LAST EDITED ON Mar-15-08 AT 01:08PM (MST)[p]
LAST EDITED ON Mar-15-08 AT 12:42 PM (MST)
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LAST EDITED ON Mar-15-08
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Thanks kilo, this was the trip that i had wanted to go on for years. Usually an out of state hunt would be based from my camper with short day trips into scouted country or maybe a motel, rented room or renting the basement of the house from a retired couple. This was different for me. This hunt we were dropped off and picked up but we did everything else including picking the spot. We stayed just under 3 weeks total and hitched our ride up the mountain on wendsday before the opener on Sat. Thursday was get used to the altitude day, several short scouting trips, and a series of pinching myself episodes, it was beautiful. Sorry for the picture quality, i never have owned a real camera, pictures have never been a big part of our hunts.
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This shot shows my pard, Rich there on the left. Those aren't gloves he has on. He's not the guy that you want to impress by shaking his hand really hard. Anyway i've mentioned his accomplishments several times on these pages. The guy loves to hunt, has done it a lot, and is very good at it. What can i say, i'm bias but i thinks that he's one of the very best hunters out there. On his right is a guy that we first saw a couple miles below our camp site, with a huge backpack, headed our way. I couldn't believe this guy, we were suposed to be "in" 18 miles! Whatever distance it actually was, was a long ways, but Dale here, a Wyoming gas worker if i remember right, humped his self and that pack up and into our camp where we made him welcome. He asked that we didn't mind and my reply was that if he could pack his self all the way up in here like this, he could camp as he pleased. I even jokingly asked if he wanted us to move my 5 man, 4 season, expidition tent that was nicely set up away from the kitchen-cooking-food area. Dale was knowlegable of the area, slightly surprised that a couple Kali boys had found this spot, but not ticked in any way, just a nice guy that hunted hard and stayed a couple days.
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Heres me standing on the steep hillside holding my buck. I had been off in the distant area of the next pic sitting, taking a breather on my way back as i found that i couldn't walk over a couple hundred yards without a blow. I caught movement way up on this side hill of a box canyon like area which turned out to be a very small but perfectly even 4 point which soon layed down next to the biggest old tree out of the few on that only green area of that most inhospitable hillside. Anyway, i was soon laying out prone with my crosshairs centered on this small buck knowing that i was going to pass when surprise-surprise, antler tips start to appear from behind that tree. First one side was exposed, then the other. The buck was clearly wide enough, had decent tine length, took another step that gave me a quartering away shot exactly above and behind the small 4 point that was laying down in front of him. I had already ranged the small buck at 360 yds. This was public ground, if he took on more step, he would be out of view though the window that i now had a shot. I put the crosshairs on his upper shoulder and touched her off. Done deal, my .280 ackley had just taken it's first buck.
Rich is holding the buck, half the buck, where it fell. We sometimes half our bucks to get them back to camp. I felt real lucky to get my share back without me having become perminent part of a very nasty rockslide. That ridge to the right there was the "top" and unit boundry. I really liked the looks of this country but it's for a younger guy who is in better shape than me. I won't be going back. Don't mind saying that there were times that i feared injury. At 54 and over 300 lbs, that country was a bit much for me.
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My partner saw many bucks during the next two weeks. Some days he'd see 3-4 some days he said he come across groups, one i remember him describing had 7 bucks in it. He actually only saw a couple shooters. One very mature 4 point with high horns got a reprieve early on because of his left main beam being broken just ahead of his g-4. Rich was looking for the kind of buck that he knew this country could produce. Me? well i slept in, kicked it around camp. I'd get in a bit of firewood, make coffee, in short, i relaxed and had a blast. No bears or wolves, no problems at all. Here we're getting ready to break camp. My pard knew that the packer was going to bring another group up to a spot a couple miles away and would swing by to check on us, so he took a meat buck and we picked a ride on the backhaul. This last shot, i'm standind very near a neat little spring that trickles out the mountain for plenty of awsome cold, clear water.
It would have been tough for me, or most, to pass on my buck but i actually had mixed emotions that i had not done so. The buck was a young deer. He had awsome genetics. Another couple years and no doubt he'd really be a smoker. I had a "do it now or maybe do it never" window of oppertunity to shoot. From what i saw and what i had, where i was..., i took the shot. The buck could have turned out to be bigger, the whole seeing him until i actually shot him was only a few seconds. Not my best buck, but a nice one, just the kind that i usually seem to get and it fits in well with several others i've gotten with different kinds of racks. Next time, i'll get that smoker!