigmacc]

Where are all the old school hunting pictures? Come on guys I know you got them, let’s see!

Well I can only speak for myself here but 4-5 years ago I posted 40 or so old camp pictures going back into the 30,s all the way up into the 2000,s, all old pictures of my family camp, I had a lot of help from my wife, daughter and grandkids since I'm pretty clueless with most technology these days. I found out after a few months(from some one on here) that a lot of my familys pictures were being copied, I had to get a grandkid over here to pull most of them off.

[bigmacc]

 
I think it was in the 90,s(could of been late 80,s?) my buddy and I were the last holdouts, neither of us had bucks yet and there were 4 or 5 days left, the weather had been mild but the forecast was for snow and cold temps coming soon. We had seen a few bucks but we had time and with the promise of weather we were optimistic the migration would kick in. The wind changed the next day and started coming out of the north, I remembered the temps dropping into the teens within an hour dropping from the high 40,s but still no snow, clear blue skies. Well we were hunting most at about 4-5000 feet elevation and we knew those temps were below zero up high and along with other factors could be just another kick in the butt to get the bucks excited. The next day we started seeing some small bunches of does and small bucks starting to move, 15-20 in a bunch which was a good sign, Mother Nature was whispering in their ears at this point that something bigger was on its way. The next day we were seeing even more on the move(I think we seen around 200 that next day) but still blue skies, low teens for temps and a steady wind coming straight out of the north. The third day after the change was crazy, we were seeing 2-3 hundred a day but all were does and yearling bucks then the evening before the last day the wind changed direction and during the night a front had moved in on top of the cold temps. We woke up to a little snow falling and just a dusting on the ground, it was the last day so we weren't gonna venture far. We made it out to our spot and by the time we got out there it was just turning light and we were in blizzard conditions with about 8-10 inches on the ground and still piling up. I was sitting on a spot this day where normally I had 2-400 yard visibility in most directions, today I had about 20 feet! It was dumping good, my partner was a few hundred yards away watching a different draw but it was coming down so hard I couldn't even tell what direction he was away from me, my bearings were all screwed up. I just sat there waiting for it to slow down so I could at least gain SOME visibility but It came down for another hour or so. I could hear deer bouncing, trotting and walking by me on all sides but could never see them, only once in awhile I would catch a glimpse of a shadow moving through, almost like ghosts. Well when it started to slow down there was an easy 15-16 inches on the ground, it finally stopped suddenly and I could see, what I did see was unreal to say the least. I looked slowly all around me just moving my head VERY SLOWLY and there were deer all around me, litterly hundreds moving, standing, walking all around me, I made a slow move for my rifle that was under a tree and one of them started the stampede. I flipped my scope covers off and whistled knowing at least a few of them would stop and be curious, sure enough a couple big bucks(a 4 by 4 and a 5 by 6 stopped and looked back, I dropped the 5 by 6 and within a minute I heard my partner shoot. We met up while we were getting the deer out and he had killed a big 3 by 3, we sat there for awhile and BS,d, he had the same experience, he couldn't see for an hour or so but could hear deer moving through and when the snow stopped, he was surrounded, he actually joked that he shot his in self defense , he said he felt threatened. Well we started dragging, one buck at a time. On the way out we were seeing deer running all around us with about 25-30 of those being bucks. About half way out we ran into an older lady sitting on a stump, she said she had just sat down, I looked across the draw and saw a big rack laying in the limbs of a deadfall, I but my binos on it and sure enough it was a big non typical bedded down. We showed here where it was but all she had was a 30-30 with no scope, the buck was about 220-250 yards away, I asked her if she was a good shot and if she did a lot of practicing, she said yes on both questions but did not feel comfortable shooting that far with her set up, I asked her if she would like to use my rifle(270 with scope), she said "Oh that would be nice", she got behind the stump, used it for a rest and after about a minute or so of getting comfortable she squeezed one off. We were watching with our glasses and seen the hair fly on its front shoulder, the heavy head tipped over into the limbs and there it layed, she handed me my rifle and calmly said "thank you", then said "now the work begins". She asked if on the way out we could let her son know that she had a buck down and send him over, we said you bet and we headed out. Maybe a mile down the trail we ran into a fella sitting under a tree, he looked to be to old to be the ladys son but we asked if he had someone back there, he said yes, his mom. We asked him how old his mom was and asked what she was wearing(just to make sure we weren't sending the wrong person to her ), he described her to a tee including hair color, he also said she was 78 or 79 , we told him about the buck and what happened and how calm she was AND how she certainly didn't look that old and he said she was some sort of a competitive "trick shooter" back in the day growing up in Oklahoma. We only met her that one time, we went to were they were camped the next year but they were not there, another guy there said her husband had passed and she moved back to Oklahoma. I would have loved to listen to her tales and I would have loved to have known just how big that nontypical was, we heard a couple different stories from guys that were camped by them some said it was 28inches wide and had 15 on one side and 9 on the other and some one else said it was 28 wide but was 13 on one side and 9 on the other, who cares really, it was a real dandy!

[buglebrush]

With this state swirling down the drain of a predator pit, it's hard to imagine deer like that.  Enjoying the stories.

[bigmacc]

With this state swirling down the drain of a predator pit, it's hard to imagine deer like that.  Enjoying the stories.

Well, its like a lot of us have been saying, those of us who have a history in the Methow anyways. As time goes on less and less of us will be around to tell theses stories but like Ive said many, many times there WAS a time when this state and certain areas within it would rival any "mule deer state" you would want to put it up against, in quality AND quantity IMO. I know Ive mentioned this before also but those of us who were fortunate enough to hunt the valley pre opening of the North Cascades Pass really had something special and I consider myself very blessed to have been chasing deer around this valley back in those days and have heard first hand the stories and seen pictures of my family actually hunting it for decades before me. I know its hard for someone in their 30,s and 40,s to contemplate some of what it was really like over there really not that long ago, heck it was still real good into the 90,s but trust me it really was very special and looking back on it really makes me feel blessed to have been there during those times and on the other hand feel very sad and upset on where this herd is now and how politics (basically) are at the root of the many issues that have and are contributing to the demise of this herd.....sorry, just my 

[bigmacc]

With this state swirling down the drain of a predator pit, it's hard to imagine deer like that.  Enjoying the stories.

Well, its like a lot of us have been saying, those of us who have a history in the Methow anyways. As time goes on less and less of us will be around to tell theses stories but like Ive said many, many times there WAS a time when this state and certain areas within it would rival any "mule deer state" you would want to put it up against, in quality AND quantity IMO. I know Ive mentioned this before also but those of us who were fortunate enough to hunt the valley pre opening of the North Cascades Pass really had something special and I consider myself very blessed to have been chasing deer around this valley back in those days and have heard first hand the stories and seen pictures of my family actually hunting it for decades before me. I know its hard for someone in their 30,s and 40,s to contemplate some of what it was really like over there really not that long ago, heck it was still real good into the 90,s but trust me it really was very special and looking back on it really makes me feel blessed to have been there during those times and on the other hand feel very sad and upset on where this herd is now and how politics (basically) are at the root of the many issues that have and are contributing to the demise of this herd.....sorry, just my 

Heres a great example. Back in the 70,s and 80,s my dad was in his 40,s and 50,s and could still hike circles around folks half his age. It was common for him to have a huge buck on the pole opening morning, a buck amongst bucks that he had scouted and spotted 2-3 weeks prior. After killing his buck he still hunted hard the rest of the season only just using his eyes. We would continue going into "our spots and haunts", we all had our favorites and dad would go by himself and check out other areas, some of which were at the opposite end of the valley and 30 miles away, he would leave at 3 in the A.M and we would not see him till way after dark. He would go into areas that only locals knew of, areas he had not been in in 30 years or spots that held fond memories for him when he was young with my great grandparents back in the 30,s. He would sit at the fire and tell us of his day, what he seen and which ones he would go after if he had a tag. Some years the list was long, he would come into camp with a list of 6 or 7 big bucks, all in different areas, he ran down body size, how many points and what ways were the best to get to him and( in his respected opinion) if he thought they were going to be there the next day or days, he could tell by just watching a deer for awhile if he was going to be there the next day or not, I honestly never seen him wrong on this. Well he came into camp one night and he had 5 big bucks that he knew weren't going anywhere, he had routes into each one all planned in his head and wanted to know if any of us wanted to get one. Another of the spots was in an area that no one in camp had seen horns in for ever, in fact it was kind of a spot we would joke with him about, but it was an area "he knew big deer hung out in", he always had a feeling, he had not been there that day but he "had that feeling". One of the guys was sleeping in a hammock and we volunteered him to go with dad the next day, we all went to bed and we told him in the tent he was going for a ride with dad the next morning, when we told him where they were going his exact words were "OH GREAT" in a real what a waist of a day voice this is going to be. They were gone before we were out of bed the next morning and they rolled into camp that evening. They got out of the truck and walked towards the fire and explained it "was worth a shot" and how they had not seen a doe one, they explained the 2 or 3 spots they walked into glassing some beautiful country and how they seen nothing, they got back to the truck about an hour before sundown and started the hour and a half drive back on a horrible dirt road. They were about a mile into the trip when a 5 by 5 jumped off the bank and onto the road and stood there staring them down, my dad said "I,ll be darned, there are still deer up in here, there he is partner, I can't get you any closer". My buddy jumped out and the buck bolted over the other side into some real thick stuff, he went in after it. He got down hill a few hundred feet and it opened up into a huge opening with the buck standing on the opposite side, he killed the buck, gutted it, propped it open and left it there till morning. We went in the next morning and did a deadhead around a hitch ball on one rig and pulled him up out of the hole with another rig, a huge 5 by 5 to this day is known as the "#$%@^& Buck", my brother still hunts that area at least once or twice during the season along with a few others in our group every year but another buck has not been killed up there since, I swear it was my dads proudest day ever seeing that brute hanging on the pole, the guy killed over 70 Methow bucks but one he never pulled the trigger on was his favorite, we heard about that trip every year until he passed and how only one other guy believed in that spot, the guy that shot that buck to this day tells us all "thank you" for volunteering him that day and "buys us a beer" every year as a thank you.

[Claymore15]

Ahh memories of the ol'man and the midnite rides, in a 69 bronco sitting on a tool box, because there was only 1 seat, and the buck that Bigmacc speaks of sits behind velvet ropes and is lit 24 hours a day, to behold all the greatness, in the guys house, Dad was really kinda of spooky good at finding deer.

[bigmacc]

Ahh memories of the ol'man and the midnite rides, in a 69 bronco sitting on a tool box, because there was only 1 seat, and the buck that Bigmacc speaks of sits behind velvet ropes and is lit 24 hours a day, to behold all the greatness, in the guys house, Dad was really kinda of spooky good at finding deer.

  .....there you go, I heard the killer of that deer had many book offers because of that buck, but then he later killed "THE @#$%@#$ BUCK", jeeze, its like he just keeps stepping in it

[bigmacc]

I think this was during the 90,s, my brother a buddy and myself were the last guys left in camp, weatherwise it had been miserable, pretty much hunted in rain almost every day which is unusual for the Methow, you may get rain here and there but these were downpours and drizzle with just a few breaks here and there during the 10 days we were there and when we did get the breaks it would fog over within minutes, just miserable. Well it was the last day and we knew that even though we were hunting in rain every day we knew it was snowing a few thousand feet above us and they were moving through migration routes in small waves not the big migrations but they were moving every day. My buddy and I had our deer, not yet for my brother, it was the last day and we were breaking down camp, in a monsoon! We were all soak and wet and everything getting packed was wet, not fun. My brother looked up on a hill behind camp and said "sh#t, there a buck right there going across the hill", the buck was a dandy, by himself and running full speed from right to left at about 300 yards, the hill is pretty open where he was and we got a good look at him but all we seen was a big rack, we couldn't count points and within seconds it disappeared into a draw. We were scrambling to get binos and a rifle and when we did we sprinted about 100 yards to a spot we could see up into the draw aways, we all got down under a tree and put glasses on him only to see him cresting a bench in the draw and dropping out of sight, it was a huge buck, rack and body, a dandy, heavy 4 by ?. We all sat under the tree for a few minutes trying to keep dry and talking about how big that bugger was, we were sick. We all agreed he looked like he had no idea where he was by the way he was moving and by his body language, he actually looked "lost", he had probably moved in during the night and bedded, then wasn't quite sure which way to go or where he was. Well a few minutes went by, we were soaked, it was raining even harder, the wind had picked up and we picked up our stuff and were headed back to our packing. We made it about 50 yards when we heard what sounded like a rockslide on the hill, we all looked up to see the buck hauling tail back from where he came from, not bouncing but running like a horse, on the same trail he was on when we first seen him. We did an about face and headed back to the tree where we had a better vantage point AND it was somewhat dry. We got there and searched but no buck, we stayed put for awhile and sure as a silver dollar that buck came running back through again going the OTHER way, this time we were in place when he came back across. We figured about 300 yards running full speed directly parallel to us but way up hill at a pretty good angle, my brother litterly had seconds to get him in his scope, compute and squeeze, he computed everything and made one of the best shots I have ever seen, he had only one shot and he knew it, BOOM and the buck went nose first into the sage and shale, another 20 yards and about 2 seconds he would have been gone. Not many guys could have made that shot in those conditions with all the running back and forth, pouring rain and wind, etc. etc., but when your previous job was as an SF sniper I guess you could say he made it look easy, the bullet exploded his heart. It was straight up hill to get to him and steep but all down hill to get him to camp, having said that, it was one of the worst drags I,ve ever been involved in, it was so steep, wet and slippery plus the hillside was full of rock outcroppings, drop offs and loose shale, we were all beat up by the time we got him down, but it was worth it. A 276lb (field dressed) 4 by 5, a true monster. I guess he just wasn't good at taking directions.

[bigmacc]

To whom it may concern, you know who you are . Print these or write them down, I know you know most of these but I aint writing them down again

[bigmacc]

I killed my first buck at age 11,(remember that number) I remember my dad and I sitting on a ridge in the Methow on a very cold morning, we watched an area that he ran around chasing deer when he was my age, once again, he "had a feeling". We watched a big bowl at the south end of a big rockslide for what seemed like forever to and 11 year old when all the sudden my dad said "theres some horns", I put my Sears binos on the spot my dad said they were and sure enough, there they were, 5 or 6 bucks just milling around with a bunch of does, probably about 25 deer total. My dad said "theres a good one in there" and he started pointing and telling me the best way to get into the bowl, he told me those deer weren't going anywhere as long as I didn't spook them. The guy was uncanny, he really did know what deer were going to do before THE DEER knew what they were going to do. The deer were about 400 yards away, my dad told me the plan and the route I should take and off I went with my trusty 6MM, he told me to keep looking back at him and he would help me out with hand signals, off I went. I made it aways and looked back but could not see my dad, I was wandering in and out of thickets, dips and draws but I knew what direction he was, I just couldn't see him. I got up onto a small ridge my dad had me head for and looked back with my binos, there he was, motioning(what I found out later) was "they're right there", I put a sneak on  and headed for the top of the ridge. I got up to the top on my hands and knees and while peaking over all hell broke loose, there was deer, horns and more deer busting out in every direction. I seen buck after buck go over another ridge about 50 yards from me(there were a lot more bucks in there than we thought ), I brought my rifle up and waited for just one of those bucks to stop, finally one did, he stopped on top of the ridge, turned broadside and basically said "here I am", I put one in the chamber and started shooting, fired 1,2,3, I kept firing and firing, he went down, he was wounded, I had buck fever, I started reloading and kept shooting, he was dead. I snuck up on him, poked him, he was really dead. I looked back at my dad through my binos and gave him a "I got him" fist pump, he returned the sign. He had 5 on one side and 6 on the other, I notched my tag and put it on the horns. My dad had told me earlier if I got one which way to start dragging(all downhill ) then he would come in from another direction and he would help. I drug it about 10 feet , my dad showed up after about an hour and a half and off we went. We got back to camp, my dad said "great job, you killed that buck at 11 o'clock, its points add up to 11 and your 11 years old, you won't forget that number". Well, I won't forget that number but its not my favorite number, 14 is my favorite and that has a lot to do with baseball, but when it comes to hunting, the number 11 will always be special .....and oh ya, I fired 11 shots at that buck, only hitting him twice.

[Muskrat]

Me too miss the old way of hunting.

[BLH69]

Shot my first buck on October 11th at 11:00. I was born 10/11/69 at 11:00. Packed in to Wolf Creek.

[bigmacc]

Good old number 11 

[Pathfinder101]

I miss the old days, just like everyone else. 
But…
I really prefer my new sub-moa bolt action rifle to a 30-30 lever gun
I really prefer my Kenetreks to wet tennis shoes
I really prefer Kuiu, Sitka and Kryptek to damp flannel and jeans
I really like using my spotting scope and binoculars to spot and stalk (instead of Dad sending me on a death march through a draw while he watches to see what I scare out of it)
I seem to get lost a lot less now that I have a GPS
My Eberlestock daypack makes my rifle a lot easier to carry than a leather sling
I haven’t been chased off anyone’s private property since I started using OnX
My sleeping bag is light enough that I will actually carry it on a hunt now
You would have to beat me with a 2X4 to get me to carry binoculars on a strap around my neck again
My backpack doesn’t rub little holes in the small of my back like my Army surplus pack did
I haven’t had to hitchhike out of the woods since I started buying new trucks

So… like you guys, I really miss the old days.  I’d go back if I could… but I’d really like to bring all my gear with me  .

(Dang.  I miss my mullet though..)

[bigmacc]

Shot my first buck on October 11th at 11:00. I was born 10/11/69 at 11:00. Packed in to Wolf Creek.

Man oh man we used to see some big bucks up in there, killed a few too.