After seeing a ton of non legal bucks opening weekend we relocated. Brushchimp and Myself got it done!
Thurday 10/21: Arrived at the trailhead and hiked 3 hours by headlamp up the mountain to setup camp. Finally turned in a little after midnight.
Friday 10/22: Any legal buck was in trouble at this point in the season. Woke up at 6:30. Threw down a Clilf Bar and drank some water and headed to the spot we wanted to be at for first light. We tried to be patient and make sure that there was enough light when we got to our spot. When we crested the ridge Brushchimp instantly spotted a buck 220 yards below us. It was dark and it took a while to make sure that the buck was legal. The buck had a great frame and we moved into position to try and harvest the buck. There was one small problem, since He spotted the buck I needed to be on the camera. I had already climbed out on the point and the camera was behind me. To make a long story short the buck got away and we couldn't get the kill on film. I joked with Brushchimp that his camera was going to take a trip down the mountain if we let another buck go of that caliber. We tried to get back on the buck but it didn't happen. The fog was blowing through and we spent the next hour with no visibility.
At around 8:30 we moved to a new glassing point. The fog started to lift every once in a while we glassed when we could. On maybe the third or fourth time the fog lifted I spotted a deer feeding about 100 yards away. I was in plain sight so I asked Brushchimp if he was legal and he confirmed that the buck was legal. He fed into a deep chute and we lost sight of him. I decided to get aggressive and sneak up to the edge of the chute. I rolled a rock down the hill as I was closing the distance and we saw him bound up the other side. Three shots later the buck was down. I had to run back up the hill to get the frame packs and drop off the guns and other stuff we no longer needed. From this little hike I knew the pack out was going to be hell once half the deer was on my back. Three hours later Brushchimp and I arrived at camp with my 3x2.
We spent the rest of the night around camp glassing and didn't turn anything up.
Saturday 10/23: Found ourselves on the same glassing knob as the day before. Only today we could not turn up a deer for the first half hour of light. As we were moving around looking in different directions I came back to the original spot and spotted a Doe and then realized she was being pushed by a very good buck. I got Brushchimp's attention and showed him where the buck was. We once again tried getting the camera setup and just couldn't make it happen. This time I was going to punt the camera down the hill.
We moved to a better spot to watch where the buck and doe went into the brush. After watching a 2x1 and does milling around for a while 5 does came out of the brush single file being pushed by the 2x1. All of a sudden I caught a glimpse of the big buck. We thought he was going to walk away, when evidently the 2x1 made him mad enough to come out for a visit. I rushed Brushchimp on the first shot because the buck was going to get out of the camera frame. After three shots we saw the buck run away and you could tell that he had been hit. Brushchimp wasn't sure of the shot so we sat down and had some food and water and would pick the trail up in a half hour. We found blood and a little bone chips where we last seen him. This was the beggining of a long and frustrating blood trail. We spent 4.5 hours of blood trailing,tracking and crawling. There were times when we would go 50 yards without anything to find a speck of blood. Twice during the trail we didn't move last blood for around a half hour. Finally the buck was in the very bottom over 3000 ft. lower elevation then where he was shot. Brushchimp thought he heard a stick break so we continued to cross the stream in the bottom, here we both got a big whiff of mule deer and there the buck was 10 yards away. We had him cornered between two bluffs and he came back at us and then down the hill in the bottom, He missed here when was barreling down the hill. The deer wasn't moving very fast and we caught back up. Then the big buck did something I had never seen before. He was tired of running and turned around looked at us at 10 yards and started to put his head down and come at us. Here Brushchimp put one through his neck and it was all over. It was a great 23" 4x4 with multiple eyeguards.
Now we had alot of work to do. We had two bucks down. None in the truck and my buck and camp were on the mountain 3000 ft. above us. We finally got the last load to the trailhead at 11:00 pm and headed home about 48 hours after we had arrived.
Both of these hunts were captured on film!
