Jason's Deer Hunt - Part One

Warning: This is long! and one sided...Lyman and Dad, you're welcome to correct/alter/twist my words or submit additions (editions?) here as you wish.

On the Monday before my October deer hunting trip I went to a shooting range after work to make sure the .280 was sighted in. I arrived at 4:30 pm and the place was going to close at 5:00. So I had very little time. At 4:45 I had my target set up, eye and ear protection in place and the rangemaster called “Open Fire!”

The sun was setting behind the target so it was pretty difficult to see. I don’t recall if it was windy but I was having a difficult time keeping the target in view through the scope. Every time I would get the crosshairs on the target my view would start to fade away. So each shot took over a minute. My plan was to shoot three groups of three shots. With two shot left to go the rangemaster called out the two minute warning. Feeling rushed, my last group wasn’t very good. In fact I could only find two of the last three shots. But my second group was about an inch over the bull’s-eye so I left satisfied.

Tuesday night I got home from work, finished throwing stuff in the car, kissed Ruth and the children good-bye and left for Applegate. I spent the night at Mom and Dad’s.
Day 1 - We woke around 6am to finish packing and loading the truck. The trip up to camp was uneventful, though the gate on Highway 108 was closed at Pickel Meadows. We drove around the gate and found Lyman in camp. He told us of rain on Monday and snow on Tuesday that had kept him from hunting very much.

There was snow up on the mountains so we decided to hunt the rest of the afternoon but come back down and sleep in the meadow. With that plan in mind we headed out. We parked in the usual place and rock-hopped across the creek. Lyman slipped and got a foot in the water but didn't mention it until later. The mountain was covered with snow from the previous day. It had softened and refrozen making a slight crunch with each step and with Dad’s walking stick. It was very cold and clouds covered the sky, but the hike was steep enough that I started shedding layers fairly quickly. We saw lots of deer tracks heading down the hill but none going up. We could hear snow falling from the trees as it melted.

The climb at that elevation is quite a workout. It’s easy to get your heart rate going. We paused often to look around and take breathers. I don’t want my heart pounding when I am shooting so I like to go slow. Even with our slow pace I developed a headache, most likely from the elevation and my lack of fitness. About two-thirds of the way up the mountain we came to an outcropping of pink granite we call Pink Rock. Snow completely covered the mountain here, about eight inches deep, and we still hadn’t seen any deer, though at this point that is not unusual. All the tracks we have seen are still headed downhill, which was not good news.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, a small grey mammal that at first I believed to be a bobcat. It was moving across our path, and then I realized that it was a coyote. I pointed to show the others. The coyote continued and actually turned toward us. Lyman got ready to shoot but the coyote saw him and at 100’ from us, turned and bounded back away and up the mountain. Then another coyote jumped up out of the snow and ran away up the mountain.

At that point we talked about our options, about not seeing any deer or tracks going uphill or side hilling, and the amount of snow. We decided to change course and instead of climbing up and over the mountain into the canyon on the other side, we will work our away north along a ridge where we usually don’t hunt. This would allow us to occasionally look over both sides of the mountain.

We proceeded with this plan until Dad decided that he didn’t need to continue with us. He would head back to the truck and down to camp. Lyman and I would continue hunting down this ridge and find our way back to camp. There used to be a horse trail leading this direction off the mountain that I was interested in finding.

Lyman and I dropped down the west side of the mountain through the snow. I was excited to be exploring new area. We found our way back to the ridge as it was steadily falling away to the north, the direction we were going. We took a couple opportunities to sneak over to the edge where we could and peek down into open areas. There was still snow everywhere though and we saw no deer. We continued down the ridge.

We had hiked about ¾ of a mile when we came to a plateau where we could look down over an open bench where there was a prime feeding area. The eastern exposure here was exposed to more sun and protected somewhat from wind. This bench is also almost 1000 feet lower than Pink Rock so the snow had begun to melt enough to expose some feed. We watched and glassed for maybe ten minutes when I got up and started to move away along the plateau. I had moved some 50 feet when Lyman softly called me back, saying there was a buck and to stay down. I moved carefully back to him where I could look over the edge. Through my scope I saw the buck, and then Lyman said there was another bigger buck behind the first. Upon finding the second buck I moved into a prone position to get ready to shoot. I was a little concerned about hitting the rocks in front of me, but decided it wasn’t going to be a problem.

The first buck was a spike and seemed to be aware of us but not afraid. Mule deer tend to be curious when they cannot smell you and you aren’t standing up. The second buck was oblivious and was standing broadside behind the spike, calmly eating and slowly working towards our left. I waited for a signal from Lyman to shoot. I could not see the buck’s antlers very well and was waiting for him to tell me whether to take him or not. I also wondered if he would want to shoot the buck since he was the one that spotted it. From my position I would lose my shooting angle very quickly if the deer moved very far. It seemed like a full minute had passed before he said to take him. I squeezed the trigger and the gun clicked. I hadn't loaded it when we left the truck!. I slid the bolt back and chambered a round. The buck hadn't moved. I took the shot and the buck reared up a little and fell down away from us and lay almost completely still. The spike just stood there. My ears were ringing and the headache I had got suddenly worse with the shot. I reloaded and continued watching. Lyman complimented me on a nice shot. With the dead buck on the ground we started working our way down. The spike finally decided it didn’t want to be around and ran off. We also jumped a doe out of the trees.
This picture is after the snowmelt on Friday. We were on the top of the outcropping towards the right.
We came to the buck, a 3x3. First we took a picture. Then with Lyman’s instruction I gutted the deer. We pulled it into some trees. I scrubbed my hands clean with snow. It was still very cold and the deer would be fine there until we could retrieve it tomorrow. We had about 1-1.5 hours of light left to get back to camp. We found our way, not by any trail, in a nearly straight course of almost two miles back to Leavitt Meadows and to our camp. We told Dad about our hunt and he congratulated me. We finished the night eating hot dogs, grapes and cantaloupe around the campfire.

Thursday morning when we woke up the air was a crisp 36˚, which was warmer than usual. We ate breakfast, hot granola for me. Dad and I drove up to the base of the mountain where we would hike in and retrieve my deer. Lyman would hunt from the meadow up to the bench and work along the bench to the south, hunting the openings.

Dad and I worked our way side-hilling as much as we could because our destination wasn’t much higher than where we started. You can see that it was still fairly cloudy.Descending onto the bench we were surprised when we jumped a covey of chukar. We got to the deer and with some effort, got it hanging from a tree. We were halfway through butchering the deer when Lyman arrived. He had a rough trip up the mountain, climbing the steep terrain through the tall bushes. He helped finish the deer. Then he continued his hunt while we headed back down the mountain. Instead of going back to the truck, we went straight down the hill back to the meadow. We got back to camp tired and took a short nap. We drove to the back of the campground to wait for Lyman. A doe and fawn crossed the road in front of us. Then we saw a covey of quail work their way across our view, eating as they went. I tried to open the door to take a picture, but the quail fled into the cover.

When Lyman returned we drove back up the mountain to retrieve his truck. He told us he got a shot at a big forked horn but he missed. Dad then took us to Carson City for dinner. In the fields near Sonora Junction we saw an incredible number of deer, at least twenty does and fawns and one buck. Lyman didn’t have his license or tag with him so we didn’t stop. We ate dinner in town and then returned to camp.

Friday morning began beautifully. We had decided to hunt from the meadow up the mountain to the same bench and work our way south as Lyman had the day before. It was at this point that I borrowed Lyman’s camera. I wouldn’t be doing any hunting, just hanging back and enjoying the scenery. I wanted to capture some shots of the areas we visited.

We started walking to the back of the meadow, but Lyman and Dad decided they would rather not climb 1500’ to get to the start of the hunt. So we got in the truck and drove part way up the mountain.
To Lyman’s chagrin we found a place where we could cross the creek across a large deadfall. We were blazing a new trail at this point and not sure we could find a way around the mountain to the desired point. But we made it with just a little steep climbing and a shorter path than our original route.
The day was clear, sunny, and almost warm. We slowly worked our way along the side of the mountain, glassing every opening and occasionally tasting gooseberries along the way. The landscape was very pretty with patches of snow all around and covering the ground under the trees. The aspens were fading from green to yellow and some leaves were falling. The tops of the mountains were completely covered in snow. But the temperature was better than the previous two days which gave us hope for a good snowmelt. We covered nearly 1.5 miles when we turned around. We then found a group of five deer, all does. We watched them for awhile to see if any bucks were hanging around. Then we moved on. We didn’t anticipate seeing any bucks for the rest of the day so we moved a little faster than usual. Instead of going back to the truck we decided to take the old trail down the mountain and identify as much of it as possible so it could be found from the bottom. We were able to find most of it and set up some markers so it wouldn’t be lost again. Here is the area we hunted outline in red. (picture from internet)

When we got back to camp it was evening. We went out to Sonora Junction again to see if any deer were in the fields. This was the closing weekend of deer season for this area so we saw a lot of hunters driving slow, watching the mountainsides. There were no deer to be seen. So we went back to camp and ate dinner. We talked about what we would do tomorrow and decided that we would hike over the mountain and into the canyon, feeling that the snow should have melted enough that the deer would have moved up to where we like to hunt. This night was clear. We were able to look up and find the Andromeda galaxy. Jupiter was also very bright and we could see three of its moons.

Part Two to follow!