Episode 5 – Winter Mule Deer Hunt Part I

Our latest trip to the Idaho mountains in December of 2007 was full of excitement and memories – so much so that I could not condense the full episode into just one. So, I’ve divided it into three parts – and will add Part II in two weeks, and Part III two weeks after that.

If you’d like to read my blog about the trip follow this link here .

Enjoy the video!

[bliptv Basecamplegends-WinterBuckHunt2007222]

Following is the portion of the blog that coincides with this video:

From here, the story pretty much focuses on Todd and I, as I followed Todd around the next five days, while Mom and Dad hunted elsewhere. I hunted one day with Grandpa, but his bow busted on the second day of our hunt, and he had to call it quits. He took it incredibly well as I know how much he’d been looking forward to this trip, our hearts ached for him. Monday, Todd and I got right on a herd of deer, and among them was a nice four point that we proceeded to hunt the rest of the day. We took off up the mountain, and I was to get my first glimpse at what is by far the toughest hunting I’ve ever participated in! The country is nearly vertical here, and the snow made everything super slick. I was having a very difficult time getting traction, staying upright, and not dying. Once, I lost my foothold and started sliding on my back headfirst down the canyon. I grabbed at a nearby branch and it snapped off. I grabbed at another and it snapped off, as well. I finally smacked into a four inch tree that effectively stopped me, but also felt not so wonderful. We had been in the process of stalking that buck when this all happened, which caused my sympathetic brother to tell me, “Maybe you can film from here and I’ll go the rest of the way alone.” We were still four hundred yards from the deer! I could hardly blame him though, it was hard enough to try and sneak up on a deer in this country by ones self, let alone trying to get two people close enough for a shot. That first day really shook me up though. When we got back to camp, I was soaked (my waterproof pants ripped during my fall, plus sliding on my back shot snow up underneath all my clothes and effectively made me miserable). The sheer steepness of this country I could handle in August, but the slickness on top of it made each step a nerve racking, tense step. At the end of the day, my leg and back muscles were incredibly sore.

Tuesday was the day I went with my grandpa. I was still trying to recuperate from day 1, so I thought I’d sit in a blind with Grandpa on day 2. However, while setting up our blind, Grandpa’s crossbow fell from a tree limb and the fiberglass holding the sight casing busted off. We were early in the morning, but had been dropped off by Todd, so nothing for us to do but sit in the blind for eight hours with a bow that doesn’t work. It got cold, there was no game movement by our blind, and I felt horrible for Grandpa who would be done hunting the rest of our trip.

Wednesday I was back to following Todd around. We spotted our big buck from Sunday evening early on Wednesday morning. He was feeding with a group of does and three other bucks. We figured out the direction they were feeding, and instead of trying to sneak up on them, we decided to try and cut them off and wait for them to feed by us. We spent a couple hours getting into position, and then when we got within two hundred yards of the herd, we watched them bed down. There was no cover between us, so we had to wait for them to make a move. We crouched behind a pile of rocks and hoped they would feed towards us when they got up again. Three hours later, Todd announced they’d gotten up to feed again. Thirty minutes after that, he announced that they were not feeding our way. We waited another twenty minutes for them to feed out of site, then we proceeded to close the distance again. When we next saw the herd, the herd also saw us. The big three point had disappeared, but we saw a nice four point cross a ridge and decided to try a hunt. Todd went up above the deer, and we decided I would come up from the bottom of the draw and hopefully drive the deer past Todd. As I hurried up the bottom of the draw, my foot slipped and I came down with my full weight on top of my binoculars. I don’t know exactly what happened, but my ribs hurt like they’ve never hurt before – it still hurts to sneeze or twist at the waist three weeks later. I do know that this mountain was slowly killing me. I climbed just a little ways further and spotted the buck on the right side of the draw – I knew Todd was on the left side of the draw, and I knew we were in trouble. The buck saw me, and eventually moved out, of course he went the wrong direction and Todd never got a shot. Todd and I then discovered a pretty easy way to get down the mountain as we turned our boots into skis and slid down the mountain. My chest was really hurting from my fall and I took a little while to get down while Todd raced on ahead. He raised his voice slightly to ask where I was, and when I popped up out of the draw, he motioned frantically to get up where he was. Apparently, when he’d raised his voice, he’d jumped the big buck out of the bottom of the draw, and we watched him feed over the ridge we were now on – we were ecstatic that we had not pushed him out of the country.