I never felt so tired! It was 4:30am on the nineteenth morning of my Utah bow hunt. Whenever I lied down to sleep my mind swirled with strategies to outsmart the giant, velvet-clad buck I called “Big 5.” But he always managed to stay one step ahead of me.
I spotted Big 5 on the fourth day of the deer hunt. He was feeding in a thick, oak brush-covered hillside, and I raced to get ahead of him in the fading evening light. Just as I was closing in, the wind shifted and blew him out of the canyon. I spent the next week searching surrounding canyons and exploring other parts of the unit, but couldn’t turn him up. Although I saw plenty of other bucks, none compared to the amazing Big 5. At that point I decided to devote the rest of the season to hunting this one buck.
First sighting of Big 5 (from video footage).
Just before dark on the twelfth day, Big 5 reappeared in the canyon where I first saw him. There wasn’t enough light for a stalk, but I returned to camp with newfound hope.
My mind buzzed with excitement as I lied in bed anticipating the morning stalk. But wouldn’t you know it, over night a great herd of elk moved in and pushed all the deer out. I spent the next three days searching for him, but to no avail.
The Return of Big 5
During this time I joined forces with two elk hunters—Brian and Mike—who were hunting in the same general area. We had an agreement: I would keep tabs on any big bulls, and they would keep an eye out for Big 5.
Just when I was beginning to lose hope, Mike spotted Big 5 crossing into the canyon at dark on the fourteenth evening. The next morning I sneaked into the deer’s primary feeding area, but ended up busting him out again while still-hunting through the thick and noisy oak brush. This was the lowest point of my hunt.
Bowhunting is a low-odds venture to begin with; things don’t work out most of the time. As a rule, bowhunting success comes from having multiple opportunities, and the fastest way to limit your success is by hunting for one deer exclusively.
The daily glassing game.
To keep hope alive, I wrote a list of positive affirmations in my hunt journal. Of particular note was a reminder that not only do I have 27 years of bowhunting experience under my belt, but I’ve been down this road before: Hunting for just one deer. Only this time was different. I didn’t have three years to get the job done!
The Tank Buck
Hope returned on day 16 when I discovered a new buck—a massive, old, wide-racked 4×4 I called the “Tank”—in an adjacent canyon. He wasn’t as impressive as Big 5, but the longer I watched him the more I fell in love. He was a magnificent deer, and if nothing else he served as a good backup. The season was half-way over after all, so I was relieved to have another target on my very short list.
The “Tank” buck.
So you can imagine my disappointment when, the very next morning, I found that Tank and Big 5 had joined forces! They were now feeding together—along with a few smaller bucks—in the bottom of the canyon where it all started. And just like that, all my eggs were in one basket: Bust one, bust ‘em all.
Desperate to make a stalk, I threw down my glass, picked up my bow and scrambled to the bottom of the steep, aspen-choked canyon. But just as I was closing in, the wind changed and blew one of the smaller bucks out of his bed. I turned and backed out immediately to avoid further damage.
Stalk through the aspens.
The next morning, in complete darkness, I snuck to the bottom of the canyon hoping to get in front of the bucks before first light. But once again my plans were foiled when I glassed up the bucks feeding at the top of the canyon! As morning dragged on, the bucks side-hilled out of view and disappeared. Once again they stayed one step ahead of me.
Endless Pursuit
By day nineteen I was at wits end. At some point during the restless night I hatched a plan to get ahead of the bucks. I knew from experience that big bucks get big by being unpredictable. So if they fed at the top of the canyon yesterday, perhaps they’d be at the bottom today. Again, in the cover of darkness I dropped down the canyon. And wouldn’t you know it, the bucks stayed high! This time, however, I wasn’t letting them out of my sight.
Immediately I ascended the aspen ridge between us, and then watched as all three deer—Big 5, Tank, and a smaller 3-point—fed along the ridge top and eventually bedded beneath a couple big pine trees. I pulled out my notebook and drew a diagram of the bedding area, noting landmarks that I could use during the stalk. But first I’d have to wait for the thermals to stabilize.
Stalk landmarks and notes.
I returned to camp and was just about crawling out of my skin waiting for the south winds to prevail. Finally, at noon I set out on a low-odds stalk towards the bucks, knowing that one false move could blow the bucks out forever. Surely they were growing weary of my chase.
Big 5 bedded underneath big pine.
The Final Stalk
The midday sun beat down on my face as I crested the ridge fifty yards above the bedded bucks, but thick oak brush obscured my view. Must get closer.
Hot, south crosswinds carry away my scent and the sound of my footsteps amongst the loose gravel on the hillside that grows steeper with each step. A frightened chipmunk shrieks and scurries away. I freeze for a minute, then take a range from the lower limbs of one of the trees: 45 yards. I slowly load an arrow and continue forward. Everything must be perfect now.
Each footstep is timed with the occasional gust of wind or the raspy sound of flying grasshoppers. I take another range: 35 yards. I wince as the wind continually dips down, then rises again. My heart-beat quickens; sweat beads up across my face. I take another step and look up again. Fuzzy antlers are suddenly bobbing through the oak brush. Big 5 is up and feeding, but only his head is visible.
I slowly raise my bow and scan ahead for a shot window. The situation unfolds in strange contrast: the natural world flows lazily along, but my mind is frantic as I try to manage a myriad of details in a heightened state of awareness. I’ve been here before; I know the odds. “What happens next? How does this end?”
The buck slowly feeds towards a little, two-foot gap in the oak brush. It’s all a blur as I draw my bow and track the buck with my 30-yard pin. He finally steps through and my arrow is off. There’s an audible “thunk,” and then pandemonium as all three bucks explode down the mountain. Seventy yards out, Tank and the smaller buck regroup and look back, but Big 5 continues out of sight.
Twenty minutes later I begin tracking down the mountainside. There’s blood right away, and for the first time in weeks I feel a sense of relief. A little further down the canyon and there he is. In my haste to shoot, the arrow hit forward in the neck, but did the job.
The buck is finally mine!
Like a dream, I reach down and grasp the buck’s sprawling antlers in my hands. I feel strangely numb. Whatever elation I’m supposed to feel has been cancelled out by the rigors of mountain, dampened by loss of sleep, and swamped in disbelief. Sometimes a hunter gets lucky; other times he earns it. In this case, the only luck I had was seeing the buck in the first place. I gave this hunt everything I had; I paid full price for my trophy.
Final Thought
Long ago, in a personal attack fueled by jealousy, an old “friend” once said to me, “I don’t have to shoot the biggest deer on the mountain to prove I’m a man!” I don’t disagree, however it does prove other things: That you have a special skill set; that you are a provider of meat; and above all, you are the top predator you were meant to be. And that, my friends, puts you one step ahead of the rest.
The deer herd in my Southern Utah hunting area is on the decline thanks to a long-running drought, in conjunction with an ever-increasing human presence. Locating any remaining bucks means relying on an array of trail cameras placed along known deer routes across the mountain range. Every year we capture one or two photos of cougars prowling around, but last season was different. Over the course of a single month we captured cougar pictures on all four cameras.
A cougar-clawed tree.
Of course you’ll find cougars wherever deer are concentrated, but in recent years we’ve been seeing more and more cougar sign including deer kills, paw prints, clawed-up trees, and of course trail-cam photos.
My theory is that when deer numbers decrease rapidly, cougars (commonly referred to as mountain lions) are forced to roam over more territory in search of their most common prey, the mule deer. This, of course, increases the odds of running into a big cat while hunting. To make matters worse, when deer numbers are down, hungry cougars will actually consider humans as prey, although attacks are quite rare.
Cougar on trail camera in 2021.
In three decades of deer hunting I’ve only seen a handful of cougars. About half were seen at night by headlights on remote dirt roads, the other half up and prowling during daylight hours. It wasn’t until the 2021 deer season that I actually came face-to-face with a lion in the woods and was even forced to defend myself.
The Cougar Attack
It all began halfway through last season’s bowhunt. It was just another hot afternoon as Esther and I trudged up a dusty trail leading to a pine ridge where we like to hunt. Esther was excited to show me some trail-cam photos of a decent 3-pointer from earlier in the week. Sweating and puffing from the steep hike, we settled down on a log and began scrolling through the photos.
We’d only been there a minute or two when a series of blood-curdling screams and a loud scuffling sounds broke the silence about 50 yards into the heavy timber. At first I thought it was another hunter-jackass messing with us. However, the screams grew louder and morphed into what sounded like a sheep in distress…or at least something very non-human. Esther and I sat frozen, staring blankly at the timber. Seconds later everything was silent.
At that point it I figured it must have been a cougar attack and said to Esther, “I think a deer just got whacked by a cougar….” Of course I’d never actually heard a cougar attack on a deer, but what else could it be? Sasquatch, maybe?
As a self-proclaimed naturalist I was overcome by curiosity and stood up, saying, “Hey, let’s go take a look.”
“I’m not going over there!” was Esther’s immediate reply.
“Just stay behind me. If it’s a lion he’ll just run off.”
Everyone knows that big cats out West are naturally afraid of people and take every precaution to avoid humans. This is reinforced by the fact that humans are the cougar’s only natural predator. But I can’t fault Esther for being nervous. Only two years previous she had a very unnerving encounter with a lion on another trail. In the gray hours of morning she came around a bend at the exact same time a cougar was coming from the opposite direction. The cougar didn’t run away, but instead crouched low and stared at Esther from only fifteen yards away. Following the standard cougar-avoidance protocol, Esther yelled and waved her arms to scare it off. When that didn’t work she loaded an arrow and drew her bow. When he still didn’t budge she released the arrow which skipped off the dirt right next to the cat. Instead of running away, he just turned and walked casually into the woods.
Cougar on camera: 2019. Maybe the same one that stalked Esther…
A dangerous cat is a danger indeed. Due to their explosive short-burst speed, there is no physical way to outrun a cougar. They can grow to roughly the same size and weight (and color) as an adult human; a full-grown male lion can weigh more than two-hundred pounds. Cougars prefer ambush-style hunting: crouching in wait and then pouncing on his victim. He uses his powerful arms to pull down his prey, and then kills quickly by sinking his fangs into the back of the neck and severing the spine. Other tactics include crushing the windpipe and suffocating his victim. Either way it’s a quick and silent death. Your best chance at surviving a cougar attack is to fight back. If at all possible, go for the eyes. Cats are very careful to avoid personal injury and will back off if you threaten bodily harm.
Typical cougar kill (note claw marks).
Now back to our story.
Cautiously we tiptoed into the timber in the direction of the scuffle. Coming around a clump of stunted pines we found a yearling doe lying flat on the ground, gargling and gasping with its eyes rolled back in its head. Claw marks were raked horizontally across her hind quarters. The cougar had obviously heard us coming and ran off before we arrived.
Instinctively I loaded an arrow while Esther suggested what I was thinking anyway: “Maybe we should put it out of its misery.” But I decided to wait since, strangely, there was no blood present. About twenty seconds later, the deer’s eyes rolled back into place. She suddenly swung her head up, looked around, then sprang to her feet and bounded away as if nothing happened.
At that point we slowly backed out and into the open. On the way out I joked, “Looks like I saved a deer’s life. She better send us a thank you card in the mail.”
Cougar on trail camera in 2020.
Esther was planning to hunt this area in the evening, but after the nerve-wracking experience she decided to follow me into a different area instead. On the way I joked that the cougar might be plotting revenge for having his dinner plans ruined. In retrospect I was only half-joking, because that’s exactly what the cougar did! Before splitting up for the evening, I suggested she sit with her back to a tree and keep an eye behind her. But the evening was uneventful and at dark we walked back to the truck together.
A Vengeful Cougar?
Twenty-four hours later I found myself once again huffing and puffing up the mountain alone, this time about a mile away. I was thoroughly focused on deer; the cougar encounter already ancient history in my mind. After all, what were the odds of running into the same cat, even if he was now desperately hungry and maybe even seeking revenge?
Big cougar tom wearing tracking collar in 2021.
I arrived at one of my favorite areas and immediately spotted two forest grouse pecking around. Realizing that any meat was better than no meat, I stalked toward the bigger bird. He got nervous, however, and flew into the low branches of a nearby tree. Moving closer for a shot, I settled my pin on the little target and released. POOF! The grouse fell to the ground in a shower of clipped feathers. Excitedly I trotted over to collect my bird, but to my dismay he was gone; apparently just a grazing shot. From there I walked in ever-widening circles around the trees scanning for the bird.
A moment later I spotted a grouse walking across a flat towards some nearby cliffs. I followed the bird, but when I got closer he busted from the cliff edge and soared into the wilderness 1000 feet below. Realizing it must have been the other bird, I turned back to look for the one I’d shot at.
But when I turned around my heart stopped. Sitting in the shadows, half-hidden behind a deadfall tree and exactly where I’d been standing just a minute earlier, was a big cougar staring right at me. Only his head and muscular shoulders were visible above the log, his eyes locked on mine. It didn’t seem real at first, and all I could do was stare back as my mind raced, trying to make sense of the situation. Was it real or someone playing a trick on me? Now what?
Adult cougar close-up. (Photo courtesy of Utah DWR, by Lynn Chamberlain)
Defend Yourself!
The hackles on my neck suddenly stood on end as I realized the gravity of the situation. First off, I was standing in the wide open with sheer cliffs at my back. Second, the cougar wasn’t budging and likely contemplating his next move. Finally, in all likelihood he was the same cougar from the previous night, now hungry and vengeful. At any moment I expected the great cat to explode across the flat in a tawny blur and rip me to shreds.
Without another thought I quickly and smoothly grasped an arrow from my quiver and loaded it onto my bow without looking down. Then, in one fluid motion I drew my bow while calculating the distance to the cougar. My sight pins scrolled across his face. Looks about thirty yards…
A second later my arrow whizzed into the shadows and found its mark with a loud CRACK!
The cougar disappeared into a flurry of dust and debris, its tail whipping wildly above the log. Instantly I pulled another arrow, this time fumbling to load it with my shaking hand. The scuffling suddenly stopped. Was he dead?
Nope.
The cat sprang up on another log situated perpendicular to the one he’d been sitting behind. Without looking back he casually walked the length of the log in the opposite direction, then hopped to the ground and meandered into the trees as if nothing happened.
I waited until the cat was well out of sight and then walked over to where he’d been sitting. There was no blood or arrow at first, just a few tuffs of tan fur mixed with pine needles and branches. A short distance later the blood trail started, dark red and drizzled steadily along the log and off into the woods.
For the moment I had no intention of following the cat, and instead spent some time looking for my arrow, the whole time wondering where I’d hit him. It was clearly a good hit, but there was no evidence that the arrow passed through, nor did he carry it off. The only possibility was the arrow hit him high on the head, a glancing, slashing blow that knocked him temporarily senseless, and then skipped into the woods.
Another cougar kill from 2021.
At last I cautiously followed the blood trail into the woods. It was my responsibility, after all, to follow-up on a wounded animal. The easy-to-follow drizzle trail continued for about 300 yards and then stopped abruptly as the forest grew thick with minimal visibility. At that point, and with darkness falling fast, I decided that following an injured, man-stalking cat into the thick stuff was a bad idea and backed out.
In the End
Interestingly, I returned to the site in the morning and found an entirely new blood trail. This blood was from a deer, however, its dug-in tracks intermingled with that of a cougar who’d apparently taken it down very near the same location as my encounter. Was it the same cat? We’ll never know.
Although I continued to hunt the same general area for the next couple weeks I never saw the cougar again, nor did I expect to. He learned a valuable lesson that day: To associate people with danger. Still, I’m looking forward to next season. If we meet again he should be easily identifiable; perhaps I’ll name him “scar.”
Walking down the dusty trail in the dark, I grumbled, “Even if I do write a story about this hunt, it’ll be a short one: Every day was horrible, and then it ended”.
“Well, it’s not over yet,” Esther replied.
I wished it was.
It was a strange hunt, and a strange year. Winter arrived late and went long, as did spring and then summer, throwing the entire year one month late. So August was really July, and therefore the deer took their time migrating up the mountain, resulting in half the deer. Add to that an ever-increasing amount of human-hunters—twice as many as past years—and you have the perfect storm: Twice the dudes; half the deer.
Aside from that, I was about to nuke my entire known life and move to the boonies—300 miles away—in desperate attempt to salvage what good years I have left far away from the stifling mass of humanity. All of springtime I spent finishing my basement in anticipation of selling my Hooper home. The worst case scenario was to sell my home during the hunt, which would force me to abandon the hunt early to move. So of course, that’s what happened.
Since the August opener was really July, the weather was unseasonably hot and dry, creating a forest substrate like potato chips everywhere you went. No matter how carefully we moved, the deer always heard us coming, forcing us to hunt on established hiking and game trails, a low probability venture indeed.
The opener also coincided with a glaring full moon. This is bad for hunting because it allows deer to feed and move more at night, making them harder find during the day. Add to that a billion yellow-jackets and flies constantly circling your face, and conditions couldn’t be worse.
All that aside, I was deer hunting, so I was hopeful and happy. Amidst constant complaints I held fast to my goal: to shoot a great buck over 200 inches. It’s been way too long since I arrowed a true trophy buck, and I was determined to make this my year. Well, I might have picked the wrong year to reinvent myself…
Opening Day
My goal was to pick up where I left off last year. Last year I didn’t find the “land of giant bucks” until twenty days into the hunt. This year I headed up before light on opening day, climbing a thousand vertical feet through heavy timber, but nobody was home. The next day was the same, and so I began exploring other areas. As soon as I left my area, some clowns (other hunters) moved in, bombarding it morning and night. By the time I determined there were no other good areas, the clowns moved out and I moved back in.
Late one evening, as I sat in ambush at a historical deer crossing, a true giant with wide-sweeping antlers showed up. Unfortunately he was out of range, and it was too dark to count points. As nighttime swallowed him up, I began my 1000-foot timber descent back to the truck. With newfound hope, I tried a morning ambush. This time the deer sniffed me out from below and blasted away.
That evening found me in the same spot, but just as the buck’s sentinel materialized, a mysterious nighttime wind shifted upwards and blew the deer out. The following evening I chose a different approach, but the mysterious winds still blew uphill, and the deer never showed. Now, everyone knows that cooling air blows downhill in the evening. It’s simple physics: cold air falls. But not here, not in the “Bermuda Triangle.”
Traditional hunting grounds.
That’s when it hit me: the biggest, baddest, unhuntable stud-bucks used this area because there’s no way to get in front of them without being winded. Mornings are even worse because, as the deer work uphill from feeding, the warming air follows them, negating a stalk from below. An ambush from below also means chasing bucks over crunchy ground, which is impossible. Either way, those bucks winded me for the last time and left the mountain for goods. Back to the drawing board.
Slivers of Timber
In this age of high hunting pressure and long-range weaponry, big bucks adapt quickly or die. The first thing they do is move as far from people and roads as possible, living on extremely steep slopes, the kind of stuff mountain goats like. Next they go nocturnal. Bucks are mostly nocturnal in the first place, but big bucks are completely nocturnal. The only reason we ever catch them on their feet is because they have a hard time differentiating complete blackness from twilight. If you happen to catch a group of elk or deer feeding in the morning, you’ll notice they really don’t get moving until the sun crests the horizon, and then they’re gone. This is probably the most frustrating part the early season: you only get two slivers of daylight each day to catch them moving: 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night.
After that, they’re headed to fragile bedding areas which should be avoided at all costs. If you bust a buck from his “hard bed” (primary daytime bed), he’ll leave the area for the rest of the season. Thus, the best daytime strategy seems to be returning to your boring camp and wasting the entire day sitting around waiting for the next sliver of time to make your move.
The long-range rifle, which has gained popularity over the last decade or so, has had the greatest observable impact on big game animals. My recent extended stints in the woods have shown that deer antlers are narrowing. They still grow the same amount of bone on their heads, but it’s much more vertical than horizontal. Reason being—of course—is that deer are holding tighter to the timber, and a wide rack only slows them down.
Perhaps the animal most affected by long-range rifles is the pronghorn (antelope). Esther drew a limited antelope tag this year, and when I took a day off deer to and help her, it took less than 12 hours to realize I couldn’t. The only way to locate the sparse antelope was to drive the vast dirt roads and glass. But whenever the antelope spied a vehicle, even a mile away, they’d take off at a dead run until they were miles farther. These poor speed goats spend their entire lives in the open sagebrush. Over the years, long-rangers have sniped them from the road at unconscionable distances of half a mile or more! Esther’s only real chance was to pick a random water hole and sit in a ground blind for days at a time. It almost worked too, but that’s another story.
Inevitably, modern big game animals are growing more cautious. If you’re lucky enough to find a mountain with high deer density, you’ll still have a near-impossible time locating the giants. Giant bucks are only found in tiny slivers of terrible timber on steep, high-elevation slopes. Using territoriality, they take over the deepest woods where the wind is always in their favor. They live by their over-sized snouts, using scent rather than sight to dictate their movements.
Hunting the deep woods.
When hunting in dense timber, it’s almost impossible to verify a deer that you’ve spooked because of how they move. Big bucks don’t just beeline away, but rather dive behind the nearest tree(s), and then zigzag from cover to cover, ensuring the hunter never gets a clear shot. Even unpressured bucks zigzag through cover throughout their daily movements. If you get a chance to track a big buck, you’ll notice he rarely travels in a straight line, but moves from cover to cover, always avoiding open areas. On top of that, deer make very little noise when moving. The same crunchy ground that makes a hunter sound like a bulldozer is nearly inaudible with a deer’s carefully placed hoof.
Finally, ‘big bucks’—any buck over five years old and having antlers scoring over 180-inches—are extremely rare on public land. How rare? In thirty years of deer hunting I haven’t found an area/unit/region where more than two percent of the bucks meet trophy criteria. Skillful hunters can still find big bucks, but you’re lucky to get more than a sliver of opportunity. Despite all of this, about half the bowhunters I see are still road hunting with bewildering hope. Many small, inexperienced bucks are regularly picked off this way, but a serious hunter must adapt continually with each passing year, just as the deer do.
Where Are They?
Each night Esther and I returned to camp and conferred with Brent about the bleak situation. We concluded that the majority of deer must be lower on the mountain due to the unseasonably dry conditions. So we spent an evening in the even hotter lowlands, but still saw nothing. Ultimately we learned that the majority of deer were situated on intermediate lands, somewhere below 9000 feet and lower elevation private property. From that point we began exploring these new slivers of forest, and right away saw more bucks.
One morning, Esther and I took a mile and a half climb through rough country to get to one of these spots. At first light, Esther had a nice 4×4 buck appear at 20 yards. Her shot was true, but the arrow penetrated poorly and the deer ran off with hardly a speck of blood. Desperate to relocate the buck, we kept returning to the area. By this time, my aspirations of arrowing a trophy had drastically declined. Considering the conditions, I was ready to take any mature buck. A dude must eat!
Late one morning, while ghosting through heavy timber, I spotted a decent 4×4 rack sticking up and facing me from a stand of trees. By all descriptions, it appeared to be the same deer Esther shot days earlier. Unfortunately I was pinned down in the sweltering sun. Minutes felt like hours as I stood there with swarms of bees and flies circling and landing on my face. I wanted to scream and run away, but couldn’t move. Eventually the buck got nervous and melted into the timber.
This hunt was the opposite of my usual “Zen” hunt; it was torture. Every day was Groundhog Day: hot, cloudless, dusty and buggy.
Man-Eating Cougars
As if we didn’t have enough troubles, the lions paid a visit. On opening day I came across a freshly shredded fawn, and figured there must be a cougar in the area; no big deal. The next morning, while hiking up a well-used trail with Esther, I was disappointed to find boot tracks of two hunters traveling ahead of us. A short distance later, big cat’s tracks overlapped the dude’s tracks, and all three continued up the trail for nearly a mile. All evidence suggested the cougar was actually following the unsuspecting hunters in the predawn murk. Esther and I eventually split up; I went around the backside of the mountain and she continued along the trail. After a couple hours of fruitless hunting, I radioed Esther to meet up for our hike out. She sounded a little shaken up as she related the following story:
Shortly after separating, she rounded a corner in the trail and came face-to-face with a cougar coming back down the trail. At 20 feet, the lion semi-crouched while staring straight into her eyes. Apparently the cat had backed off the two guys—a daunting meal for sure—and by luck stumbled upon a lone, medium-build woman instead. In a semi-panic, Esther began waving her arms above her head and yelling, but to no avail. The cat stood its ground, assessing its newfound prey. Fearing the worst, Esther loaded a trembling arrow and flung it past the cat’s face. Somewhat discouraged by this gesture, the cougar casually turned and strolled into the forest. Esther’s morning hunt was suddenly over, too.
Cougar on trail camera.
Cougars primarily prey on deer while avoiding more dangerous prey, like people. But when deer numbers are low, like this year, they must consider alternate food sources. That’s fine and good, except that an over-abundance of cougars puts the remaining deer on high alert, making hunting and stalking exceptionally difficult. This appeared to be the case here.
Note: The next time Brent checked his trail camera in the area, there was a photo of what was likely the same cat prowling around at night.
September: Round Two
By September (really August by weather standards), Brent had abandoned the deer woods and headed to Idaho to chase elk. Over Labor Day, Esther and I went back home to work and pack things, whereas our house had gone under contract. When we returned to the mountain three days later, something magical had happened: big bucks began popping up in all the traditional areas!
In one of our favorite areas, Esther would setup a lower elevation ambush while I prowled around higher up the mountain. On the first morning I busted a group of deer near the trail and was happy to see some real good antlers in the group. That evening I snuck into the same area, and sure enough, a beautiful, tall-antlered buck appeared feeding 100 yards away. But just as I began my stalk, a horrible squirrel fired up in a nearby tree. The buck immediately whipped his head up and stared in my direction. The squirrel methodically worked his way down the tree, limb by limb, barking wildly until it was five feet away, screeching in my face. I could feel my face turning beet red and wanted nothing more than to send an arrow right down his throat. The next time I looked up, the buck was walking nervously away.
The next morning found me in the same place hoping to catch the big buck coming out of feed. Sure enough he appeared in almost the exact same spot, cautiously surveying the open shooting lanes in front of me. Just as I began loading an arrow, there was a loud snort behind me, and then another. I turned slowly around to see an angry doe a few yards away, stomping her feet and snorting relentlessly. Horrified, I turned back to see the buck had vanished. I must be cursed! That big buck was nowhere to be found the next evening and again the next morning.
Meanwhile, Esther was getting a similar dose of bad luck. While I was getting busted by various, nefarious wildlife, she had a mature buck come feeding along just 10 feet away. But as she began drawing her bow, two unsuspecting hunters came traipsing through the area and spooked the deer off.
The People Party
My mountain doesn’t feel like my mountain anymore. This beautiful, high-altitude portion of the Dixie National Forest is a popular destination for campers, cyclists, and hikers. Most years, the cold and wet weather of early fall invariably chases most of the campers away; but not this year.
Endless summer beauty: Indian paintbrush flower.
Instead, the perpetual bluebird skies and warm weather encouraged human activity all over the mountain throughout the entire hunt. Not good. You see, deer hate people more than anything. They don’t discriminate between hunters and recreationalists, so with each encounter with a random cyclist or hiker, they grow increasingly wary, and consequently less huntable.
Worse yet is the great Highway of Death. To access my woods, one must traverse a busy, two-lane highway for many miles. Throughout the summer and fall I can count between 8 and 12 dead deer on the road in just a fifteen mile stretch. Half the collision-killed deer are fawns, and the rest are does and smaller bucks. This has a detrimental effect on herd numbers, and it gets worse every year.
The Highway of Death isn’t just perilous to deer. Throughout the hunt, emergency vehicles could be heard whirring up and down the highway. One lovely evening, as Esther was driving back from antelope hunting, she observed an oncoming driver drift onto the shoulder, over-correct, and come skidding across her lane before rolling twice down a gully on her side of the road. The male driver got out okay, but his wife was carted off to the hospital with critical spinal injuries. A deer was blamed for the over-correction, but from Esther’s vantage, it appeared to be good old-fashioned driver distraction.
Day #21
We rested our area 24 hours, but unable to turn up anything better, returned for an evening hunt. Determined to outsmart the squirrels and does, I took a lower route to the buck’s feeding area. Sneaking quietly along, a forest grouse suddenly exploded from the brush in front of me. I thought nothing of it until I eased around a tree and found The Big One staring at me 60 yards away, obviously alerted by the grouse. He didn’t stick around.
I hit rock bottom. Surely the mountain had turned against me! Absolutely mortified, I turned and dragged my feet back down the trail, grumbling to Esther the whole way back to the truck. How could the one thing I truly love be so miserable? So many painfully early mornings, sweating and heaving up and down the mountain on sore feet, eating crappy meals way too late, and then long, hot days in the bugs and dust; it was taking its toll on my body and sanity.
I hated the mountain. Every day I fantasized about sleeping in and spending the whole day sitting on the couch in my undies watching NFL with a cold beverage. Oh, to be comfortable and in control again. How I longed for an easy hunt, just once in my life!
Day #22
With no real hope or plan, we almost didn’t get out of bed in the morning. Esther was leaving for her antelope hunt later that day, but I convinced her to join me for one more shot at deer. We took the usual route, Esther low, Nate high. But this day was different. A cold wind howled all morning, a sharp contrast to the previous three weeks.
As expected I found my area devoid of deer, and with nothing better to do, began wandering aimlessly into the wind, just killing time, really. Then, deep into the woods, I was surprised to stumble upon some fresh, green buck droppings, jarring me back to alertness. The bucks weren’t gone after all; they were just living deeper into the dark woods.
I estimated their direction of travel and looped around to get in front of them. Slipping quietly down a small ridge, I rounded a spruce tree and there he was, forty yards away: the big one, with a heavy, symmetric 4-point rack and a great wall of fur. Behind him, a sentinel buck milled around, oblivious to my presence. The big buck caught my movement and froze, staring in my direction, partially obscured by a tree. Knowing he was about to bolt, I quickly loaded an arrow and drew. To my dismay, a pine bough stretched across his vitals. Would the arrow clear it? I began a slow motion crouch until my knees hit the ground. Bending even lower, I settled the pin and hit the release. My arrow sailed just under the branch, and then under the buck’s chest, burying deep in the dirt behind him. As expected, he bounded away.
Immediately I loaded another arrow, and simultaneously the second buck trotted forward, stopping with his front half showing in the same clearing. Fearing an empty freezer back home, I settled my pin and let him have it, narrowly threading my arrow forward of some branches that obscured his back half. He whirled and blasted away.
My, how quickly things change!
I worked down to where the buck was standing and immediately found blood—lots of blood—unlike I’ve ever seen before. It was basically a steady drizzle, as if someone had walked through the woods pouring red syrup on the ground. Where the buck paused, there were great pools of blood. The whole time I expected to see him around the next tree, but no luck. The tough buck trotted a quarter mile, and then dropped down an incredibly steep mountainside. I slowed way down, following the red carpet and glassing ahead. Just when I thought the buck was somehow unkillable, I spied an antler in the shadows of a tree. He was bedded with his head still up! Afraid he might recover and run, I crept forward for a follow-up shot. At twenty yards the buck laid his head down for the last time; he was mine.
My 2019 archery buck.
Conclusion
As I pried the buck loose of the tree, the same old emotions spewed forth. I was simultaneously overjoyed by success, but disappointed at missing The Big One. My buck wasn’t the glorious trophy I came to the mountain for, but then I wasn’t the same person either.
I radioed Esther for help, and then sat for a while with my deer, listening to the wind whistle through the pines in the middle of nowhere. Sadness loomed as I pondered mine and the deer’s fate. These powerful animals are smart survivors whose daily existence is one of pain, hardship, and fear. But they just take it, year-round, until their short lives are cut even shorter by some natural or unnatural foe like me.
Maybe we can learn something from our quarry: accept the pain and discomfort, even revel in it. These admirable beasts deserve our greatest respect, and we deserve what the mountain dishes out precisely because we take so much.
My sacred hunt always plays out in a familiar way: In seeking antler-clad glory, the mountain beats me down, and then, in my darkest hour I find humility. The hunter earns his meat.
The Majestic Muley Buck: Insights and Observations
In September, 2012 I hunted the Wasatch Extended Range with a friend. The bucks in this area are just as wily as anywhere in Northern Utah, if not more. We eventually split up to more thoroughly cover one particular steep and wooded slope; I took the upper section and he took the lower.
Not far into the route, a big, mature 4×4 buck came flying up the mountain, probably spooked by my hunting partner. The buck didn’t notice me as he blew by and then paused briefly on the hillside just outside of bow range while scanning for danger below.
I was instantly enraptured by the buck’s majesty. He held his neck high, donning a beautiful, square rack with heavy tines standing like swords above his noble face. His muscular body pulsed with deep breaths. He jerked his head left and right, simultaneously scanning for danger and planning his escape route. I just stood there, mouth agape, bow a-dangle. What a creature!
Seconds later he picked a line of trees and bounded away, his hooves barely poking the earth between great strides, seemingly floating over the treacherous terrain with awesome speed and agility.
Nothing to do now; no point in following after. The buck would be valleys away by the time I caught up with him. I was gripped with a sense of helplessness. The sheer magnitude of this creature made me feel inept in my abilities. How could one ever outwit such a powerful and wary animal? It was humbling, and exactly what I needed.
I just spent the last few days prowling around Idaho and still haven’t seen any decent bucks. Days are ruthlessly hot and dry; nights are freezing, which is probably why I languish with a painful head cold. My first step out of the dusty camp and my legs are sore with disease; my joints hurt, my muscles ache, my head throbs.
Foreign lands and no deer sign yet, but this remote valley looks promising. I’m headed toward the dark, north-face timber where I may get some reprieve from the glaring sun. But the route is thick with oak brush and cedar. Endless branches grasp at my body, tripping me and shoving me back down the steep slope.
I stop frequently to mop pouring sweat from my forehead with my camo cap. I’m still wearing the same stinky outfit I’ve donned for three days. Wind is my best ally or my worst enemy. There’s no point trying to be quiet. I just need a vantage to glass from. I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ll end up; just following my nose and reading sign.
Moments ago something crawled across my neck. I swiped at it and monstrous orange spider fell to the ground. But I won’t be dissuaded. This is what I live for; it’s all I know. Only a year ago my arrow sailed over the biggest velvet buck I ever shot at. He’s long since vanished now, which is why I’m here in Idaho. Redemption. New woods and new hope. I push onward.
Long out of tissue, both nostrils drain continuously, leaving a slimy trail of moisture everywhere I go, likely the only moisture this parched forest has seen in months.
Finally some tracks, but small. I follow to see where they lead. Maybe I’ll strap on my release; I hope I brought it. Just yesterday I was hiking in grizzly country and halfway up the mountain I realized I’d forgotten to load my arrows into my quiver. Stupid, stuffy head!
My life has been various attempts at various activities, but bowhunting has been my one true passion, and better yet, the only thing I’m really good at. But here and now, it’s hard to tell. My brain is gripped with pressure, my body is weak. I push on because I know nothing else.
In the pines a squirrel fires up, barking relentlessly, giving away my position. I always carry a squirrel arrow, but it’s mostly futile; there’s always another squirrel, and the biggest bucks are always in the dark timber with them. During a heavy wind last year, I stumbled upon a giant 4×4 buck bedded in a patch of thick blowdowns. Before I could pull an arrow, a squirrel fired up alerting the buck who quickly rose from his bed and melted away into the forest.
I try to imagine heavy horns moving through the brush, and then my arrow carrying cold steel through its chest cavity. The only way I win is if I wreak maximum carnage on an innocent, unsuspecting deer. I wince at the thought. Will I ever turn away from this bloody pursuit? Likely not, because life outside the woods has little appeal to me, and even less venison. A predator must eat.
At this time I’d like to formally apologize to my faithful and finely crafted compound bow which I’m currently dragging through an almost indescribable tangled hell. Only five years old and it’s already covered in battle scars; scratches, dents and dings. Sure it’s seen some fine moments, but this year it’s just a hiking companion. Its one moment of glory was a dirty coyote I sniped near camp in Utah.
After weed-whacking for two hours I’ve arrived at a fantastic rock outcropping with views of the entire valley. Only an 90 minutes of shooting light left and still no deer. I glass empty draw after empty draw, stacked in vertical rows below the summit.
I want to underestimate the mighty buck; I try to convince myself that he’s just another dumb animal eating and sleeping his life away. But I know better. He’s an ingenious survivor, evading predators year after year with very little effort and hardly a conscious thought. How is that possible? A hunter, no matter his experience, goes to his grave having merely scratching the surface of everything there is to know about these amazing survivors. Outsmarting him is the greatest challenge, and I suppose this relentless pursuit is why it never gets old.
The rest of my Idaho excursion iss nothing short of a grim letdown. The once promised land is mostly bleak, ravaged by human intrusions, just like Utah. ATVs and trash litter the landscape and the woods are devoid of huntable game. Big bucks live short lives hidden away in dark holes far removed from human reach.
The following is my 2016 Idaho bear hunt story. I hope you enjoy it!
The skies were dark as a steady cold rain soaked the steep mountainside. A big chocolate phase bear was barely visible feeding in the dense brush forty yards away. After ranging him several times and unable to see his vitals, I knew I’d have to get closer. Any apprehension I had about getting close to dangerous predators was suddenly gone.
I eased into thirty yards and nocked an arrow. The bear sat on his rump facing away from me. My eyes were locked onto him as I crept ever closer. I ranged him again at twenty yards. Close enough, I thought, wait for him to turn. The storm-driven wind began to swirl. Something needed to happen.
I don’t remember exactly when it started, but several years ago I felt compelled to challenge my bowhunting abilities by pursuing dangerous game with a bow. I suppose this is the natural progression of any serious bowhunter, but in the back of my mind I wasn’t completely confident I had what it takes. I would often play out the stalk in my mind, but when it came to getting close I always felt a tinge of panic. I knew that a bad hit could turn deadly, and so getting well within bow range and shooting straight would be the ultimate test of grit.
In 2016 I miraculously drew an any weapon Idaho controlled bear tag with less than 1 in 40 odds. Like many hunters today, I read and reread the word “Successful” on the postcard, thinking there must be a mistake. It was hard to believe that a quality bear hunt was suddenly on the horizon.
Back in 2012 I bought an OTC tag and took a kamikaze trip to Idaho looking for bruins. It was a complete failure. At no time did I feel remotely close to one of these elusive animals. I had much to learn. Now, with my hunt just a month away, I knew almost nothing about hunting bears.
The unit I drew is actually two large units, neither of which I’d ever seen before. The hunt spans the entirety of April and most of May, so there would be plenty of time to learn the area. In March I contacted the biologist for the region. All I really wanted was a starting point. Unfortunately, the information she gave me was pretty vague. When I asked about bear concentrations, she said they were scattered evenly throughout the area. However, the northernmost unit had historically better harvest statistics, so that’s where I would begin my search. She also mentioned that it was a heavy snow year, so the best strategy was to avoid the first week of April to allow time for the bears to emerge from their dens. By the last week of April, all the bears should be out and feeding heavily on green shoots just below snow line.
Rugged Idaho.
My plan was to hunt the second week of April alone. Mostly I’d be looking for road access and bear sign throughout the unit. If that trip failed, I would return the last week of April with my wife, Esther, for a week-long excursion. I must admit that I felt much more comfortable having a “gunner” next to me in case I got into trouble. Needless to say, my first trip was one of apprehension.
In the meantime I dug around for more information online and was fortunate to find a few good starting points. I also read everything I could about hunting black bears. Some of the best information came from Eastmans’ Bowhunting Journal. Years ago I began clipping and saving some highly informative articles written by Guy Eastman and the bear-slayer himself, Brian Barney. This lexicon of bear knowledge became the guidebook for my hunt.
After a long, eight hour drive across the plains of Southern Idaho, I arrived at the beautiful, moss-covered woods of Western Idaho. I set up my solitary camp alongside a muddy dirt road near a runoff-swollen stream at the bottom of steep canyon.
Around 8:00 a.m. I headed up the slippery mountainside. From the information I gathered, bears like to feed for a couple hours on open, green, south-facing slopes during warm weather, and then bed down for a few hours in the dark timber, and repeat. Not even fifteen minutes into my hike I spotted my first black bear feeding exactly where I expected: on a green, south-facing slope near old-growth timber.
This was the first bear I’d seen in more than a decade, and my heart leapt with glee. Was bear hunting really this easy, I wondered? The bear was about a thousand vertical feet above me and too far to judge, so I needed to get closer. While scrambling towards the bear I suppressed a nagging inner voice that continually questioned my motives, asking “Why are you running towards this horrible beast?!”
In short order I arrived on the same elevation as the bear and shot some video from about 120 yards. He’d finished feeding and was ambling into the dark woods where I quickly lost sight of him. Judging by the distance between his ears, I estimated him as a younger bear. But what did I know?
Slowly, I made my way to where he disappeared. I soon realized he was gone and began hiking up the ridgeline. A little farther along I heard a scuffling below me. As I pulled up my binos, the hair rose on my neck and my hand fumbled for the .357 revolver on my belt. The same bear was digging out a bed just thirty yards away and somehow didn’t notice me. He just lay down and went to sleep.
For the longest time I stood motionless, peering at the sleeping bear through my binoculars. He was indeed a young bear, and eventually I moved off to glass different parts of the mountain. A few hours later I glassed up another bear—a big blond sow with two cubs—half a mile away. I shot some more video and moved along. As exciting as it is to see sows with cubs, they are protected and illegal to hunt, for obvious reasons.
Still, my hopes ran high most of the day. Unfortunately that was my last bear sighting before getting socked in by storm clouds and running out of daylight. All in all it was a productive first day.
First day, socked in.
I woke the second day to an inch of snow. My goal was to cover as much new ground as possible. Apparently the bad weather had the bears down because I didn’t glass up a single bear, nor did I find any fresh tracks in the snow. I’d read somewhere that bears hate being out in the rain, and this was proving to be true. That night I stumbled back to camp wet and sore, and a little discouraged. At that point I decided to move camp to a different part of the unit.
On Wednesday I spent the day driving the muddy roads farther north. I soon discovered that most of higher elevation roads were still snowed in. I would plow my truck as far as I could, then get out and hike. Overall I wasn’t finding much sign.
That afternoon, while driving lower elevation roads, I spotted a huge blond sow with two cubs about a quarter-mile up the mountain. When she saw my truck, she bounded onto a boulder outcropping and took a defensive posture. She held her head high with her eyes transfixed on me while swaying back and forth. I half-expected her to come barreling down the mountain and tear my truck apart. I knew that sows were protective of their cubs, but this was ridiculous. What have I gotten myself into, I wondered?!
That was my second reality check moment. If I were to continue hunting bears with a bow, then in a very real way I had to make peace with the possibility of death. Success meant that one of us wasn’t coming out of the woods alive, and there was a chance it might be me! It was painfully necessary, at that very minute, to either accept this fact or go home. Did I really have what it takes?
Later that evening I went searching for a campsite. Just before the road became snowed in, I was able to glass up big, jet-black bear on a far-away hillside. It was lone bear and likely a boar. My game plan for morning was to drive as far up the road as possible and then hike after the bear. But the weather had other plans.
On Thursday I woke to a full-on blizzard and knew my hunt was over. The bears would hunker down and the roads would only get worse. Best to cut my losses, take the knowledge I’d gained, and come back later with a plan. I was encouraged that in three full days I had four bear sightings. Still, I didn’t get a single stalk opportunity, and for such a difficult-to-draw hunt, I expected a little more. Perhaps many of the bears were still hibernating…
The following week we had beautiful warm weather, but I was stuck at home working. Then, just as we departed on another week-long bear excursion, it turned bitter cold and wet. Originally I planned for my wife Esther—who is deathly afraid of close-up bear encounters, by the way—to be my gunner and carry a rifle for protection. But in the week between bear hunts, I decided the mountains were just too steep to carry all that extra weight. Instead, she came armed with paltry can of bear spray. ;^)
Before setting out on the open road, curiosity had me searching the IDFG website for past harvest statistics for my unit. I was surprised, and dismayed, to learn that of the 75 tags given out, only 20 hunters were successful. That’s less than 30% success! Already, I was planning a third trip in May.
On the night of Sunday, April 24th, we pulled into the area that I’d left off on my first trip in the remote, muddy mountains near the Oregon border. There were no other hunters in the area, which I found encouraging. As we set up the tent we were accompaniment by the ghostly howls of wolves in the distance. There was something peaceful about having these blustery, wild mountains to ourselves.
Wolf track.
We struggled to keep warm that night. In the morning we began hiking where the road ends and right away spotted a sow with cubs on a far-off, cliffy mountainside. We continued hiking all day and glassing all day and eventually we dropped into the canyon where I’d seen the lone black bear on my first hunt. There were numerous bear tracks in the area, as well as frequently used bedding areas surrounded by fresh scat. The whole time I felt we were very close to our quarry, but still couldn’t turn up any bears.
Rear foot pad.
After a hard freeze overnight, we spent Tuesday morning driving miles and miles of roads with no luck. In the evening we returned to the canyon with all the bear sign. We sat on a saddle with deep, dug-in bear tracks going over it and a rubbing tree littered with bear hair. I nicknamed this area “Bearea.” All was quiet, but then just before dark we caught sight of a sow with cubs walking along a logging road.
Dug-in tracks.
On Wednesday we went back to Bearea with intentions of exploring it entirely. Around 10 a.m. a heavy rain pinned us down in the dark timber. The relentless rain eventually chased us back to camp where we changed out of our soaked clothes. We were yet to see a lone bear on this trip and were getting a little discouraged. The rain let up that evening, and again we dropped into Bearea but to no avail. At that point we decided to move camp farther south, to where I had my first bear encounter.
Thursday was sunny and clear. We spent the whole day hiking from 4000’ to snowline at 5000’. We were excited to come across innumerable tracks, beds and fresh scat, but still, no amount of glassing could turn up a bear. Nonetheless, I was learning quite a bit about bears, primarily what I refer to as the “triple S” of bear behavior: shy, secretive, and slippery.
Bears, like deer, don’t want to be found! Even if you spot a bear, they tend to move around a lot and eventually disappear. Sometimes we’d find a steamy, green pile of scat, but the leaver of such piles remained invisible. I began to refer to them as “invisabears.”
It became increasingly clear that at least one bear was living full time on this mountainside above camp. Frustration had me clambering from pine bed to pine bed, all over the steep slope looking for these invisible bears, but once again the day ended bear-free.
While pondering bears that evening I decided we should start hunting bears like we hunt deer. We would wake very early on Friday and spend the whole day glassing and bed hopping. All the information I’d read about bears—that they emerge from beds several times to feed during the day—was apparently not the case here.
Bear sign.
It was a cold and rainy Friday morning as we began our ascent up the mountain. When we arrived at our first vantage we spotted a lone chocolate phase bear feeding far above us in the low clouds that partially obscured the mountain. Determined to finally get my stalk on, I trotted up the near vertical slope with Esther floundering behind. Just as we were closing the distance on the bear, he disappeared into the clouds. Surely he’d bedded down in one of the dozens pine beds littered across the slope. So the rest of the day was spent hiking in circles looking for the lone bear, who for no particular reason I named Sedwich. We visited all the promising areas—and more—but again found nothing. Wet and discouraged, we returned to camp around 2 p.m.
We were officially out of dry footwear which encouraged us to go driving down one of the long, winding roads in the relentless rain. By late afternoon we hadn’t set eyes any bear and returned to camp for lunch. To my dismay the forest service had opened the locked gate on the logging road leading up the mountain where we had toiled for so long. With the impending weekend, I feared the area would soon get blown out by rifle hunters. It was hard to imagine a scenario wherein I might get a successful stalk.
In disgust we took advantage of the newly opened road and drove a short distance to glass. Not surprisingly, the bears weren’t out. As we sat pondering impending failure, Esther suddenly leaned over and asked, “Is that your bear???” My binos flashed up and sure enough a large, lone bear materialized out of nowhere and sat feeding in the rain 1000 vertical feet above the road. Instantly I grabbed my pack, slipped on my soggy boots, and just before jumping out of the truck exclaimed to Esther, “Stay here!”
Then halfway across the road I looked up and noticed a second lone bear feeding a short distance from the first one. When it rains, it pours bears! I looked back to Esther in astonishment, and then took off running up the mountain.
Halfway up the near vertical slope I paused. I couldn’t breathe and both my legs were going numb. I gasped and sweated, slipped and fell, and pushed onward. A few minutes later I arrived at the same elevation as the bears, and wouldn’t you know it, both had vanished! When I got within view of the truck, I waved and flailed my arms at Esther, hoping she could point me towards the bears. To my dismay, she held both hands up, gesturing that she too lost sight of the bears. Now what?!
Through drizzling rain I zigzagged to the top of the ridgeline, desperately trying to stay above the swirling winds that had likely busted the bears. Soaked with sweat and rain, I glassed every bit of cover but turned up nothing. Darkness was falling, as were my spirits. The only option was to work back down to the truck and try again in the morning. While following a finger ridge down the mountain, a dark blob in the brush caught my eye. My heart jumped. It was the big brown phase bear, nearly invisible as it fed in the dense brush below. No shot; must get closer.
Staying above the feeding bear, I crouched low and skirted the hillside towards it. I ranged the bear at forty yards. He was feeding in circles with just the top of his back visible. Gotta get closer! I slowly eased into thirty yards, trying my best not to roll a rock down the hill. My heart thundered in my chest. I took long, deep breaths to calm myself, knowing this would likely be my only opportunity. I nocked an arrow and waited for him to present a shot. Instead the bear sat flat on his rump facing away from me. The storm-driven wind began to swirl. Must get closer quick!
I meticulously closed the distance to 20 yards. Close enough, I thought. Wait for him to turn broadside. I drew my bow and held tight. He didn’t move; I let down. Seconds later he stood and slowly turned uphill, exposing his shoulder. My sight pin danced all over his vitals. I paused for a couple seconds and slowly exhaled. I resettled the pin and the arrow was off.
To my dismay, less than half the arrow buried into its shoulder. The bear swung around to face me and somehow, in the same two seconds I had loaded another arrow and redrawn my bow. The bear’s head swung left then right, then forward. His piercing eyes locked onto mine. When he raised his head to look at me, my second arrow sailed under his chin and disappeared into his chest.
The bear swung around and barreled straight down the mountain, smashing through the brush as he went, and then disappeared into the dark timber below. I stood shaking in disbelief, oblivious to the rain battering down on me.
My first instinct was to head back to the car and get Esther. My second instinct told me to go after the bear. The rain threatened to wash away the blood trail and darkness was falling. In no way did I want to track a wounded bear in the dark. I pulled my revolver, and with my gun in one hand and bow in the other, slowly headed in the bear’s direction. The blood trail was heavy and full of frothy lung blood. Surely the bear wouldn’t go far.
200 yards down the mountain, at the edge of the dark timber, I slowed way down, glassing as I went. Fifty yards deeper in the tangled maze of a giant deadfall tree, my eyes locked onto the dark, furry patch of my expired bear. I was overcome by relief and a sense of accomplishment unimaginable. What had arguably been the most difficult and frustrating hunt of my life, had instantly transformed into wonderful success.
After verifying the bear was indeed done, I hung my bow in a tree and jogged back to the truck. Esther burst from the vehicle and ran to meet me on the road. She raved on about how she witnessed the entire stalk, and her excitement throughout was equal to mine.
The rain died out as we approached the downed bear together.
My bear—Sedwich the bear—has become a major milestone in my life. I can’t think of a better way to challenge one’s skills and bravery than a close-quarters bear hunt with a bow. I also learned that there’s no such thing as an easy bow hunt.
As with all hunting, it’s the hunter’s responsibility to learn everything he can about his prey and its behavior. I have nothing but admiration and respect for these powerful creatures that we share our mountains with, but rarely get to see. For this reason I’ll probably never hunt bears again. Like all game animals, our beautiful black bears are a renewable resource for our taking. And indeed, blueberry-glazed bear steaks are quite delicious. But unlike elk and deer, there just aren’t a whole lot of them to take. These fascinating beasts have their own special place in the woods, and for me, preserving this hunt as an once-in-a-lifetime experience is plenty enough.
In the end my bear green scored 19.5 inches, making it my fourth spot-and-stalk Pope and Young trophy in seven years. Yet, as proud as I am of this accomplishment, I must remind myself that life’s most precious experiences cannot be measured in inches or trophy quality. How we hunt—and the people with whom we share our hunts—are what matters most. None of my bow trophies would have been possible without the love and support from my wonderful and understanding wife, Esther, who’s been by my side during all of these magical hunts.
Preface: I know this is a BOW-hunting blog, but there are plenty of entertaining GUN-hunting stories out there too. The following is the story of my brother’s 2015 rifle deer hunt. Enjoy!
Hope-Frustration-Pain-Success. Hunting on General Tags
(Story by Russell Allred)
Hiking to our base camp the day before the opener was a bigger chore than I had expected or wanted. When I was younger, hunting from the comforts of a camper and shooting bucks well-within view of camp was the norm. It was fortunate, because back then we would always drag the full carcass back to camp, rather than cutting it into quarters with the gutless method of today. Nowadays, just the hike to base camp is a long and arduous chore, much less the daunting task of the harvest and recovery of meat, if successful. Alas, this is what it takes as animals are pushed further into the recesses of the back country.
The hard-earned location paid off right away. That evening we were able to sit in camp and glass up probably 30 bucks. One buck, the biggest one, was a mile and a half away and way up high above tree line. It looked to be a good size in the spotting scope, and had unusually light colored antlers that in the setting sun looked almost bleached white. Compared to all the other bucks we were seeing, this buck was quite a distance from camp and there was no assurance that on opening morning it would still be there. Nobody wanted to get up so early in the morning to go after it, so I volunteered.
Very early, probably too early, I started hiking in the dark to the big buck’s area to see if I could get to it at first light before other hunters moved in. I had left camp so early, that I actually had to slow down and rest on the ridge top in the dark so as not to move into the buck area and spook the deer without ever seeing them. While relaxing in the dark, I could see the head lamps of other hunters well below me trying to make their way in the darkness, as well. Any headlamp in the area within two miles was easily seen in the dark. I imagined they all had the same ideas…get out early and beat out the competition. Well, I was ahead of them all. Naturally, I shined and waved my head lamp down into the valley and canyon far below, making myself known to all, “Here I am, this is MY area”. Marking my spot like a dog on a fire hydrant. Sure enough, the head lamp closest to me, maybe about three-quarters of a mile below me, suddenly stopped. The brightness of it peaked, indicating it was looking my direction. I could almost make out the cuss words as the hunter realized he had to come up with ‘Plan B’. Sure enough, he did not come up any higher.
When I finally got close to my target location it was just starting to get light enough to see and I had to crawl around a ridge of shale rocks. Crawling was necessary to keep from skylining myself. As I crawled along, I kept glassing to make sure I would see the deer before they saw me. Binos up, binos down. Crawl a couple of yards. Repeat.
Well, I guess I was just too exposed on the barren ridge, because suddenly I could see something standing just 250 yards ahead of me. Through the dim glass, sure enough, it was the very same light-colored antlers of the big buck with his two little buck buddies all staring right at me. Keep in mind, this area was way up high, and there was very little brush, so even though I thought I was being smart by crawling, they still caught me skylined. Even in the dark I stood out on the ridge line. Maybe more so with the dawning sky. I tried to prep my gun, but they immediately took off. I watched them go down to a gully about 600 yards away and stop and look back. The wind had been in my favor, by design, and maybe crawling had not completely given up my silhouette as human. So I did the only thing I could do and started crawling, again, to get myself some cover below the ridge line.
Well, after about 5 more minutes of this awkward crawl with gun in one hand and shooting sticks in the other, I heard something rattle the shale rocks above me and sure enough it was a dude on a horse. You see, this spot is so high up and so hard to get to, pretty much only dudes on horses go up there. The spooked bucks moved even further away. All I could do was stand up and quickly move toward where the bucks had been earlier, and to where I had better cover in a more brushy area. My bold move was partly out of frustration, but also strategic. I needed cover if I was going to be making anymore moves. But maybe more importantly, I needed the horseman to see me move into the basin ahead of him. I had nowhere else to go, but he could move all over the mountain on his horse. This was going to be my spot and he needed to know it.
Upon reaching cover, I sat down and started glassing. The horseman had seen me on the move and meandered away on his horse, seemingly without seeing the bucks I had been after, or the other 20 bucks 600 yards ahead and a little higher.
I watched as the big buck and his sentinels kept moving away, and eventually, I could not see them anymore. So I sat there and glassed for an hour. Glassed up about 30, or more, bucks around me within 500 yards. None as big as the one I had come all this way to chase.
The shooting down in the canyon got pretty busy for a bit. And deer kept pouring into the area I was in, I suppose to escape all the hunters below. Lots of does and smaller bucks taking cover in this little bowl where I had settled. No shooters, so I just practiced ranging them and aiming with my new scope.
After sitting for an hour and a half, I noticed a little buck up ahead of me about 450 yards. As I looked at it through the spotting scope, to my excitement and surprise, I noticed the tall white antlers of my target buck sticking up out of the sagebrush right next to the little buck. They had never left the area. Turns out the little buck was one of those two original sentinels and was still standing guard for his boss. The tall white antlers gave him away, even though I could not see any of his body behind the brush. I trained my scope on the brush directly in front of him and dialed in the yardage and waited for him to stand up. I knew it would be a long wait. But, so far, I had the bowl and the buck to myself.
After about 45 minutes I noticed two dudes way down below that were starting to head toward this buck. They had come into the bowl half an hour earlier, but were obviously discouraged to see that I had already claimed it with a much better vantage point, and they left. Probably, with the canyon below so full of hunters, they had nowhere else to go, so they returned. This time, however, though they could see I was on this buck, they must have decided that if I wasn’t taking the shot, then they were going to try for it themselves. That really upset me, so I continued to watch the buck very closely so I could take the shot as soon as it stood up, hopefully before they got into shooting range.
Jerks. I was about to get ‘duded’ by jerks. As if their aggression wasn’t enough, I had seen them glassing me with their rifle scopes. Probably with rounds chambered. I mean, why not? They were jerks and that’s what jerks do. I guess by ‘jerks’ I mean dudes. I am sure they were normally very pleasant people. Something about bone on the head of big game can somehow turn perfectly nice people into, well, jerks. Heck, here I am calling my fellow sportsmen ‘jerks’. I digress…
To complicate things, two more horsemen showed up just a couple of hundred yards directly above my buck. For me to take a shot, I would have to shoot in their direction. Even though it was probably theoretically safe with all the ridge and dirt to absorb any wayward bullets, it would be a shot that no one in their right mind would ever take. Nervously, I waited for them to see my buck and ignore my interpretation of safety and ethics and start shooting.
They never saw the buck, and slowly, too slowly, moved up and away. All the while my ‘friends’ from below were closing in on my buck. After about half an hour I was getting real nervous that these fine gentlemen were getting close enough to take a shot. So I decided to shoot at the brush it was bedded next to. Not the situation I had imagined, but I figured if I could get it to stand up, it would give me a good shot opportunity.
It took two shots before it got up, and then I had to fire 3 more shots to get it to go down. Which it did. I had been concerned those jerks (oops, there I go again…dudes) would start firing while I was, so I unloaded my gun on to make sure it was down. Now I was all out of bullets. I had never used more than one bullet before, so I had only carried five rounds that day to save on weight, and thought that even five rounds was overkill.
As I gathered my gear, I noticed that the buck was laying down with its head still up. Could be bad, but I figured it would die by the time I got over to it. So I grabbed my gear and went to it.
When I got to about 30 yards from the buck, I could see it staring above the brush right at me, laying down, but head up, still alert and very much alive. And I had no more bullets. Not sure what to do, I closed the distance, but when I got to 15 yards, it tried to run away using only its front legs (I later learned that I made a mistake on my new scope’s left-to-right turret that caused it to shoot more left, so two shots hit it back too far, and also hit spine; at 450 yards a small mistake is exaggerated).
This was a very steep mountain, so the buck pulled itself about 50 yards straight down the hill very quickly, eventually falling over on its back and getting its antlers stuck in some sage brush. Fortunately, this time it just laid there breathing heavily, but would get upset whenever I tried to move any closer. Without any more bullets, I wanted to slit its throat and bleed it out, but I did not want to keep chasing it down the hill or to get in a fight with it and possibly get myself stabbed by my knife or gored by its antlers. So I hoped to just let it lie for a few minutes and see if it would die. It was stuck in a very awkward upside down position, which I thought would aid in its quick demise.
After about 25 minutes, it seemed to just be content to lay there on its back stuck, but still alive. To make matters worse, the two dudes were down below me watching the whole debacle. And, I later learned, a friend of mine was watching it all through his spotting scope, too. I am sure I looked like the biggest clown on the mountain. The tables had turned. Surely, the two dudes below me were thinking “what a jerk”!
Finally, I mustered the courage, out of necessity, to inch my way close enough to the injured buck to finally make a quick thrust of the knife into its throat. It fought a little but, finally, just laid there and bled out and was dead in a couple of minutes.
The adventure did not end there, though. After field dressing the buck, I loaded the whole buck (that is…all the meat…quarters, back straps, and head) into my pack and it was extremely heavy. As soon as I started walking (literally at the first step), a big rain storm rolled in and rained on me for the whole 2 hours it took to haul this heavy pack back to camp in steep and rough terrain. I was cold and wore out and cramping in my back, legs, feet, and toes. Every time I stopped to rest and take the pack off, within a minute I was freezing, so I’d have to keep slowly moving to keep from hypothermia. My buddy, Danny, met me about a third mile from camp and took my pack for me the rest of the way. But it was a huge third mile. Probably would have taken me another hour at the exhaustive pace I was going. Took Danny less than 10 minutes.
I crawled into my tent and laid there for two more hours of pounding rain and pain. Eventually, as the rain let up, Danny’s father-in-law showed up with horses and hauled out the deer. I was able to make it home that evening. Tired, but glad to a successful end of another grand hunting adventure. And I would like to say a little wiser, except for the fact that two weeks later I found myself waking up in Idaho not knowing how I got there or where I was, although I did have a Salmon Idaho Hospital wrist band on. That was just the first day of a 10 day elk hunt that was much more interesting than this deer hunt…and with even more dudes.
I never thought much about turkeys. I love bowhunting more than anything, but it was my wife Esther who took an active interest in hunting turkeys. In spring we drew turkey tags for Southern Utah where we’d come across plenty of birds in the past. Getting tags was easy enough, but that’s where easy ended.
First off, we decided to do it with a bow. I don’t do guns—I am a bow-snob…I mean purist—so now we were hunting unfamiliar prey with light tackle.
Second, Esther couldn’t get any time off work. Her schedule is a consummate nightmare, but somehow she was able to secure a single weekend at the end of the April. Now this proved to be a problem because the turkeys we ultimately hunted were already people- and call- wary. Can you say sloppy seconds?
Thirdly, the weather report called for heavy thundershowers and snow. What choice did we have? We went for it anyway.
We left late Friday night and already it was raining. Four hours later we set up camp in the back of the truck and went to bed. The morning was cool and lovely. We ventured across a small river and up the mountain. I decided to make a video of our ordeal, so Esther carried a bow and I carried a camera. I would be the caller for the first couple days, and after she got a shot it would be my turn.
Me and Esther on our first turkey hunt.
We hiked and called for a few hours, but got no response. A while later, we heard a turkey gobble out of the blue, so we set up a decoy, dropped back, and began a calling sequence. The turkey ignored us and so we kept hiking.
Esther using a turkey slate call.
Later that afternoon, some thick, black clouds rolled in. As we were making our way back down the mountain, a gobbler fired up fairly close by. We holed up under some junipers to devise a strategy, and that’s when the rain started. We pulled out our raingear and pretty soon it was a downpour. At some point I realized we were on the wrong side of the river, and if the rain continued we might get trapped on the mountain. So we bagged the hunt and made a run for it.
Snow storm.
By the time we reached the truck the rain had turned to heavy snow. The snow let up later in the afternoon and so we ran back up to where we heard the gobblers. But they were gone. For the rest of the evening we hiked all over looking for tracks in the new snow, but found none. The turkeys had flown the coop!
Esther creek crossing.
The next morning we woke to a full-on blizzard. Around 10 a.m. it subsided, so once again we crossed the river and headed up the mountain. We hiked from four inches to six inches of snow. We covered an immense amount of ground, but heard no gobbles and found no tracks. The turkeys were gone.
It seemed to me that the only direction they could have gone is downhill, so we packed up the truck and headed to the bottom of the mountain.
It rained most of the day so we spent several hours driving the low-elevation dirt roads and scanning the hillsides for black blobs in the snow. We found none.
In the late afternoon we decided to find a place to camp. I remembered a dirt road that gave access to the low-elevation drainage. Basically, the steep dirt road drops into a bowl before turning back up the mountain. Well, half-way to the bottom, the truck started sliding sideways and I struggled to maintain control. We got to the bottom okay, but now we were really stuck. We slopped to a flat spot to camp, then, with a break in the storm, hiked up the mountain to see where we’d be spending the last day of the hunt.
Things began looking up.
Almost a mile up the muddy mountain, we heard a gobble. With a couple hours of light left, we rushed in, threw out the decoy, and made some calls. There were three gobblers struttin’ around us, but it was way too thick for a shot. I kept dropping back and making hen calls, but they just kept circling us nervously and gobbling every few minutes.
We pulled the decoy and repositioned to a better clearing, but they still wouldn’t come in. We pulled the decoy again and rushed toward them. We were getting close, and so was nighttime. As we sat there trying to figure out where to plant the decoy, some big red heads came bobbing through the sagebrush. The toms were about to pass right in front of us at only twenty yards! Esther nocked an arrow, and when the turks went behind a juniper bush I whisper-yelled, “30 yards!” When they broke into the open, Esther let an arrow fly…and missed! The arrow sailed right behind the first turkey and the second turkey jumped straight into the air. Somewhat alarmed, they all trotted out of sight.
It’s funny how thin the line is between failure and success. After two hard days of hunting, we suddenly had turkeys all around us. Although Esther missed, we were just excited to finally be into the turkeys!
On Sunday we got up early and hiked to where we left the turkeys. We were excited, and I even carried a bow this time. Sure enough, we were greeted by gobbles. Several times we set up the decoy and made calls. The toms responded diligently, but wouldn’t come in. Instead they continued up the mountain and we followed.
Now this is where things get real bad; where Nate and Nature have a serious falling out.
With plenty of new snow, it was easy to follow their tracks. We spotted the turkeys a hundred yards ahead of us. I quickly set up a decoy and dropped back to call. Just as I started calling, a small herd of elk came running through the oak brush. The elk had caught our scent and ran right through the turkeys, nearly trampling them! The turkeys spooked farther up the mountain and we followed.
We caught up to the turkeys moving ahead of us in some boulders and brush. Squatting low to the ground, I trotted up and planted the decoy again. No sooner had I started calling, some coyotes suddenly lit up howling like crazy a short distance behind us. The toms made one last gobble, some other turkeys across the canyon gobbled back, and then everyone shut up. Those were the last gobbles we heard.
Esther and I followed the tracks way up the mountain into the deep snow, but they were moving too fast. Eventually the tracks led out of the huge valley, crossed a saddle, and disappeared. Stupid coyotes!
Frustrated, we turned back. While on top of the mountain, Esther decided to call into work and let her boss know we were stuck in the mud and may not get out by tomorrow. Her boss wasn’t there, but the nice fellow who answered the phone informed her that her 23-year old work-friend had crashed his motorcycle and died over the weekend. Now we were super-bummed for the rest of the day.
With the day slipping away, we had no choice but to make our way back to where we started. Who knows; maybe we could find some new turkeys.
And we did! Half-way to the bottom of the canyon I spotted a hen walking in the sagebrush. I made some calls and some new gobblers fired up. I snuck out to the open and plugged the decoy in the mud and snuck back. I could barely make out two large, strutting males wandering back and forth in the trees ahead.
We started calling and this time a herd of nine deer came bounding out below us. Now, these deer were hell-bent on going uphill, and did so by running right through the turkeys. All the commotion spooked the turkeys off and again it was silent. You gotta be kidding me! First elk, then coyotes, and now deer!
With no other choice, we followed the toms into the dark timber. The snow had melted in the lower elevations, so following tracks was no longer possible. However, a short while later we got them gobbling again. The problem was they refused to come in. We called for more than an hour with no luck.
Using aluminum turkey slate call close up.
Frustrated, I decided to make a move. I told Esther to hang back. I’d sneak above them, and if they spooked, they might run back towards her.
It didn’t work. Instead, one of them busted me and all three toms slipped away down the mountain. I went back and got Esther. With only a couple hours of daylight, we made one more setup at the bottom of the canyon.
After half an hour of futile calling, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to just sit there and watch it get dark on my hunt. I told Esther I was going to enter the dark timber and sneak around for the last hour of light. She would stay in the ravine with the decoy and continue calling occasionally.
I was hiking up the steep, timbered mountain slope when out of the blue I heard something: “Cluck—-cluck—–cluck.” Well, this was new to me! I pulled an arrow. Sure enough, 40 yards below me, a huge chicken—I mean turkey—came sneaking and clucking along, all alone and completely oblivious to my presence. As it rounded a tree I let my arrow fly.
The arrow hit the giant black bird perfectly broadside and dead-center. The tom’s wings flapped wildly as it sprinted out of sight with my orange fletched arrow sticking straight out of its side. I was super excited as I dropped down to see my trophy…which was gone.
I found a couple clipped feathers and some torn up dirt, even a speck of blood or two. I followed in the direction the stupid bird ran, found another feather, and then lost the trail. I started walking circles. I called Esther on the radio to come help. She showed up and we search up and down and all over. The turkey was gone; run off to who-knows-where with my arrow. The problem with turkeys is two-fold: they don’t leave a blood trail, and they can sure take an arrow!
We continued our search by headlamp, but with no trail to follow, there was no choice but to give up. I was so deflated as I walked back to the truck. Few words were spoken.
The next morning we somehow slogged the truck out of the mud and drove home with nary a feathered foe for food.
Later study proved the turkey’s can take an arrow better than most animals. Basically their stiff wings, when folded against their bodies, creates a sheet of armor, like a stack of zip-ties. This armor will slow, or even stop an arrow, before it penetrates anything vital. In most cases it eventually kills the bird, but only after a lengthy sprint. A head/neck shot is really your best option.
The story ends here. But it also begins here. Next year you’ll find me and Esther in the same area, earlier in the season God-willing, with both heavier arrows and more experience in our quivers.
When facing nature one-on-one, the mountain and its infinite variables often wins. But this particular mountain still owes me a turkey, and I’ll never give up until I get one.
There is an image, not unlike the one above, that still haunts me today.
It was the muzzleloader hunt of 2001. I was still getting used to my new hunting area near Fairview, Utah. I knew the hunting pressure would keep the big bucks in the thick timber, so that’s where I spent my days. I’d never gotten a real trophy-size buck before, and up until then, I’d only seen a few true trophies in all my years of hunting. But I’d seen enough in this unit to know it was possible. These were the bucks I daydreamed about.
On opening morning our camp dispersed across the land. I dropped into the deep and steep pine forest below camp. The deadfall was so thick I had to hop from log to log, not touching the ground for a hundred yards or so. Eventually it opened up with aspens and narrow feeding swathes. Judging by the sign—and I was no expert back then—there were plenty of deer around, but where they went during the day, no one knew.
I’d grown accustom to blowing stalks on large deer, and as you’ll see, my confidence was way down. I knew there were big deer in this unit, attested to by an occasional flash of antler, a loud snort, and the sound of heavy hooves smashing away through the dense woods. I pressed on, but really, I’d already given up.
Judging by the high sun, it must have been close to noon. I knew the deer wouldn’t be up on their feet at midday, but I wouldn’t allow myself to return to camp and make excuses for my failure; blaming the lack of deer on the area and then bedding down for the day myself. That would be submission. No, I would continue my quest, beating the pine-needled forest floor to death with my stinky old boots.
I was still-hunting along on a steep and rocky slope. The timber was less dense at the edge of the pines where interspersed aspens and deer brush heedlessly begged for a more sun. My predator eyes suddenly and haphazardly caught the slightest bit movement a hundred yards below me in some tall brush. My cheap, murky binos came up and locked on. ANTLERS! Little bits of tines bounced and bobbed through the tall brush. What they were attached to I could not tell in the thick brush; no fur nor face nor hide nor hair, just bits of antlers appearing and disappearing. How big was he, I wondered? A two-point? A four-point? No way to tell and no shot; I needed to get closer.
Here’s where my lack of confidence shines brightest. Based on previous buck encounters, I told myself this would never work out. I didn’t really believe I could get close enough for a shot, but I had to try—I desperately had to try!
It’s different these days, here in the future. Today, I would just sit tight. The wind was most likely rising from late-morning thermals. I would sit and wait for the buck to feed into the open, even if it took all day. 100 yards is an easy shot with a gun. Woulda-coulda-shoulda. But this is how we learn…
I dropped to my butt and began my slow-motion descent. The pine needles were dry and loud, and the terrain was terribly steep. I used the wind and forest sounds to cover my approach. For twenty minutes I slid, scooted, and crab-crawled down the hill, drawing closer and closer to the sighting. Minutes felt like hours.
The buck eventually moved out of sight, swallowed up by the forest. Unable to keep tabs on him, I became increasingly skeptical. Did he bed down? Did he sense me and move off? Gotta get closer! I crept closer and closer until I was within a few yards of where I first saw him. All was quiet. Now what?
He’s gone! I must have busted him out. I knew this would happen. Oh well… I would’ve been a little upset if I ever truly believed I had a chance at this buck.
I stood up, slung the gun on my shoulder, and dug my GPS unit out of my pocket. I stared blankly at the screen as it tracked and tracked and tracked for satellites. There’s nothing more tedious than waiting for the GPS to track in thick timber. My eyes lifted and floated around the forest. What direction did he go, I wondered.
As my gaze drifted to the right, my lethargic eyelids suddenly flashed wide-open; my heart stopped. Fifteen yards away, a massive, tall, sweeping, 4-point antler stuck directly out from behind a large tree trunk. On the other side, the long gray line of a deer’s back extended outward.
No thoughts, just action.
In one motion my left hand opened and the GPS went into free-fall. My hand flashed to the butt of my gun. The GPS was halfway to the ground as my gun twirled like a baton in front of me. My right hand caught the gunstock and lifted it to my shoulder. The GPS bounced inaudibly as the gun’s muzzle swung towards the buck.
Too late. Heavy hooves dug into the ground with a loud thud and every trace of that monster buck instantly vanished into the woods. Frantically I aimed at the crashing and snorting of my invisible foe, but he was gone.
And that was that. Nothing left but a haunting technicolor image of a huge antler sticking straight out of a tree trunk, burned forever in the forefront of my long-term memory. For the duration of the hunt I beat myself up for my failure.
I am tempted to leave the story right there, but habit forces me find the good in the bad. I knew then, as I know now, that my biggest mistake was over-estimating the buck, and under-estimating myself. I failed because I accepted failure from the start. I had him in my hands, if only I’d been patient. If only I had believed this one burning truth: that he was “just a deer” and not an impossible phantom.
(Story published in Huntin’ Fool Magazine, Aug. 2011, Vol.16, Issue 8)
My Droptine Buck Hunting Story
I first spotted the great buck, which I simply called “The Droptine,” during the 2008 archery season while hunting public land in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Northern Utah (known as Monte Cristo by the locals). He was the most amazing buck I’d ever seen, with a wide sweeping rack and long, matching, club-like drop tines hanging down below his ears.
I was exploring a steep, wooded hillside that morning when I bumped the incredible buck from his bed at the edge of some pines. As he quartered away I was able to get off a quick shot, but in my haste I misjudged the yardage and my arrow flew low. The arrow hit some dead-fall, splintered, twirled through the air, and bounced off the deer’s rump. I merely spanked him and then he was gone.
Having never seen a buck of this magnitude in the wild before, I became instantly obsessed. But for the remainder of the season I was unable to relocate him.
Monte Cristo is your standard north/south rocky mountain range in Northern Utah. It has everything mule deer love: tall mountains covered in aspen and pine trees, steep canyons with long ridges that drop into rolling sagebrush hills. Water is scarce, but adequate enough to support plenty of deer and elk.
For decades Monte Cristo was one of Utah’s premier deer hunting areas, but in recent years deer populations have declined due to high hunting pressure and diminishing winter range. With very few peaks from which to glass, and covered in dense timber, Monte Cristo is not a spot-and-stalk area. Big bucks are only found by busting brush in steep wooded areas, making it very difficult to locate them with any consistency.
Round 2
In 2009 I planned to hunt exclusively for The Droptine for six days, beginning where I left off in 2008. But the great monarch eluded me until the third evening when he busted out of some trees 40 yards uphill, stood for a second atop a sagebrush knoll silhouetted against the twilight sky, and then disappeared before I could raise my bow.
By the sixth and last day I was getting desperate. My plan was to carefully still-hunt the entire mile-long ridge where he lived. For twelve hours I snuck slowly through the woods without rest, glassing every inch of forest for antlers. But he was nowhere to be found.
I was both physically and mentally exhausted when I reached the end of the ridge. With my head hung low, I turned back towards camp. Seconds later, as I rounded the end of the ridge, The Droptine suddenly exploded from a bed 40 yards below me in a thicket of trees. Through a cloud of dust I watched the big barrel-bodied deer bound away. I could hear him running for half a mile, down the canyon and up the other side.
I thought I was going to cry as I plopped down on a dusty game trail and dug my GPS out of my backpack. That day he had bedded half a mile from the last place I saw him. How do you hunt a deer that doesn’t move in the open during daylight; that is never found in the same place twice and instead, shows up at random like a ghost? The wise old buck lived a life without pattern; that is how he eluded hunters for so long.
The 2009 season was over. Every night for the following year, when I turned out the lights before bed, the image of The Droptine silhouetted against the sky would pop into my head. I lay awake night after night pondering the mistakes I made and planned new strategies for taking the mystical beast the following year. I was Ahab, and he was my white whale.
In the summer of 2010, as soon as the snow melted off the mountain, I went scouting for The Droptine, but wasn’t able to locate him. A week before the August archery opener, my brother Brent spotted The Droptine while checking trail cameras in the area. Those trail cameras, by the way, never did capture the ghost’s image.
Meanwhile, back home the Great Recession was taking its toll on my photography business, leaving me with a lot more time than money. I decided to use this to my advantage, planning to hunt The Droptine on two separate trips totaling ten days.
Round 3
The archery opener started off slowly, but on the fourth morning, while sneaking to one of The Droptine’s old bedding areas, he, along with two smaller bucks, busted out of some new beds fifty yards below me. That was the last time I saw him that week.
A second five-day outing the following week turned up nothing and I finally accepted the fact that the old buck had grown tired of my chasing him and moved to another mountain. There was no choice but to give up. He was clearly a buck beyond my caliber, and I had already wasted too much time and too many tags pursuing him. I thought about all the other hunting opportunities I’d sacrificed just to chase this one deer. I was ready to make peace with my failure once and for all.
The next weekend, which happened to be the last day of the archery deer season, my girlfriend (now my wife) Esther and I embarked on a two-day elk hunt on a ridge parallel to the Droptine ridge. I’d seen more elk in this area and was hoping for a cow or spike bull. But all I could think about was The Droptine buck and how dejected I was. Esther lent a sympathetic ear to my rant:
“No one’s going to kill that buck. He’s gonna die of old age in a field one winter and there’s nothing I can do about it.” I didn’t digress. “I wish I’d never seen him, at least then I could enjoy deer hunting again. And yet, I’ll return again next year to chase a ghost through empty woods. I have no choice…”
The Droptine Buck painted by Utah artist Gina Bryson.
The next morning we woke before light and snuck into the elk area, setting up on opposite ends of a steep timber swathe used as a bedding area. Everything was still and silent as I sat watched the big September sun slowly rise above the horizon. I was beginning to question our setup when I suddenly caught movement of wide antler tips swaying through the brush 50 yards downhill.
“Great,” I thought while raising my binoculars, “The elk are finally coming in!” But through the glass a deer’s head appeared, then two huge droptine clubs! I couldn’t believe it. Three years spent hunting for this creature, and now here he is walking right towards me!
The buck slanted behind a sparse line of pine trees, offering no shot. I was frantically searching for a shooting lane when I realized the tree line he was following ended abruptly right in front of me. If he kept his course, he’d pop out 20 yards away!
A quick glance at the grass to my left indicated the wind was starting to swirl. This is never going to happen, I thought. He’s too close. But the buck kept coming, slowly and cautiously at first, then picking up speed.
At that point I was a nervous wreck; my hands were shaking uncontrollably and my heart pounded so loudly that I was sure the buck could hear it too. In a full-on panic I glanced down at a sticker on my old Browning bow which reads, Stay Calm, Pick a Spot. Okay, at least I can pick a spot, I thought as I drew my bow back.
A second later the buck’s shoulder appeared and the arrow was off; I don’t even remember releasing it. As the huge buck spun and blasted out of sight, I caught a glimpse of my orange-fletched arrow sticking out of his side.
Shot location and distance.
Suddenly everything was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. I sat dumbfounded for a second, awash in a swirling mix of disbelief and adrenaline surging through my body.
In an instant, I dropped my bow and went sprinting back through the woods towards Esther. She hopped out from behind a stand of pines, bewildered at the sight of a crazy man flailing towards her.
“I just shot my Droptine buck!” I yelled. At that moment, The Droptine had finally become My Droptine.
A tedious, half-hour tracking job over a sparse blood trail eventually led to the downed deer. The arrow had pierced both lungs, but the huge buck still covered 150 yards in great bounds down a nearly vertical slope. He expired in a brushy area, landing on landing on top of his sprawling antlers which anchored him from sliding down the mountain.
At the sight of the downed deer, a sense of relief and accomplishment washed over me that can never be equaled. After three years of failure, my wildest dreams had come true. I was finally liberated from my obsession.
Still in a daze, Esther and I pried the mighty buck free of its tangle and marveled at his majesty. I’d watched, even in fleeting glimpses, as The Droptine grew bigger and more spectacular than I ever could have imagined.
~ The End ~
*** Incidentally, the Droptine’s rack measured nearly 33-inches wide and gross-scored 201 5/8 (194 6/8 net P&Y). ***
