Pathfinder's Idaho Deer Hunt

[Pathfinder101]

PathfinderJR was in Fort Knox, Kentucky for training this summer, so LittlePathfinder and I took off the day before the opener by ourselves.  Pulled an all nighter to get to my unit and to my first intended glassing spot before daylight.  I hiked two miles in the dark through blowdown and rockslides and was where I wanted to be when it got light.  From the time I parked the truck at the trailhead I knew I was going to be fighting an uphill battle.  The bright, almost completely full moon lit up the trail, and I knew for nearly every day of my planned hunt I was going to be fighting deer that would be up and feeding all night and bedding early and sleeping until dark.
I got to my glassing point and set up for several hours of glassing.  By 9am I had turned up absolutely nothing but a couple of pickup trucks on a distant ridge.  The hike out in the daylight was nearly as treacherous as it had been in the dark, and with swollen ankles and bruised knees I made it back to the truck resolved to hunt another spot.

[Pathfinder101]

On my scouting trip in July I had the opportunity to meet a few local guys that gave me some advice.  I decided to use my first day (since the season wasn’t open yet) to check out some of those areas.  Thus came my first lesson learned:  for this hunt I should have begged/borrowed/rented an ATV.  The areas I had initially check out in July were all areas I could drive to, then hike in to a glassing point.  I soon found that most of the “new” spots required an ATV to get to a point that I could hike from.  Although the map showed them as “roads”, there were a lot of trails in this unit that were either to narrow or too steep and rocky to get my pickup into.  I noticed that everyone else hunting the unit either had a side by side or a 4 wheeler.  Even the passable roads that I was navigating were honestly the worst roads I have ever been on.  The unit seemed to be made up of huge slabs of granite and powder fine dust, making every road a mish-mash of slabs of rock and eroding dirt that left the rock exposed.  My truck has a lift, so thankfully I never bottomed out or whacked anything underneath, but I did a lot of holding my breath and a chip I had not noticed on my windshield developed into a full length crack after 9 days of bouncing. 

[Pathfinder101]

After scouting for most of the day, LittlePathfinder and I found a good location for setting up our wall tent.   Those granite slabs that made the roads a nightmare were scattered everywhere at our campsite, and LP found them to be great building material.  After setting up the tent and cots, I started putting together the camp kitchen and he decided to build us a deluxe toilet.  That evening after dinner we hiked to a glassing spot to glass until dark.  Predictably, nothing came out until dark and all we turned up was a couple of does.  We hoped that the deer would come out in the dark and stay up long enough for us to get eyes on them in the morning.

[Pathfinder101]

Those granite slabs made an awesome fire pit as well. 

[jstone]

Fantastic looking country

[Pathfinder101]

The next day we hiked to the same spot, but after 3 hours of sitting and glassing, turned up nothing.  Time to go to plan B.  That meant switching mountains.  Most of the bucks I had found in my scouting were on this second mountain, but with a paved road running all the way up, I figured there would be a lot of other guys hunting it.  When I got there, a stiff, cold wind had kicked up.  I knew this meant that the deer would be even more reluctant to come out in the open.  Being almost 2 hours from our base camp we decided to bring our backpacking set up (CoryTDF had loaned me some stellar lightweight gear) and pitch a camp.  We got camp set up about 2 hours before dark and hiked to our glassing point.  We were overwatching an open meadow with a timberline and a rockslide.

[Pathfinder101]

 Within an hour of setting up, I was surprised to spot a buck I knew.  During my scouting I had found a deer that exceeded 180” and was my number one target.  Because of his proximity to the paved road, I was not optimistic about finding him before someone else did (most of the guys that had drawn this tag were local, and I knew several of them had seen this buck as well).  But there he was, with a couple of does and a small 3x4, bedded about 850 yards from me.
Unfortunately, I had a good wind for glassing him, but it was blowing in gusts up to about 20 mph, so a long shot would be out of the question.  The meadow that I was watching was the only approach that favored the wind, and the treeline he was bedded in would provide cover for me, but my scent would blow to him before I could get within sight of him.  As I considered all of these angles I began packing up my gear, as sitting in my current location was never going to provide me a shot I could make and I knew I would have to do something.
As I finished packing I started sneaking out and looked back at the buck with my binos and noticed he (and the other deer) was on his feet and moving.  I sat back down and decided to see where they were going and if it would go in my favor.  If they came out into the meadow below me it would be a 400 yard shot, but might afford me an opportunity to maneuver closer.  With the gusting wind I wanted to be inside 300 yards.
Unfortunately, they did not come out into the meadow.  I think they had finally had enough of the wind (which seemed to be getting stiffer and colder) and they slowly worked their way across the rocks, into the next treeline and into the thick timber and out of sight.  Unfortunately, that was the last time I would ever see that buck. 

[Pathfinder101]

After I returned home, one of the local guys I met said he located him (still living in the thick timber I saw him disappear into) about 2 weeks later.  There were several good bucks with him and he got into them at 400 yards.  With deer milling around at that range his spotter put him on the wrong buck and he shot, thinking he had killed the biggest deer.  When he got up to him though, it turned out he had shot the wrong deer, still a good buck, but only about a 165” deer.  As far as I know, that buck survived the season and is still up there.

[Pathfinder101]

Little Pathfinder and I spent the next few days hiking and glassing, trying to find an area to concentrate on that had deer in it that we could pattern.  Unfortunately, the full moon was still working against us and we weren’t having much luck.  On the 3rd day of the hunt we did a 4 mile hike straight up a steep trail that a local guy had suggested that we hadn’t explored yet.  Our hike located nothing, but as we descended the trail , just minutes before dark, within sight of the truck, we rounded a corner and saw several deer feeding on the hillside in front of us.  We set up the optics and one of the deer turned out to be a 4 point buck.  He was within easy shooting distance, and Little Pathfinder spent the rest of shooting light trying to talk me into shooting him.  He was a young buck though, and I only judged him to be 150” at best.  Certainly not the deer I wanted to fill this tag on so we left him up on the mountain and returned to the truck in the dark. 

[Pathfinder101]

The next morning we drove to the same trailhead and parked in the dark.  We hiked to a glassing point about 300 yards from the hill where we had last seen the deer, and as it got light I immediately glassed up the buck, in exactly the same patch of brush where I had left him last night.  Same spot, looked like the same antler configuration.  His head was down feeding.  Then he put his head up and looked at me.  Somehow he looked wider.  I looked down and realized that my rifle and my spotting scope were both still strapped to my pack.  My first thought when I saw the buck put his head up was “maybe I misjudged him last night, I should have my gun ready”.  By the time I dug out my rifle and scope, he was gone. 
That night, I decided to set up in the same spot and see if he came out again.  I set up farther away, thinking I may have spooked him and wanting a chance to look him over.  There was another guy at the glassing point when I got there, but he said he didn’t mind the company, so we glassed together.  I had met the guy when I was scouting and he had said that he was holding out for 180” or better.  About an hour before dark, the buck came out in the same spot. 

[Pathfinder101]

We looked at him for a while and the guy said “Are you sure that buck is only 150”?  He looks bigger to me… like over 160”  I was sure it was the same buck I had seen the night before, and I knew for certain that buck was young.  “No, I said.  He must just look bigger from back here. “  I showed him the pictures on my phone.  He agreed that the buck in the pictures was no bigger than 150”.  We watched him for the rest of the evening.  Nothing else came out other than a few does.  We thought maybe he had a sticker on his rear passenger side , but couldn’t really tell.  We were set up over 1000 yards from him and neither of us had super high power spotters.  Little Pathfinder was still trying to convince me to go over there and kill the buck.  “He’s big Dad.” He kept saying.  To appease him, I promised that we would set up closer to him the next morning.  “If he looks big tomorrow, I’ll shoot him.”  I said.

[Pathfinder101]

The next morning, I set up 250 yards from where we had been seeing the buck.  There he was, right on cue.  I looked at him with binoculars.  I looked at him with the spotting scope.  I took about 50 pictures of him.  Even Little Pathfinder had to agree that he was a young buck.  Nice looking, but no more than 150” for sure. 

[Pathfinder101]

PathfinderJR was finally done at Fort Knox and had arrived home in Walla Walla the night before after a delayed flight and and a couple of extra days in Kentucky.  He would be arriving in the unit that afternoon, so we drove to town to meet him and guide him to camp.  I texted him the pictures of the buck and told him the story.  I told him that the guy I was sitting with the night before thought the buck was over 160” and had some trash on his backs.  “He’s got a funny bend to his back fork.” I told him.  “Looks like trash at a distance I guess.”  We decided to set up in the same place that night, since there were deer coming out on that hillside and I wanted PathfinderJR to look at the buck and see what he thought.

[Pathfinder101]

The other guy wasn’t there, so we had the glassing point to ourselves.  The buck came out again, in the same spot, right on cue. 
“That’s a good buck Dad.  You should shoot him.” Was the first thing JR said when he saw him. 
“Nah” I said.  “He just looks good from back here.  Look at the pictures I sent you.” 
JR looked at his phone for a bit and got up.  “I’m going to get closer.” He said.  And with that, he ran down into the draw and up the other side, putting him about 500 yards closer to the buck.  Little Pathfinder went with him.  After a few minutes I could see them both waving me over.
I climbed down into the draw and up to where my boys were perched. 
“Dad, that’s a different buck than the pictures.”  JR told me.  “This buck definitely had trash on his back forks, he’s wider and this buck has eyeguards.  The buck in your photos doesn’t have any eyeguards.”
That was my second lesson learned.  I should have brought more help with me.  I had asked a couple of buddies if they wanted to come along, but my August hunting date had prevented them from coming.  I thought I was going to have PathfinderJR with me for a lot more of this hunt, but his flight out of Kentucky being delayed had prevented him from being there until now.  A second set of eyes on this buck would have probably identified him as a different deer (and a shooter) earlier.  Figuring that out earlier would have put me in a position to shoot him 3 times that I had passed up.

[Pathfinder101]

I looked in the spotting scope, but it had gotten too dark to see well.  I knew it was already past shooting light.  Nothing I could do at this point, so we resolved to set up the next morning with the boys on the spur we were now on, and me about 250 yards from where the buck was feeding.
We spent a comfortable evening at camp, feasting on deer steak and marshmallows, enjoying Little Pathfinders deluxe fire pit.