|
BIG HORNS IN BIG SKY
COUNTRY
By Ron Wilson
November 7, 2008....
Wyoming, Big Sky
Country at its best, no smog and it seems like you can see
forever, well
except when there is fog in the valley after a good rain.
On the opening morning of deer season we
drove in to the property and there was the buck that we were after. It
looked even wider than the one I shot last year. For some reason my son
Donald still had his gun cased in the bed of the truck. I offered my gun
and he missed it 3 times. My 300 Win Mag will not shoot near as good as
what I call his sniper rifle where he can drop them at 500 yards. At 400
yards my bullet drops about 12 inches so all he did was kick up dirt
between the two nice bucks the first shot and continued to shoot low as
they left.
While watching the deer speed off up the
hill we noticed a big mulie buck on the skyline, but he had nothing to
worry about at 800 yards. We continued to check over the property and
the bucks that were there. Fourteen bucks spotted on opening day with
just a couple shooters in the bunch.
Around 10 a.m. we noticed a nice buck
bedded down up the mountain side in some junipers. My grandson Derick
wanted a closer look so he climbed the mountain. About an hour later he
was downwind of the buck that was still in its bed. I was impressed as I
watched through the binoculars as he bent down grabbed some soil and
pitched it in the air checking the wind.
I watched as he made it around the hill
out of site and then two shots rang out. Not being able to see him now
we drove around the property to the other side of the hill where we
could see Derick about 1,000 yards up the hill dragging a nice buck by
the heels down the shale rocks with the horns bouncing. Son Donald
glasses it and said he has a good one and piled out of the truck and
headed up
the hill to help him as I grabbed my camera and a bottle of water
and eased my way up the
hill a couple hundred yards. The smile on their faces said it all
as they came down the hill. Derick had a nice 24 ½ inch wide high
horned 9 year old mulie, the one that we had sky lined earlier as its
fifth horn on one side was broken off which would of made his horns at
least 5 inches wider.
 Day
two of the hunt was Donald's turn as we had watched a real wide 4x4 come
out on the hill every evening to feed and bed down in the sun for a bit.
Donald packed up at 2 p.m. and made it up the hill and waited in ambush
for the buck to come out. Right at 6 p.m. the buck came out and stayed
facing Donald until he grazed over within 75 yards looking at where
Donald was hiding and laid down. Donald didn’t have a good shot and
Derick and I watched as he crawled over the rocks in plain sight until
he could get a neck shot. He forgot about his gun shooting high at that
range and shot the buck in the mouth!
The deer jumped up with its tongue
hanging out and ran with one stiff leg into the forest about 20 yards
away. We followed blood and searched until dark, but nothing. The next
morning I walked up in the canyon and Derick and his dad went back up to
where he had shot it to start following the blood trail again. 9 hours
of searching the mountainside was fruitless.
The following day we went over to the
other side of North Raymond Mountains to travel on the Idaho Speedway
road. I hate this one as its no place to be when the weather is bad and
Donald took me over it from one end to the other years ago in a storm.
There was nobody on it then but us and sheep herders from
Peru that spoke no
English. It was one of those trips that I was happy enough to kiss the
ground at the motel room when we got back off the mountain.
Anyway back to the trip up the road
again. No weather so it was nice, once near the top where you could look
over and see where North and South Raymond meet we stopped and glassed
around. I spotted 3 bucks feeding almost on top of North Raymond with my
binoculars. Donald said, "how do you know they are bucks," well they
were shining like silver dollars in the sun and they were feeding
several yards apart.
Donald and I went on up the mountain for
a little ways and spotted a herd of elk traveling. Donald took off and
went
over the hill after them making a cow call. He had a ball calling and
yelling at the bulls with his mouth and he even had a nice bull come up
within 30 yards to see what he was. We watched as the herd of 75 head or
so worked there way to South Raymond. That was good as we had seen just
a few head above the property so far.
That evening we went back and I dropped
Donald and Seth (owner of the Hideout Motel) off so they could make a
stalk on the bucks we saw that morning which were a couple miles away.
As dusk settled in they had made it within 450 yards of the bucks and
the uphill wind had delivered there scent to the deer. Seth doesn't
shoot over 350 yards so he told Donald to give it a try. Donald’s shot
was through the heart, through the front shoulder and into his head
killing him stiff legged where he stood feeding where he then just fell
over rolling several yards down the hill!
Next day was pack the deer out and then
for the next two days fence work and staying inside the room watching it
snow.
The day before elk season My
daughter-in-law Shay and Jim Fernandes of Salida came up and we went to
check the property that evening to see what the elk were doing. Boy did
we get a show as around 5 p.m. we watched 285 head come down to feed in
the 200 acres of alfalfa and on down to the pivot in front of our
property.
Boy were we pumped! At 5 a.m. the next
morning we snuck into the property and went up on the hill so that we
could ambush them as they fed back up the mountainside. It was going to
be a bloodbath and several guys were on the property next to us doing
the same thing. There were also several guys on horseback above the
property that were waiting for us to cut loose so that they could drop
some of the bulls that got by us.
We knew something was wrong when at 5:30
the bulls started bugling rounding up there cows and heading uphill! All
285 head walked right past us in the dark as two idiots from
New York trespassed
and pushed the elk up the hill before we could even see to shoot.
The next day Derick and Jim went up to
the top of South Raymond after a good bull. They had a chance at a 5x5
but passed. They had elk all around them almost all day but the steep
mountains kept them from seeing them but the elk knew they were there.
Toward the bottom of the hill Derick decided to try for a 5x5 but it was
a long way off and he missed.
The boys were tired that evening and
didn’t want to go back to the property. Myself, I have lots of faith in
it. Donald and I went back to see if I could get my elk if they came
down again. We were glassing the mountain when Donald said lets go there
are some cows that are busting there butts coming down the hill with a
bull chasing them, it seemed that some of the cows were still in heat
because of the warm weather that they had earlier during the rut.
 We
drove in on the left side of the property and the elk were nowhere to be
seen. We looked up on the other mountain and there they were about 100
yards up the hill. We drove over to the other side of the property and
got out and the bull was just walking around the hill bellowing at the
cows to come and join him. A 400 yard lung shot and then another as he
was dying and he rolled half way back down toward our road.
My hunting was done. I just can’t see
climbing up that giant stair master if I don’t have to. I will settle
for the smaller 6x6 and let someone else chase the big horns.
We had spotted a herd above the property
the next morning and Derick and Jim had planned that evening to put a
stalk on them when they came out. When we got back to the property the
elk had came our early and some nut from
California had got
into them and shot not 1 but 3 nice bulls and crippled the lead bull.
That pretty much ended the guys elk hunt
on the property as it took the all the next day for Warden Neil Hymas
and his supervisor and the hunter who shot them to retrieve one of the
elk. The other two were in a ravine in the snow so they would keep and
then they had to go back and retrieve them the follow day. The elk were
so spooked that they hid in the trees all day long except for the other
herds that had been driven to the north of south Raymond. Jim had to
catch a flight so he ended up with a nice bowl of elk tag soup!
Seth had went up and killed a nice bull
that I think Donald had spotted high on South Raymond and told him
about. Donald had spotted another nice bull that he told Derick about
so they went back to North Raymond to kill it when it came out to feed
the next day.
Well the elk never came out. All they saw
was 3 nice bucks at dusk and then they had to use flashlights to come
down off the hill in the dark. Derick hurt his good knee and Donald had
blisters on his feet and they both said it was time to come home.
The trip could have been a lot better.
Trespassers the first day ruined our hunt by pushing the elk past us in
the
dark. The 4th day we had two truckloads of local kids trespass ruining
an evening hunt. Then we had a guy leading a pack of horses bringing out
an elk along with his dog ruining another evening hunt. Then there was
that California hunter who messed up 3 days worth of hunting for us.
I heard the locals complain about people
buying land and then posting it. Well after a half dozen years they now
have some more posted land to complain about.
We packed up and headed to Montpelier to
pick up my elk meat at Christensen Custom Cuts. I guess Rick had
forgotten to put down "have it done in 7 days", when we had planned to
leave so we came home with no meat.
A few phone calls and the meat was
shipped, plus they agreed to pay for half the shipping. My thought was
that if Rick had done his job nobody would have been out anything for
shipping. Back to Thane I guess as they had our 2 deer processed into
jerky in just 6 days. |
