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.