Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 12, 2009, 10:03:38 PM
My wife says I have been insufferable for the last 3 days. Pathfinder Jr is afraid I am going to hike 10 miles from the road and die in a Montana snowstorm.
Fillin' up the propane tanks in the morning and blasting out of here a little after lunch. Headed Northeast. Right now, the goal is to find a mule deer larger than one I have killed here in WA. I am told that 24" wide is a realistic goal, so that is where I will set the bar for the first 5 or 6 days.
I am taking my laptop and wireless card, but no idea if I will have service. If I do, I will try to update daily.
...off I go.... :llam:
Post by: yelp on November 12, 2009, 10:06:05 PM
Post by: muleyhunter on November 12, 2009, 10:08:00 PM
Post by: cascademountainhunter on November 12, 2009, 10:11:52 PM
Post by: Rack Hunter on November 12, 2009, 10:44:21 PM
Post by: CoryTDF on November 16, 2009, 05:22:36 PM
Post by: firecrotch on November 16, 2009, 05:25:11 PM
Post by: colockumelk on November 17, 2009, 12:26:41 PM
I know I'm weird. I can't help it, I was born this way.
Post by: CoryTDF on November 21, 2009, 10:47:34 AM
Story? Pictures? :drool: :drool:
When you going to tell me about my camper window?
Post by: strutnrut1984 on November 21, 2009, 11:47:27 AM
Post by: CoryTDF on November 21, 2009, 12:15:38 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 21, 2009, 06:06:26 PM
So, here's the story.
Like I said in my first post, I had things all packed and ready to go when I snuck out of work early (around noon) on Friday. Swung by Les Schwab and checked the tire pressure on CoryTDF's camper and put a little more air in my back tires, filled the propane tanks and charged off up the road. :4w:
I made it 20 minutes from Walla Walla and realized that my little 4 cyl Toyota Pickup was just not going to make it 700 miles and over 3 mountain passes. I was barely getting 45 mph under normal conditions. So, I turned back around and made another phone call. My buddy Jon loaned me his full-sized Dodge pickup to tow the trailer, and I left my TOyota with him to use for the week. As I was loading up my gear in his truck he patted my rig and made a cryptic remark about "finally being able to make it all the way across town without refilling the tank".
Once I got on the road, I saw what he was talking about... I got 8 mpg towing the trailer. I think at this point, I should post a picture of CoryTDF's camper. At no time during the telling of this tale will I make a disparaging remark about this capable piece of equipment. It made it all the way to Malta without incident, kept us warm (despite one desperate phone call to CoryTDF the first night for "retraining" on how to get the heater going), provided us soft beds, cooked us dinner every night, and then (against all odds) made it back home today without tipping over, despite wind gusts that I will wake up in a cold sweat remembering for years). It doesn't just have character, it's got balls.
Post by: bow4elk on November 21, 2009, 08:13:02 PM
Post by: huntnphool on November 21, 2009, 08:22:33 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 21, 2009, 08:47:44 PM
Tom was pretty excited to see me, or more accurately, the camper. It had been 9 degrees when he had rolled out of the back of his pickup at 5:00 am that morning, so he was stoked about the propane heater and the soft bed bouncing precariously behind the truck.
We picked out a spot to camp, and had no sooner unloaded the camper and the truck when a ranch foreman pulled up. He was a friendly sort and chatted a while before informing us that the area we were about to camp in was about to be overrun with a cattle roundup in the next 12 hours.
The camper has an awning with a PVC Pipe frame that we had already pulled out. The frame is so long that it barely fits in the camper, and is a bit of a hassle to get in and out, so instead of putting it back in the camper, I tossed it in the bed of the truck. Of course it stuck out a couple of feet. At this point I am thinking that I am getting pretty good at backing up the camper, so I whip the camper around in a neat button-hook to set it back on the road right in it's tracks and...
...I hear a POP! :yike:
I look back and see the awning pole sticking right through one of the camper windows. When I turned around, it shortened the distance between the pole and the window :bash:
Half a roll of duct tape later, we were back in business, but I still owe CoryTDF a new window...
We got camp set up and got out for an afternoon hunt. Tom said that he had already seen several bucks, including 5 in a single canyon the night before I got there. We hunted a different canyon that night and passed on a nice tall 4X4 with deep forks, but only about an 18" spread.
The next morning we went to the canyon where Tom had seen the 5 bucks (including a 4x4 with a kicker that he would later regret not shooting the first night he saw him). It was a cold, frosty morning with a stiff wind and the bucks were rutting hard and on the move.
After checking out several cruising bucks, we located what looked like a nice buck with a herd of does across the canyon. We pulled a half-stalk and cut the distance between us to about 400 yards and glassed him again. He was about 22" wide, but really "crabby", both fronts and backs so we decided to pass on him and back out. He had two other 4 points in his herd, but they were both small.
That was a crazy day. We saw 20 bucks that day, and 10 of them were 4X4s. Tom got better pics than I did and if he remembers to send them I'll post them. I only got one through the spotting scope that turned out at all.
That night, about 25 minutes before shotting light ended we did see the only really big buck of the whole trip. It was hard to see him in the tall grass and does kept getting in the way, but I am guessing he went about 27" wide and very, very tall. His back forks were either rally crabby or he didn't have any at all, but he was a big buck. We tried in vain to put a fast stalk on him but ran out of light when he was still about 700 yards away.
I will continue this tomorrow, since I am wiped out. Pulled an all-nighter to get home, so I am going on 40 hours without sleep as of right now.
Post by: sporked horn on November 21, 2009, 10:24:47 PM
Dan
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 07:34:54 AM
The next morning we were up and headed to the same canyon where we saw him last. We set up on a high ridge and glassed until about 8:00 am. Not only did we not re-locate the bruiser, we didn't see a single buck. A few groups of does was all we managed to locate. Tom changed positions and managed to spot two forkhorns with a herd in the next drainage to the west. We noticed that there had been no frost on the ground, and that it was the warmest day since we had arrived (don't know if that had anything to do with it... maybe the bucks were so active the day before that they were just taking a "day off").
After checking out several drainages and spotting only does, we decided to head back to camp for lunch. We were driving a ridgeline looking for the two-track that led to our trailer, when we spotted deer in the bottom of a canyon far below us. THe ridge we were on was so steep that we were looking almost down directly on top of them. There was a 4 point buck with that group. We stopped to take a better look at him, and when we stopped the truck, two more bucks busted out of the sagebrush several hundred yards to the right of the herd. One of those bucks was about the same size as the 4 point with the herd, the other one looked significantly bigger. I set up my spotting scope and announced "He's a shooter". Of course that was a moot point, since he was 1/4 mile away and gaining distance (the herd was moving off in a different direction, into the canyon). We decided to watch and see what developed from our elevated position.
The two bachelor bucks began to work their way up a draw that would take them over the ridge were were on, so we started to hatch a plan to intercept them, when a single doe came trotting down the draw towards them. Those two bucks forgot all about us, escaping, and their draw. They turned right around and followed here down into the valley and right in with the herd (which by now was in the middle of the valley, near a deep, dry creekbed).
So, now there are 3 four point bucks and a herd of 8 does, in the middle of the valley, and one of the bucks is noticibly larger than the other two. The herd is moving up the valley away from us, when a truck with a 4 wheeler trailer appears on the opposite side of the valley. The deer immediately spot it and stop. Almost as if on signal, the larger buck drops down into the dry creekbed and out of sight, leaving the two smaller bucks up on the flats with the does. The truck stops. Two guys get out, set up spotting scopes and watch the herd for about 10 minutes. After judging the obviously small bucks they got back in their truck and drove off.
Tom and I looked at each other. "I wonder how many #@!ing times has that happened to us...?" I said. "Just what I was thinking.." he replied.
We continued to watch the herd, and after a few minutes the bigger buck came out again and started to feed. The guys in the truck (who we thought were going to screw us up), had actually done us a favor. Their appearance had stopped the herd's progress up the creekbed, and now they were feeding in a stationary spot. We watched a couple of does bed down. They were about a mile below us (as the crow flies), with a deep, meandering, dry creekbed that ran right to them. Perfect for a stalk.
We geared up and left the pickup about 1:00pm, snuck down a draw into the bottom of the valley and hopped into the creekbed. It was a substantial creekbed, 6 feet deep in some places, which was nice because at times it actually allowed us to walk upright (if you have never done it, walking bent-over with a rifle and a pack at a fast clip for several hundred yards is a great ab-workout :chuckle:). Other times it was so shallow we had to bellycrawl. The valley floor was impossibly flat, and we soon found that locating the deer without being seen ourselves was going to be a bigger challenge than we had thought. From the pickup we had marked a fence that crossed the creek. We guessed that when we got to it, we would have about a 200 yard shot. When we got to the fence, we saw that the deer had moved (it had been nearly an hour since we had last seen them), and bedded down several hundred yards further up the creek, so we continued to move. Another half hour later we were able to range a tree close to the nearest doe at a little over 250 yards. The lay of the land and the next bend in the stream prevented us from getting closer, so we set up and tried to locate the bucks. After about 15 minutes of carefully peeking up above the lip of the streambed we had found the bucks, all bedded (as were most of the does), but we couldn't tell which one was the bigger deer. We were looking through grass and sage, so getting an accurate range to the bucks was impossible, all we knew was they were bedded quite a ways behind the tree we had ranged.
Then, on one of our "peeks" we noticed a doe, looking right at us. We ducked back into the riverbed and hunkered for 5 minutes, hoping she would forget about us. When we peeked again, she was standing, still looking in our direction. She spotted us again, and started walking around nervously. Deer started getting up out of their beds. It was now or never.
I couldn't shoot from the streambed (the grass was too tall), so I rolled out on top and quickly set up the bipod on my .270.
I was in full view now, and most of the does had spotted me and were milling around. All three bucks were up and mixed in with the does. Tom rose up out of the creekbed enough to see with his binos.
"Which one is he?" I whispered looking through my scope. Some of the does were starting to trot off.
"The one in the middle" Tom replied.
From my angle, the buck in the middle had a doe in front of him, and his head was down. I put my crosshairs on the two deer and waited for her to move. When she moved, he was facing straight away, and I didn't want to do a Texas-heart-shot, so I waited. A second later he turned completely around and came straight towards me, his head down with his nose almost on the ground. I put the crosshairs high on his shoulder, figuring he was just a little under 300 yds, and as he took a step just slightly to my left, I touched off a round. :bfg:
No tell-tale "whop". I had missed. :bash:
I couldn't believe it. How could I have missed? Even if I had misjudged the range and the bullet dropped I should have hit him, just lower.
I jacked another round into the chamber and tried to pick him out of the chaos that had ensued.
"He's still the middle buck" Tom said.
I picked him out and snapped off another shot. This shot was rushed, and I knew I had pulled it as soon as the gun went off. I took a deep breath and chambered another round.
By the time I settled behind the scope again, the two other bucks and most of the does had exited stage left, headed into the creekbed. My buck turned to follow them, offering a broadside trotting shot. I put the X on the lead edge of his shoulder and squeezed.
"WHOP!"
He followed the other deer into the streambed. One by one they came out the other side, headed for the draws on the east side of the valley. When they were all out in the open again, one deer was conspicously absent. "He's in the streambed" Tom said. "I saw him stumble in there".
Tom was right. He was hit a little far back (liver) and jumped up and ran into the sage, so I finished him with a shot to the neck.
I'll be honest, there was some ground shrinkage. He turned out to only be 20" wide. When we first spotted him, I would have guessed him at right around 22" or 23", but the angle, the distance and the presence of the two smaller bucks must have thrown me.
Still I am thrilled with him. He was nice and tall, with deep fronts and crabby backs, but I love him.
I imediately saw why I had missed the first shot. His G3, crabby though it was, what shot off. When I took the shot with him walking with his head down towards me, I had struck his antler.
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 08:04:50 AM
I'll post the story of the rest of the trip and Tom's buck when I get back from church....
....to be continued....
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 08:23:19 AM
Post by: whacker1 on November 22, 2009, 08:40:01 AM
Post by: huntnphool on November 22, 2009, 09:01:54 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 01:29:54 PM
great story - great stalk - now smile, you just shot a nice buck
Hey, I AM smiling.... that's as good as it gets... :chuckle:
Hilarious. I'll bet a 6 pack one or both tail lights don't work, or at least flicker :chuckle:
You would have won a 6 pack, bow4elk. All the lights work, but the left blinker blinks right, and the right blinker blinks left. Try remembering that at 3:00am in a snowstorm going over Lookout pass... :chuckle:
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 02:01:04 PM
We hunted hard the next three days, never seeing the camper in the daylight. We spotted the 22" wide crabby 4 point in the same valley with the same group of does we had seen him with before (looked like he had run off the smaller bucks), and tried to intercept him just before dark on Tuesday night. We had him dead to rights, but couldn't see him until he busted (too busy watching the does). Tom tried a running shot and missed him clean. We never did see him again.
We made several other stalks, but Tom decided to pass on several more deer, including one that looked like the exact twin brother of mine at 327 yards (the only deer all week that we got an exact range on). He might have considered taking that buck, except that we were in a sheltered draw with no wind, the buck was in a sheltered draw also, but the wind was blowing in the canyon in between us, and there was no way to tell how hard it was blowing or how much to adjust for it.
Lots of glassing, lots of bucks spotted, but all were about the same size (20" wide 4x4s), and nothing outstanding so Tom held out until the last day.
One thing we did find was quite a few sheds. Mostly sheds that looked to be about the size of the bucks we were seeing; 16" to 20" 4x4s. Which begs the question; Where were all the bucks that dropped the sheds? We never did figure that one out...
Post by: bearpaw on November 22, 2009, 02:16:38 PM
Post by: Joe_Hunter on November 22, 2009, 03:27:13 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 22, 2009, 04:01:23 PM
We spotted 2 cruiser bucks at first light. One was a small 3x3, but the other buck looked promising so we moved to another ridge to get a better look at him. By the time we spotted him again he was with a herd of 5 does. A couple of the does bedded down, so we started our stalk. There was about a mile of ground to cover between us and the deer, and soon we had cut the distance to 500 yards, so we set up again to get a better look. Tom evaluated him and decided he was indeed a shooter, so we continued.
As we cut the distance to 300 yards, a doe spotted us (more accurately, I think she spotted our shadows). When we next crept up to peek, all we saw was the last doe trotting over the hill away from us. :bash: :bash:
We had no idea what was on the other side of the hill, but decided we would give them 15 minutes to calm down, then go see. While we were waiting, another 3x3 cruiser buck came past us, headed into the badlands, nose to the ground.
The wind was in our faces when we crept around the hill, and continued down into the sagebrush flats near the creekbed. When we finally could see the part of the flats that were shadowed by the hills, you should have seen the sight that greeted us. We had found deer heaven.
There were over 40 deer down there, in one big herd. 5 of them were bucks. 4 of those bucks were 4x4s. It was like a Roman Deer Orgy, with bucks running around sniffing everything, and annoyed looking does prancing around avoiding them. Tom couldn't get a clear shot from our position, so he started to belly crawl up the spur to get some elevation. As he was doing this, one of the bucks spotted him. As he eased over the lip of the spur to get into shooting position, most of the deer spotted him and were starting to leave. The 4x4 we had spotted earlier was the closest deer (about 250), and because of his position, had not seen us yet. Tom settled the crosshairs on him and touched off a shot. A miss. It looked to me like he had overshot him (probably because of the steep angle). The deer didn't know where the shot had come from, pranced a few steps and swiveled his head back and forth, looking for where the danger was coming from. This was all Tom needed, and the second shot entered his neck and exited his right shoulder. The buck dropped in his tracks.
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 23, 2009, 10:21:05 AM
Post by: bearpaw on November 23, 2009, 10:25:56 AM
Post by: Gobble on November 23, 2009, 11:07:26 AM
Post by: Woodchuck on November 23, 2009, 11:21:53 AM
Post by: MtnMuley on November 23, 2009, 12:22:21 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 23, 2009, 12:44:57 PM
Nice pathfinder! Very succesful! Did I meet you this spring in the blues with Philip, when you were on your way woodcutting?Yes, we did meet. Were you the one that built the rifle?
We need to get Philip on this site too...
Post by: Buckmark on November 23, 2009, 12:52:42 PM
Oh yeah, great story and nice deer..
Post by: gramps on November 23, 2009, 01:59:04 PM
How about those nice breezy days in E MT?? 45-48 MPH when I was there one day not far from you.
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 23, 2009, 03:19:03 PM
Love the hat..
Oh yeah, great story and nice deer..
Thanks. Lucky hat, lucky shirt... ;)
Congrats on a great hunt....nice buck.
How about those nice breezy days in E MT?? 45-48 MPH when I was there one day not far from you.
Yup. Wind was crazy. I really thought I was going to die a couple of times on the way home with that camper... :yike:
It was crazy in the badlands. Wind blew in a different direction every time we crossed a draw. :bash:
Funny though, I think the deer out there went more off sight than smell though. We saw lots of deer that were downwind that completely ignored us, as long as we were outside 500 yards. They acted more like antelope than deer. :dunno:
Post by: JohnnyTDF on November 24, 2009, 08:43:28 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 24, 2009, 01:34:08 PM
I always knew that you were a little crazy :P, but this just proves it. You towed that trailer to montana. That thing scares the poo out of me everytime I have towed that trailer was one of those moments where you are praying that when, not if, it flips it is a good one and I dont have to remember the experience. ;) Congrats :brew:
Tom called me on Thursday, after he spent his first night out there and made DAMN sure I was bringing the camper. He had been sleeping in the back of his pickup. It was 9 degrees the morning I rolled in...
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 24, 2009, 03:59:58 PM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 30, 2009, 10:10:40 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 30, 2009, 10:11:40 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 30, 2009, 10:12:31 AM
Post by: carpsniperg2 on November 30, 2009, 10:14:01 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on November 30, 2009, 10:15:10 AM
When Tom gets more photos through, I'll post them... Right now I am going to go beat the %$# out of my email... >:(
Post by: rougheye on November 30, 2009, 10:15:46 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 11:43:29 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 11:45:33 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 11:53:08 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 11:58:15 AM
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 12:01:50 PM
...easy, one side at at time of course...
But how do you get the cape off? That's a little trickier. Rigor-mortis helps.
We propped the buck up on his pelvis and his antlers, and I crawled under him like he was a car.. :chuckle:
Post by: Pathfinder101 on December 02, 2009, 12:10:05 PM
...b'dee...b'dee...b'dee........That's all folks!
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on December 02, 2009, 02:31:31 PM