These two top photos were were taken in early Sept. 2017. This was my target buck during the 2017 archery season, and I most likely would have killed him if it wasn't for his attentive side kick, who paid the ultimate price; with his life as I notched my deer tag on him last year.
Fast forward to late July 2018. I had planned on making two scouting trips into the high country during the summer, but life got in the way. I was lucky enough to pull a two-day trip with Mac. I found a number of shooter bucks, but the most special buck I found was an old friend. This clean, mature 4x4. He put on some mass and his body was even bigger than the year before, but all in all, the same frame.
I found him both days within 100 yards of the same feeding and bedding areas from the year before! The other bucks treated him the way freshman treat the senior high school quarterback; watching him from the background to see what his next move was. He was definitely the head honcho of this basin. It amazes me the 100 mile migration these deer take in the winter and to only come back into their exact summer range down to the same beds! I have only the utmost respect for such this iconic species!
Life got busy again and archery season flew by without a chance to hunt. I wasn't able to get back up there until 5 or 6 days after the rifle opener. If you have a buck in mind that you are targeting, it may not be the best strategy to not be ready to kill your buck on the opening morning of the hunt. There are enough people up there, that there is a real threat your buck could be found and killed by another.
Brady, a good friend, was already on the mountain, packed in and giving me daily updates on what he was seeing. It sounded like there were plenty of people up there for the opener, and there were rifle shots in the area, but not many for the amount of bucks there. Brady had a run-in with a big 180"-190" buck just before Bob and I got there and he seemed to be focused on finding that individual buck. This year, I worked hard at minimizing my pack weight and I was chomping at the bit to get on the mountain! My friend Bob packed in with me and our pack trip really wasn't too bad. It's funny how I can say that now that the hike is over...
The first morning we headed south from camp and found several bunches of decent bucks. It seemed that the 2-3 year old bucks had started to fall back into their earlier season routines of staying out a little later in the morning. This was a sign they weren't feeling as much human pressure as they were just days before, which was a good thing. In the afternoon, I was itching to head north and look for my old friend, so we did. Every time I have seen him for two years he has been in a 100 yard area we call the bathtub. As we got closer to the rim overlooking the bathtub, Bob stopped short and began glassing while Brady and I settled in from another angle to the north.
I figured with his wise, old age and the amount of hunters that had been in the area, there is no way we'd just peek over the rim and there he'd be...in the same beds as usual. Within the first few seconds of putting my Swaro's on the tripod, I spotted a buck's backside bedded in the sun. I motioned to Brady I had found a buck and needed to move to get a better view. About that time, I saw Bob on the ridge above waving his arms like a frantic man. I was certain he had seen the same buck from his position.
Brady had changed location as well, and pulled out the big spotter. He smirked and said, "Michael, you might wanna take a look at this." I knew immediately which buck it was. Bob came down and as a good hunting friend would, knew my history with this deer. They both encouraged me to take the buck. I didn't hesitate. Bob laid next to me with his rifle to spot the shot as Brady watched through the spotter.
As if the buck were reading a script, he stood from his bed along with a new younger sidekick, and began feeding his way towards some heavier shade for the afternoon. He presented a good broadside shot at around 460 yards. I slowly squeezed the trigger of "Fierce", my trusty lightweight 7 Rem Mag, and the 139 LRX Barnes bullet entered the deer's body a little high with the steep angle, but came out just above the heart on the opposing side. He bucked, stumbled, and died 20 yards from where he stood feeding seconds before. Brady, Bob, and I soaked in the moment. It's not often I have two good friends by my side when I harvest such a buck.
I told Bob and Brady "No worries," and to keep heading down the ridge and hunt without me. I'd go take care of my buck on my own. Some of my favorite life moments are walking up on, and being privileged enough to sit alongside such and incredible animal. In a way that's difficult to explain, I want to be alone with the animal. Maybe it's a selfish attitude I have; maybe it's a reverence I feel for the animal; I'm not sure, but I recognize those moments as always being the climax of any hunt.
The next day, Brady and I hauled my meat down to the pick-up. I headed to town for ice (and some pizza!) and Brady headed to Jackson to pick up his dad, Don, from the airport. Don had a deer tag as well, and we all met in camp the next night. The hike back up to camp is a solid 4-5 mile trip, ascending 3,000 feet in elevation. We shared a great camp that night, swapping stories and food while sitting around a titanium wood stove in Brady's tipi. Don seemed to have a little buck fever and sounded like he was willing to pull the trigger on the first solid buck he saw. I had a feeling he'd kill his first day hunting...
After looking at a dozen or more bucks, Don did kill the next morning. A beautiful 4x4 frame with a cheater coming off his back left fork. That afternoon, Bob and I dropped down to make a treacherous water hike, hauling 16-20 liters a piece back up to our camp. Afterward, Bob and I looked for a large-framed 3x4 that had eluded us in a remote basin.
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| Don's 5x4 |
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| Bob looking for his 3x4 |
Brady and Bob bolted north straight to the "chasm" where we predicted there could be some shooter bucks. Don and I would head that direction moving slowly, glassing the basins in between just in case something were to pop up that we hadn't yet seen. We saw a young bull and some 3 year-old bucks that didn't quite drop the jaw. We continued north through the late morning 'til we ran into Bob and Brady overlooking the chasm.
They had spotted a few bucks including a nice 4x4 frame buck with matching in-lines on the back forks; a nice trophy buck. They were coming up with a plan to head around the basin and kill it when Don says, "What about that buck down there?" Bob had walked down the ridge a bit so he couldn't hear Don. But Brady and I snapped our heads in the direction down the canyon to where Don was glassing, both a little surprised. Don is a super great guy, but has little experience glassing deer, so this may have been his first spot of the trip...which is why we were so surprised after knowing Brady and Bob had been there all morning glassing. Ha Ha
I recognized the buck immediately. It was a big, wide buck I spied in July with a 27-28" spread. "I'm gonna kill that buck!" Brady stated confidently. He gathered his firearm and began settling in on the craggy perch from above. The western wind had a little bite to it, and smelled of high country-fir. We all got into position to watch the 500+ yard shot into the chasm as the buck exposed his entire left side while mowing down on the fermenting fall browse .
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| Brady's buck I found in July |
Brady's shot hit perfect on the unsuspecting buck as he kicked his legs up and rolled into some downhill krummholz. Bob decided he might as well go and kill the in-line buck while were already making the 2 mile trek to Brady's buck. So, with Don staying on perch watching and resting his legs, Brady, Bob, and I headed over to kill Bob's buck and pack out the two downed deer...if all worked out as planned.
We wrapped around the chasm but before descending, we popped out on another cliffside adjacent to a new basin on our north-end. It's always tempting to glass a new basin, so we spent a few moments doing just that. We had each spotted a couple deer down below, when Brady claimed he might have seen a big one, and asked for Bob's 32x rifle scope. Brady focused the parallax on the ridge-line a mile away. "Holy big buck!" he whispered. I immediately felt bad that Brady just killed a nice buck an hour prior, but by the sound of his voice, he had found an even better buck!
We all took turns looking at the big deer, bedded on a krummholz slope almost unapproachable from any human access. This buck looked to be a beautiful, heavy clean 4x4 with awesome mass that lived up on this ridge because he was never bothered up there. It was what we all dreamed of: a remote timber patch where a 6-8 year old buck had learned to elude hunters. He had made one mistake that day, and basked in the sunlight for a few minutes too long. We found him, now if we could just scale the rocky peaks and get within range.
Bob decided he'd rather miss a shot at this buck than chase a smaller one, at this point. I was in full agreement, but was a little hesitant because of the country that laid in between us and the deer. It was sketchy to say the least. Brady dropped elevation to retrieve his downed deer, while Bob and I headed toward the big buck's lair. We had to stay mostly on a ridge-line and scale a major peak before dropping down a scree ridge into a fir patch that overlooked another fir patch where we had seen the buck.
The wind was whipping pretty good as we got into position. The patch of fir the buck laid in didn't look super thick. I would say we could see approximately 75% of the ground. This deer must have holed up in the thick scrubby fir pretty deep, because we glassed and glassed and glassed with no visual. We slowly descended into our tree patch 20-40 yards at a time, trying to get different angles on where we suspected the bedded buck would be, 300 yards below.
1, 2, 3, and 4 hours passed with our eyes stuck in our binos. The wind bit through our clothes but the sun counteracted just enough to where we didn't freeze to death. I had picked up a couple does that would suddenly be standing in a spot where we had no idea they had even been there. We knew the deer were hidden well in their beds. A doe had just bedded back down when she whipped her head uphill, looking at something above. I moved my binos in the direction she was staring. "Th-th-th-there he is!" my cold mouth sputtered quickly in surprise at seeing some large antlers melt from the fir, after hours of glassing.
I think Bob had seen him at nearly the same time as I. The buck was now standing and fed its way toward us, and let me just say: it was an exciting 2 minutes. Finally, Bob was comfortable enough and let the 140 grain amax unleash. Because of the steep angle he was shooting, it smacked the buck in between the shoulder blades and it dropped. The deer began somersaulting down the steep, scree slope that looked more like Dall sheep country. His head would flip high in the air, throwing geysers of blood from it's mouth 20' into the air. I had never seen anything like it.
Finally, he came to a stop. Bob was throwing knuckles and high-fives, but my mind was spinning. . . I was trying to decide how a guy was going to make it down to the buck without hurling himself off cliffs, much like the big buck just did. My quick observations showed an access route either a mile back up the ridge and down some scree (which we wouldn't have made before dark), or the other option to go straight below us with ropes. It was too steep and dangerous otherwise. Bob, on the other-hand, was born without assessing risk whatsoever. He thought, "No problem. We can make it down below us." I decided to follow . . . until I saw basketball-sized rocks screaming down the slope below Bob's boots. This wasn't ordinary scree with 5 inches of thick rock that you could "ski" down. This was a slick, hard surface that with one wrong slip, a person could go to the bottom really fast. You can't run two guys, either, as the guy higher would certainly knock rocks down on the lower guy, killing him.
We made the decision Bob would try and find a way down through the cliffs, gut the animal, remove the head, and come back up to where we shot from and back to camp for the night. In the morning he would return and try and get the meat down off the mountain. The thought was almost unbearable as at the moment, we were already tired 4 miles from spike camp. For Bob, it would be 4 miles back to the carcass in the morning, and then another 4-5 miles through unknown territory downhill we were not even sure could be traversed. Only then would I meet him at the truck after I would haul out both our camp gear.
Bob had a dangerous trek down to the buck and vowed he'd never try to pack anything back uphill from that spot again. I don't blame him, it was rough! The buck he killed is something to behold; a beautiful 185" typical Wyoming mule deer. They don't get much prettier. Bonds that are formed with such experiences create long-lasting, true friendships. I am forever grateful to be a part of Bob's biggest buck experience!
The hike out was out-of-this-world, as the sun glowed like a spotlight, making the buck on Bob's buck super photogenic. I can't help but share some of these pics from that evening. We strolled into camp well after dark with all of our tags filled and one amazing trip! We celebrated.
The next morning, I carefully descended the top of the mountain with 90 pounds of both Bob's and my camp gear. I finally caught up with Bob, just before dark that night as he was crossing the waist-deep river. He was exhausted, and had run into some gnarly cliffs on his way down. It's going to be hard to beat the 2018 Wyoming deer season up on that ridge, spent with great friends.
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| Trying to find footholds scaling some questionable rock slopes |
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| Don's kicker |
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| Father and son |
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| The pack-out |
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