Free: Contests & Raffles.
Where is everyone hunting in Idaho. What units? I’m hunting 1 around bonners ferry.
Okay here it is, my daughters biggest buck to date. 25.25” spread, 5x6. She’s 5’9 for reference 🤙🏻
I went out yesterday afternoon to a set of properties where I help with forest management activities in adjacent Idaho (Palouse region). One of the graduate students where I teach is really interested in becoming a hunter, and so she came along to see what a whitetail hunt is like. We park the pickup at my mentor's old cabin, nestled in among the creekside Engelmann spruce and western redcedar, then hike out across the valley-bottom pastures to a long, timbered side valley with stands of ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, western larch, redcedar, and grand fir. Numerous side draws enter the valley from both south and north, and we start by quietly stalking in and out of the bottom of each draw. Not five minutes after we start in, two does walk by on a skid trail at 80 yards. Both are mature does, no yearlings in sight, but I decide to hold off. We head up a side ridge to a spot where I have seen many deer in a beautiful old redcedar stand of about 30 acres. As we begin to drop down into the draw to a good "sitting spot", I tell the student that whenever one shifts over a ridge or into a valley, to be especially alert and move slowly. No sooner do I get done whispering this, when I hear a buck grunt down on the valley. I see the flash of a white tail about 120 yards away, across the little valley, and I put the rifle to my shoulder. It is a nice 2.5 year old buck. I generally would let him go, but I considered that the student might like to see the full process of a hunt. Plus, it was only 45 minutes into the hunt, and we'd have plenty of daylight to start the skinning and quartering. A flock of ravens, as though they knew what was going to happen, flew into the trees above, croaking and cawing.I pull out the grunt call and give a few grunts. Sure enough, the buck turns and comes our way. I stalk ahead 15 yards to a great old stump of a larch, and get into a kneeling position. The buck is walking, broadside now, and I mouth-grunt to stop him. I pull the trigger, and he runs fifty yards and stops. I put a second shot in to be sure, and he falls into the sword ferns and smooth brome grass. A forest road 200 yards away makes the haul out very easy. To make a long story short, we have the quarters hanging in the cabin by 7:00 PM (can't bring meat with bone back into WA now), and we are back in our little Washington prairie town grilling up a tenderloin and slices of heart by 8:30 PM. The student got to experience the full cycle of a hunt, although I did warn her that not every deer hunt is so quick! Deer activity was high. I think the rut has really entered an active phase. Best wishes to all of you out there!
All the detailed info on the plants made me chuckle! Clearly you are in your element. I love spending time outdoors with folks like you - I always learn a ton about where I am hunting - whether it be plants and such as you described, or climbing mountains with geologists.And congrats on the deer!
Daughter missed a spike yesterday evening and got this big doe this morning
