Well my good friend from Lewiston drew a unit 11 buck tag along with his wife, brother, and father. His name is Al and he's quite a talented hunter that likes to get into the deep holes and hunt where others are afraid to go... well we held true to that yesterday!
Al has been hunting for his families tags more so than for himself, as he's the only one capable of going down into the breaks of the Snake River in this unit. Well after my field trip on Saturday I had all my gear loaded and drove down to give him a hand. Met them at camp and his wife said she was going to sleep in the next morning so me and Al could give it all we had. I kept telling him we're going to get you're buck, its gonna happen...
He parked the truck at 5:30 and were off hiking. Bailing off this ridge to head down into the breaks where we guess all the deer have been pushed by all the hunters... didn't see a boot track all day.
8:00 we've spotted 5 bucks, and probably 20 does. Two shooter bucks with the bigger one which we named 'Hoss' being the farthest down into the breaks, nearly to the snake river... Anther nice 4 point was down below us and is a decent position for a stalk. We wait until 10 for everything to bed down and we plan our stalk which included a 1500' elevation drop straight down to get to the first flat... we belly crawl up the ridge with me on the binos/rangefinder and I have Al's drop chart for his 7mm (he does a lot of long range shoots and is very proficient). We find the two smaller bucks and I know exactly where the big 4 point is bedded but he's out of sight. With Al on the rifle we blow the grunt tube twice. I see antler tips raise up and square to us! "Al there he is, he's gonna stand!"
Buck stands up, I tell Al; '24" wide, 22" tall, good fronts, nice mains, maybe go 155 short on mass". He gave Al a great quartering away shot but we passed on him knowing there was a bigger buck down below. Buck trots off the flat and down out of sight. We grab our packs and go after Hoss... get down to where we can see where we thought we saw Hoss go into a draw to bed down and a couple does above the draw bust us and spook. Then out of the draw I see a buck step out and all I can tell is he's a 4 point. "Al there he is, range 545, 1.6 mils" (not sure if the mils are correct but for the sake of the story lets assume they are!)
BOOM! Al tells me he shot low,
Buck falters and takes off up the draw, Boom! Miss...
Buck pops up on a finger ridge, "645 yards, 2.6 mils"
BOOM!....... WHACK!
Buck kicks the air and runs back down the draw...
We run up to wait for him to come out the bottom, 2-3 minutes go by and nothing... finally he stumbles out of the draw "415 yards, .9 mils"
BOOM! Buck DROPS!
We're all hugs and smiles and whoops, get down to the buck and it was the SAME BUCK that we passed on earlier that day... we figured the big guy must've headed over the edge later once we lost him in the draw, but when this buck popped out he was 30 yards from where we'd seen "Hoss" that morning. Oh well we were still very happy as Al would've shot this buck had we not of seen the bigger one down below anyways... He's been waiting a long time and this was his muley hunt of a lifetime. He usually hunts archery only.
Another interesting fact; 30 minutes go by and we're still quartering/cleaning this buck and I sit back and look around.... 200 yards up the draw where Al shot the buck is Hoss. yep he'd been bedded there the entire time, had 6 does spook and run not 80 yards above him, and had this 4 point shot within 40 YARDS downhill of him and he NEVER MOVED! He was happy as a clam just sitting there watchin us cut up his buddy. I swear them big bucks have a 6th sense about how many tags you're carrying!
With 75 lb packs we started packing at 2 O'clock on the dot and made it back to the truck at 7... we're both in very good shape but this pack was by FAR the hardest I've ever done. But 30 yards from the top of the ridge I found a VERY nice 6 point bull shed from about a 310" bull so that was cool! Here's some pictures!
Al with his buck... see the tallest peak in the background? The truck was 1.2 miles PAST that....
Another view... very nice buck but is real short on mass... probably 145-150" realistically
View of the country we were hunting...
Finally on top as the sun is settin! See the bull shed?
Another one of me and Al... his brother met us up top with extra water...
Picture of me and Al with where we shot the buck in the background... See the little blonde hill to the left of Al's arm about 3' that drops down to the Snake? Just to the left of that hill in the flat is where we shot the buck and had to pack him out... We climbed 2200' in elevation in about 1.3 miles with 75 lb packs...
Well thats all, I leave thursday night for my elk tag in the same unit and my opener is on Sunday! Stay tuned!
Michael
