2009 Mule Deer - Day 2

Day two started well before dawn. The cabin was actually a quite comfortable ~60 degrees and my brother's bedrolls kept things even warmer. The temperature outside was a balmy 12 degrees and the creek outside was frozen over. We couldn't get the portable stove to work so it was turkey sandwiches for breakfast. We suited up and hopped in the truck to drive towards Windy Gap and glass Siard and Cabin Creeks from high ground.

We parked the truck just above some Quaking Aspens which gave a good view of a large area of upper Siard Creek. Along the top edge of the hill were some large flat boulders which I set the spotting scope on. I glassed the valley first with binoculars and didn't see anything. I then grabbed the spotting scope, set it to 30 power and focused in on the valley floor. Scanning right to left (east to west) I looked passed a small clump of mountain Mahogany. Just as the clump was about to leave field of view of the scope I caught movement. Some antlers... Some BIG antlers. Focusing in more on the buck I counted 5 points on the right and 4 on the left, but it was tough to be sure at 740 yds. The buck started up the valley to the west on our side of the creek. It crested a small hill and disappeared in some tall sagebrush.

At this point the full gear came out. I grabbed my license & tags, knife, walkie-talkie and headset and my brother's rifle. We got a quick radio check and I set off hiking down to the deer. Doug was keeping an eye on where the buck disappeared and talking to me the whole way down. It was a steep slope with a drop of about 500 feet vertically and covered with ankle-deep snow. When I got the bottom of the first draw I noticed a doe about 40 yards to my left staring at me. It was the most amazing thing as she didn't jump or bound away, but just stared at me as I walked past her.

Climbing up a small hill my brother had to guide me a little as every thing looked different down there. When I got to the top of the hill I started to head upstream in the direction I thought the buck went. Doug told me that he disappeared about 20 yards to my east. I looked at the waist-high sagebrush and figured there was no way he was in there. I took 3 steps in that direction and BOOM!!! up jumped the buck!!! I raised the rifle, got nothing but a bounding hide in the scope as I squeezed off the first shot. The buck kept running.

My brother chimed in my ear, "Did you get him?" I couldn't answer as the buck was still running and I didn't have a free hand to key the mic. After running about 85 yards, the buck stopped in a perfect broadside pose about 50 feet in elevation above me. I raised the gun squeezed the trigger and 'click'. Rats! forgot to reload. The buck was still standing there so I put the crosshairs right on the top of his shoulders, breathed and fired. I didn't hear the bullet hit anything and the buck shot off down through the creek and up the opposite bank. I quickly reloaded and got to a position to take another shot. He was now at least 200 yards away, running up the steep north slope of the valley. I took a hail-Mary shot and missed again. One more bullet left. I reloaded, steadied the rifle above the buck and let him run right into the crosshairs. As soon as his nose hit the crosshairs, I squeezed again. Click. I cursed and opened the bolt to see there were no more bullets in the gun. I asked Doug how many he had loaded. He swore there were 4 in the gun. The buck disappeared over the hill. He was gone.

The long, hard hike back to the truck was rough. After laying down in the snow to cool off for a while, I finally got back to the truck after about 30 minutes of hiking. I took everything off but my pants and boots in an attempt to cool off. It had warmed up to 25 degrees and the sweat was pouring off of me. We gathered up our stuff and hit the road back to Reno. Such a fun hunt and it was too bad we had to cut it short. Of course, on the way back we saw a bunch of deer herds, but they were all on private property and we were time compressed to meet our folks and get back to Doug's house.

Maybe next year...

2009 Mule Deer - Day 1

I landed in Reno at 6:40 am. Long night of flying but got some sleep enroute. My brother picked me up and we drove up to his house to load up all the hunting gear. We opted to stop at Sheels in Sparks before driving 4 hours up to the Santa Rosas. Got some very useful long-range walkie-talkies and hit the road.

We got to the hunting cabin at Siard Creek around 2pm. The cabin was a mess of rodent droppings and rat's nests. It took about 2.5 hours to clean it all up and get a good fire going in the stove. While it was still in the upper 50's outside, we knew the night was going to get down in the teens.

We then set out hiking up the southern slope of Siard Creek. Our first thought was that we were happy all the cattle that were there back in Antelope season were gone. We had hiked about 3/4 of a mile when we crept into a marshy area of Quaking Aspens. The Quakies weren't that tall but we figured we'd poke around a little. A few steps into the glade a doe and fawn spooked and trotted away from us at about half-sprint. They only ran about 100 yds then stopped to forage and look back at us. We figured it was a good chance they were the same pair we ran into back in Antelope season.

After seeing nothing else moving, we headed back to the cabin. My brother had to call his wife at home so we got in the truck and drove 30 minutes to where we could get a signal. Long story short -- we were going to have to head back to Reno the next day so he could take care of some pressing issues at home.

Made it back to the cabin around 8 and stoked the fire to keep it warm. It was getting down in the upper 20's outside and a good roaring fire would keep us toasty for the night. When we opened the stove the amount of smoke that belched out filled the cabin to the point our eyes were tearing up and we couldn't breathe. We got the fire going, but had to air the cabin out which got it very cold.