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Coming off a rifle elk hunt for my boys where we didn't see any elk, we were hoping to have some success chasing the mule deer with rifles.
This year I actually had a rifle deer tag and was excited to get out and hunt with Landen and Kaden. Unfortunately for Kaden is still eleven for a couple more months so he couldn’t hunt deer but he does have a cow elk tag that coming up when he turns twelve in December.
Landen, Kaden and I were thinking of packing in the night before the opener but it was raining and we didn’t care to be hiking in the rain, mud and in the dark so we got up extra early the morning of the opener to hike in.
We were going to be hunting some great public ground but unfortunately some very heavily hunted public ground. I wanted to hunt the same area Dallen took his muzzleloader buck earlier this fall. Knowing where the deer were tending to hang around and the sea of orange that would be in the area I picked out a couple draws I wanted to focus on that were away from where I felt the bulk of orange was going to be located.
It was around 2 1/2 miles in and my young boys did great hiking in really early in the dark to get to where I wanted to get to just at shooting light. I let them set the pace and they pushed it pretty hard knowing how many vehicles were already packed in the parking lot and they didn’t want to get beat to the deer. I had to slow them down a bit so we didn’t puke as they were going a little too fast for the shape we were all in. LOL. They were excited and it was fun.
Right at first light, we were in the right spot to see deer but the ten or so deer in the draw we were watching were all does. We sat there for a while then decided to move around to the next ridgeline to glass from. As we got near the ridgeline there was a lot of shooting in the next draw we were about to look over into. As we looked over into the draw the shooting had stopped and we could see a couple hunters across the draw. They made some hand signals and when I finally looked through the binos and figured out where they were pointing we bailed back over the ridge and looked down the next draw. Sure enough, there were two bucks moving down in the draw.
Landen dropped to the ground and got all set up on shooting sticks all by himself as I pulled out the rangefinder and ranges 238 yards. Perfect, on the 270 WSM X-Bolt Landen was hunting with I keep the Vortex HS LR scope dialed up one MOA so that the max point blank range on a 7-inch target is out to around 300 yards with the 150 SST hand loads I have for this rifle.
In the process of getting out my rangefinder the larger of the two bucks bailed into the bottom of the draw and out of sight. Landen quickly got set up and I mean quickly. I was proud of how composed and quick he set up on his own. Anyhow, within seconds I had the buck ranged and told him to shot knowing we had very little time before it followed the other buck out of sight. Landen quickly fired and we were greeted with a whopping sound. Nice! The buck ran about a 100 yards and tipped over. Way to go Landen!
Landen had two goals for the buck he wanted this year. One was to be larger than Dallen’s buck and the second was that it was larger than the buck he got he got the year before. (see: 2016 Utah Rifle Deer Season — Landen's First Buck ) He accomplished both with a nice two-year-old 2x3 buck. We were all so excited.
Shortly after we shot the buck Ryan the other hunter that had been hand signaling us met up with us and we talked for a bit. Thank you, Ryan, for pointing out where the bucks were at.
After some photos and of course an Instagram post by proud dad, we worked on boning out the deer for the pack out.
Now that Landen had his deer tag filled it was time for me to get a little deeper into the backcountry to try and find a shooter for myself.
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At the end of July I broke my scaphoid bone in my right wrist while helping the scouts (Landen and KB) on their 50-mile bike ride for their biking merit badge. For a silly little bone, I had no idea how painful and extremely long it takes for this bone to heal. And yes, I finished the remaining 15 miles of the ride one-armed. I felt I earned the merit badge.
Given my wrist was broke I was glad that I drew a rifle deer tag and I picked up a muzzleloader elk tag. These two hunts are Utah's latest big game hunts in the fall giving my wrist time to heal the most before my hunts.
Dallen drew a muzzleloader deer tag and wanted to pack in for a few days to hunt the area he rifle hunted last year. We loaded up with supplies to last for a week and headed into the backcountry.
As it worked out a couple of days before the hunt was my 8th week since I broke my wrist and the doctor removed the cast and upgraded me to a wrist brace just in time for the hunt.
The night before the opener we headed in going a mile or more past where Dallen shot his buck “First Try” last year. We setup the tent in the dark and enjoyed a chicken and dumplings Mountain House meal.
The next morning we were in a great position to view a lot of country and glass and glass we did but we couldn’t turn up a deer one. Not good. Come afternoon we caught a glimpse of a single doe and that was it. So we hiked back to camp and moved another mile and a half up the mountain that afternoon. Again that evening watching other areas we didn’t find a single deer.
The next morning as we headed out we quickly spotted a couple 18 inch wide bucks moving out down a canyon. We swung around trying to get a better look and they made it past us into the heavy oak brush. Dallen was able to pick them up again later that morning and we confirmed that it was a 2 and 3 point in the 18-inch wide variety. Not what Dallen was after for now.
We spent the rest of the day hiking and glassing only turning up a few does in the distance.
The following morning we took off early and hiked into the very back of the property and down into some beautiful canyons only to find a single doe. Most likely one that we had found the day before. Chalk up another four miles of hiking on the feet. Thank goodness I found that trail running shoes make for the best hunting shoes (as long as the weather is good) so my feet did just fine carrying my heavy butt around the mountain.
That evening we met up with some friends on horseback and tried to locate the two bucks from the day before for their youth hunter but we couldn’t find the bucks again. Darn it.
That night we broke camp again and moved farther to the north in the dark to hunt some different canyons the next day.
This move proved good. The next morning we found some deer. We ended up finding four small bucks and a number of does. We tried to outsmart a really tall narrow three-point but somehow he gave us the slip. I thought we had a brilliant plan to trick the buck but the buck vanished. Who got tricked? LOL
That afternoon we packed up camp and started wheeling off the mountain stopping to glass along the way. We found a small two-point and a spike. Dallen was ready to shoot the two-point and I think I talked him out of it. So back to work, we both had to go for a few days.
After work one night Dallen headed up alone to look for deer. Just before dark, I got a call that he had one down. I loaded up some gear and headed up the mountain to help him. He was about two and a half miles in and by the time I found him he had completely boned out one side of his buck. Incidentally, it turned out to be the same two-point he passed on when he was with me the week before. Too funny.
We flipped the deer over and was able to take some photos without you knowing the other side of the deer was a skeleton.
Even though this was Dallen’s smallest buck he has ever shot I was most proud of him going out and doing it by himself. Nice job hunting solo Dallen.
The next day my two youngest boys wanted to go look for deer. Landen had a rifle tag and in Utah, youth can use their rifle tag for all of the seasons, so up the mountain, we went. We found a great bull elk with a bunch of cows across on the private side of the fence and we also found some good bucks on the wrong side of the fence. We did find three small bucks that were the size of Dallen’s but Landen wanted to shoot something bigger than Dallen’s. Too funny.
Landen knew he still had the rifle hunt in about a month so we weren’t too worried about passing on the little bucks.
More great memories with my boys.
So next up is the rifle elk season with Landen and Dallen both having tags. Blog entry coming soon.
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Like last year I have been just too busy in August and September to hunt elk with my bow. Things settle down a little for me in November so like last year I was chasing elk with a smoke pole.
This year was full of lots of unexpected work that caused me to use up most of my vacation. That being the case I only had a couple of days that I could spare to take off to hunt. Given the distance and elevation of where I wanted to pack into I like to spend at least a couple days in there. It's over five miles into where I like to make camp and 2,300 vertical feet up.
With very mild temperatures and weather, I felt it best to wait to hunt the very last days of the hunt hoping that I would have a greater chance of elk moving out of the private ground above and into this public ground I would be hunting.
With three days left in the hunt Dallen and I set off up the mountain. It was nice to have Dallen come to help me on this hunt. I was full of stories about archery elk hunting in this area back in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2007 I shot a little five-point bull way at the back of this public ground. Needless to say, I had a lot of stories to share with Dallen about the area and during the course of our hunt, I was able to show him a lot of my favorite spots to hunt for elk.
As we hiked in we watched a lot of mule deer but couldn't find any elk. Until the snow flys, the elk are usually way at the top and down in the upper canyons so I didn't think we would find any on the hike in but we enjoyed glassing the mule deer.
It was after dark as we crested the ridge I wanted to get past to set up camp. As we got to this ridge we saw a campfire a little further down the ridge. We weren't going to have the area to ourselves. Darn it. Oh well. We went another half mile around the canyon then setup the Alps Chaos tent and hit the sack dreaming of big bulls in the morning.
Early the next morning we took off with day packs headed out a ridge to glass. It didn't take us long before we glassed up a six-point bull around 700 yards away. We needed to head down one draw then pop up on a ridge and hopefully, the bull was still there for a 200 or so yard shot. And then there were the horses, yeap, horses, ten of them to be exact. Apparently the camp on the ridge was a camp of a bunch of horse hunters. As we moved down into the canyon going after the elk we could hear steel horseshoes clanking off rocks all over the place around the ridges of the canyon. No, no, no...
When we made it to where we hoped to get a shot the bull was gone. In the process of going down into this canyon, we also spotted another six-point bull in a different sub draw off this canyon. In both cases, the bulls were headed for the safety of the private ground fence line. We took off trying to get in front of them but we found that horses had already made it around to that side of the canyon. Oh well. I wished there wasn't all the noise from all the horses surrounding the canyon but this is how public land hunting goes sometimes. I may not agree with the style of hunting but everyone else has a right to be there just like I do. Now if I did have a horse to get me into this area to hunt I would leave my horse at camp and sneak down into the canyon on foot. They just are soooo noisy. You can hear them coming a mile away and I don't have as good of hearing as an elk has. Oh well. This is one of the reasons I like archery hunting. Bowhunters may ride horses to get into the backcountry but they generally don't ride them around hunting from the saddle.
So the rest of that day we hiked back to camp then moved camp over to another location. That evening we hunted right along the private land border but never saw any elk. I did snap a pretty nice pic of a Dusky Grouse that evening but that was about all we saw.
We were up early the next morning debating on whether to go back to the same area or hike a mile to the north and hunt that canyon. As it was just getting light we could see and hear the train of horses head up the mountain and to the north. Well, that answered that question. No need for us to go to the other canyon with a bunch of horses headed that way. We slipped down into the same canyon we were in the day before and glassed from a few different locations. Nothing. We had the place to ourselves this morning but there were also no elk in the area. At one point that morning a young bull moose came in thirty yards from us and I snapped a few pics of him.
Again that evening we hiked around to some good vantage points and glassed but not an elk could be found. Oh well. Maybe next year.
We hiked back up to camp and loaded up in the dark then off the mountain we flew.
I guess there is always next year. I haven't been doing too well at filling my tags the last few years. I'm a little picky wanting a 150ish or better mule deer so I have passed on a few but when it comes to elk I shoot whatever I can find if I can find one as I love the meat. I'm hoping I can find more time to hunt next year and get a bull in the freezer.
Even though I ate tag soup I had so much fun being on the mountain. I generally like to hunt solo but find it really enjoyable to hunt with my kids. Dallen was a great help and I really enjoyed the time we were able to spend together on the mountain. Thank you for the help Dallen!