I debated whether I was going to share this hunt or not, but then it occurred to me that this/these bucks made me hunt my but off to hang my tag on them and they deserved a short write up.
I left my house at Midnight on Friday Morning and started cruising on I-84. After losing an hour because of time zones I arrived in Pocatello, ID and picked up my hunting partner (Jason Canales) for the trip. We then proceeded through Yellowstone and arrived in Cody, WY around 7:30 that night (long day of driving)
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We unloaded our stuff and BS'd with the guy who we were staying with and had been doing some scouting for us. He had spotted some solid 150" bucks but he hadn't seen them on his last two trips. We didn't let that get our spirits down and we hit the sack with the alarm set for 4:00 in the morning. We made the drive to the spot and started hiking up the mountain. The air is awfully thin going from 300 ft to over 10,000 ft. We were sitting on the perch a half hour before daylight. As it turned light we started spotting deer. We spotted a buck right away that looked like a three or four point, but he was heading out quickly. We spotted about 30 other deer, but they were all does and small forkys. We headed off of the mountain around 10:00. It was getting hot (ended up being around 90* for the first 4 days). We went and checked out some other areas that night and nothing but small fork and horns.
The next morning we were in the same spot and once again could only turn up small bucks and does. That night we once again only saw does and small bucks.
On the third morning as we headed in we noticed it had froze on the mountain, plus the wind made it a chilly morning. Right off the bat I spotted a group of deer bedded down. After another 10 minutes I could make out that one was a decent buck (a little inside his ears, but the best buck we have seen). With little thought we were going to go after him. On the way, we spotted some other bucks that I tried shooting but we couldn't get the camera and the shot to work out. So we continued on to the buck we spotted at daylight. I had already picked my stalking route and we started to weave our way down through the cliffs. About 50 yards from the cliff they were bedded under we dropped our packs and continued on. I told Jason that he would need to stay close because it may happen fast and like always I was most likely going to spot a doe first. Sure enough as I slowly took a step me and a doe were now looking at each other. Wasting no time I took two quick steps and there was the buck. I settled the crosshairs and asked Jason if he had the buck on video. After he replied yes, I took the off hand shot and put one right through the lungs. As he was staggering, I put another one through the boiler room. The buck died in a pile of willow brush. We now had to pick our way through the cliff to get to the buck. He ended up being a 17" wide 4x4. Not the buck I pictured when I bought my Wyoming Deer tag, but one that I was proud of and had to work for.
We quickly gutted, skinned and halved the buck and got out of there. We have been seeing an abundance of Grizz tracks in the area. After an hour pack out we had one loaded in the back of the truck.
The next day brought a bunch more does and small bucks and Jason wasn't willing to settle on the little 12" 2-points yet. That night we spotted two better bucks from a long ways away. Jason decided if we couldn't find a better buck that morning we would go after these bucks (15" 3x3 and 15" 2x2). After a lot of hiking and glassing we couldn't turn anything up but does and small bucks (30+) we made our way around. We got to where we thought we would be in a good position to shoot/spot the bucks from the night before. As we slowly crawled over the ridge there weren't any deer to be seen after about 5 minutes both bucks were feeding right back to where we saw them the night before (perfect timing we didn't get there until 12:30). The bucks then bedded down facing away from us. After looking through the spotting scope we determined the one on the left was the 3x3 and sitting at 270 yards.
Fast Forward 2 hours and the buck finally decided to stand in his bed and Jason took the shot, then another. Now the deer are running torwards us. The buck reappeared below us at around 200 yards. On the third shot you could see the deer hump up and he took a couple steps and stopped. Jason fired once more as the buck was getting ready to take a dirt nap.
We then made our way down the steep rock to the buck. It was exactly what we thought he was a 15" 3x3. Jason was happy and we were tagged out.
After seeing a Grizzly in the area the day before we made quick work of the buck and headed back to the trucks. As we arrived at the truck a storm was brewing and it started raining hard and the temperature was dropping (the weather we wanted).
Overall it was a great trip and we got to meet some GREAT people (including Blacktail Luv from the site). Cody Wyoming is an awesome town for an outdoorsman. Overall we saw 4 grizzlies, 2 moose, a bunch of deer, a few elk (two good bulls). I can't wait to go back, but it will be a few years (points will be building) since I have Colorado, Nevada and Montana to tend to.
Trevor's Bull should be worth it, but I had planned on going over in late October when the bigger bucks are around. Instead I will be camera man on a Washington Big Bull hunt. Man, I love the problem of too much hunting.
