Author: jlrineer1

Back Country Weather

On By jlrineer1In Back Country, HuntingLeave a comment

The morning of our second day was not unlike the first one. We were a little smarter about beefing up the insulation in our bags so we weren’t as cold over night. The snoring and condensation kept everyone awake off and on throughout the night. We quickly fell into a normal routine of gathering water, getting a fire started, arranging our gear so we could set out as soon as we were ready. The boots had thawed and we spent some time looking at our maps on our phones, trying to decide the best course of action. If the game wasn’t to the north then maybe they were more south in some old fire areas that had grown back fairly thick. We loaded our gear onto our backs and took off on the trail we had originally came in on. Splitting off to the east where the trail would have led us back toward the air strip. It was a more open area with no trail but it was easy walking. We found what looked to be a game trail heading up the mountain to the East. We were camping at around 7000′ and our goal was to get to a bench at around 8200′ elevation. We finally made it to the bench we set out to get to. This was our first real encounter with dead fall trees, stepping over 2 to 3 trees stacked high. It was like God took a can of toothpicks and dropped them randomly in the forest. We were feeling pretty winded and ready to overlook a lark bowl extending about a mile to our South East. If we had to we could have easily made it to the top of the ridge above us and navigate around the bowl in the event we saw game.

 

We found a large boulder about 10 feet off of the ground that provided a good glassing spot. After about a half hour of glassing up the valley and not seeing any movement we started looking for other vantage points that might be better to set up for glassing. We were looking up the valley and noticed clouds rolling in. It looked to be heavy fog coming in fast and hard. Before we knew it our visibility was down to about half a mile, then a quarter, then the snow started. We got ourselves the whole way up the hill just to be caught in a snow storm. We wandered further across the bench with the thought that by the time we got to the next slope the snow storm might pass. Halfway there the snow intensified, we were having trouble seeing more than 100 yards through the thick flakes. It was getting to be time to break for lunch and we decided we’d take refuge under a thick pine, eat some food, and start a fire.

 

I gathered some dead pine needles to get the fire started as Matt and Justin cleared an area for us to hang out in. I never claimed to be an expert fire starter or even a good woodsman at that. I get by alright in the woods, but in this situation we were failing miserably. The pine needles would catch, burn quickly, then die out. I was roaming around the forest looking for dried pine needles to get a massive pile. Hoping it would catch some of the dead, wet wood on fire and we could at least be warm while we were wet and miserable. We tried burning TP, a game bag or two, any paper we had in our pack, and anything else we thought was flammable that we could find. Nothing seemed to be working. After an hour of wasting our time and three to four inches of snow later it didn’t seem the storm was letting up. We made the choice to head back down the mountain so we weren’t traveling unknown terrain in the dark. We figured we would take our time heading back down and deviate wherever we thought would be a better area to find game.

 

On the way back down the mountain Justin spotted some fresh bear tracks. The snow was still falling so we knew it had to be within the last hour or two that the bear had traveled through the area. Not one to shy from a bear hunt, Matt and Justin both had multiple bear kills under their belts and I had killed one on a hunt in Canada, we headed after it. After a couple hundred yards we found a rather large, steaming pile of bear shit. This was about as good as it gets when tracking a bear. We couldn’t be more than a few minutes behind it and judging by the way it was walking he had no idea we were there. The tracks veered to the south down into a small hollow and up across the other side. We fanned out about 50 yards apart, the snow was getting lighter as we dropped further in elevation, we were hoping to catch the bear doubling back if it had detected us. It brought us across to another small bench which looked to be a mountain top swamp area with a lot of dead trees, soggy mud, and wet grass. We continued on down into some of the thickest dead fall area we had ventured so far. The bear was climbing up and over stacks of 4 and 5 tree dead falls. Our gear was taking a beating but we knew we had to be gaining on it. The tracks began to zig zag back and forth through the forest, I am guessing it knew we were behind it. Judging by it’s tracks though it still wasn’t running. We came down to the last few hundred yards before we hit the valley, I took the right flank to the north, Justin stayed on the tracks in the center, and Matt was on the left flank to the south. Spaced out about 100 yards apart we were hoping we’d find the bear toward the bottom in the more open area. I got to the bottom and somehow lost sight of the other two while making my descent off the steep hillside. I waited around for a few minutes waiting to hear a few gunshots ring out or for a black bear to come running past me. Justin came walking down my way to the open clearing I was standing in, I asked him if he kept following the tracks. He said the bear got to the bottom and headed straight for Matt’s direction so he figured Matt was on the tracks. After another 5 minutes or so Matt made his way down to us. He saw the bear tracks continue on past him, followed them for a hundred yards past his position at which point the tracks went straight back up the mountain. We had been duped by the bear and none of us had any intentions of climbing back up that mountain after a bear. The sun was starting to go down and we had a couple of miles of hiking ahead of us.

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We made it back to camp just before dark. Justin and Matt set off to find more dead trees to cut up for firewood, our supply had been depleted over the last two days and we needed a fire to dry our wet clothes out. I was filtering water and making a half ass attempt at fishing in the stream with my 5 foot collapsible fishing pole. I brought along three spinner lures hoping to catch a nice trout. No such luck this time. We had the fire roaring our 550 cord clothes line was working nicely to dry out our gear and we were sitting around the fire. Justin was visibly exhausted from the lack of sleep over the past two nights so in an attempt to help him out I gave him two Tylenol PMs and told him he could try to get to sleep an hour or two before Matt and I so our snoring wouldn’t affect him as bad at night. After about 2 hours had passed Matt and I put the fire out and headed into the tent. Justin was still wide awake and not looking forward to another sleepless night.

 

The Beaver Dam

On By jlrineer1In Back Country, Hunting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

While stopped at the ranch the previous day we had met with about 6 guys who were finishing out there week long hunt. They were guys from all over the country, life long friends who were scattered by life and reunited once a year for a week long horseback hunting trip in the Idaho back country. They told us they had been coming to the camp for more than 20 years and had seen the good and bad days of the area. They claimed that up until a few years prior to this season the wolves had not quite made it this far into the back country and the hunting was nothing short of amazing. As the wolves moved in and became established it was a different story. They had hunted 7 hard days traveling over 100 miles on horseback throughout the trails surrounding the ranch and were only able to kill one small 6×6 between the whole group. One guy said the wolves have killed all the game in the area including the beavers. The moose they once frequently saw were no where to be seen for years. This conversation was weighing on us pretty heavily on our hike out and it only intensified with the lack of animal tracks in the snow and just in general the absence of game sign.  We spent a few hours out the previous afternoon and I was the only one to come across one lonely track in the mud of something large, yet to be identified.

We woke up with the sun that first morning, it was a pretty sleepless night for us all. We had a MSR 3 man tent to sleep in and we were 3 full grown men. A good rule of thumb for tents is always subtract 1 person from the advertised capacity of a tent and you’ll be fairly comfortable. We were sandwiched pretty tight and two out of the three of us are heavy snorers, myself being one of the guilty parties. Between people waking up and pushing other people so they stop snoring, the condensation rolling off the inside of the tent and dripping down onto us, and just in general the utter coldness we were not anticipating for the first week of October. Needless to say it was a rough first morning getting started. We had planned to set off north on a NFS trail. The trail itself was a 14 mile stretch that links up to another trail. We had decided that rather than strike off on our path it was easier to hike on one that’s already established. We started a quick fire, got some breakfast and coffee in us while our boots thawed out after freezing over night and set off.

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When hiking I like to adopt the military method of hiking for about 50 minutes to an hour then take a 10 minute breather/water break. I feel it helps extend your stamina and allows you to make any gear adjustments. It works out well so that’s what we tried to stick to. On our first break we had made it about two and a half miles north on mostly flat clear trail up the valley. We had just navigated across a pretty wide creek over a rudimentary log bridge without anyone going for a freezing cold swim. The trail ahead was a steeper hill so we had decided to take our break in anticipation for the sucking that was about to come.

Matt was standing out in the open with his fly down taking a leak when he spotted something coming our way. It always seems to work out that way, something magically appears when someone in the group is busy with their fly down or their pants around their ankles squatted over a log. When he got our attention I immediately saw what he was excited about. At first glance my brain told me it was a wild horse trotting through the remote valley we were sitting in. I had never seen a moose in person before and I guess your brain automatically registers the next closest thing that it knows. It was a small bull moose closing in our position at a steady trot. He got to within about a hundred yards and I felt the wind shift to the back of my neck. He stopped dead in his tracks, nose to the air. The bull couldn’t quite figure out where we were but he knew something was amiss. After about 20 seconds of standing there scanning the area around us he darted off toward the direction we had just come from. I expected to hear him crashing through the pine trees like a bulldozer, hoping maybe we’d get a glimpse of him again. I’ve never seen an animal so large in the wild and he moved in absolute silence through the trees. It was really unbelievable and that was the point that I had realized what the track was I had seen the evening before.

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We continued up the hill ahead of us for several hundred yards until we reached the summit. The trail landscape had changed from pine trees into a boulder field with an incredible view of a mountainside. We took the opportunity to sit and glass the area. We all had bear, lion, and wolf tags in our pocket as well as deer and elk so the odds were high that if anything showed itself on the hill ahead we’d be clear to take it. We scoured every inch we could see and not a single one of us could see anything moving. It was as if this country was too remote even for the animals. We continued on our way down the trail through some more flat open terrain next to a creek again. The map showed an area ahead of what looked to be where three valleys met. There was a large flat area at the base of the mountains and we were headed up one of the valleys. As we got closer we realized we’d have to cross the creek at some point if we wanted to be over in the more open area. At this point the ground beneath us was getting softer and the creek appeared to be getting wider. We started across trying to stay up on drier land rather than the mud. We got to a point where I had realized what we stumbled upon. It was a massive beaver dam. One that was still active as there were fresh cut limbs in the area. The brush was so overgrown around beaver pond it was hard to see at first. We skirted around the front side of the dam, trying to stay as dry as possible. It was getting close to lunch time so we set up in an area over looking the large field while we broke out our food.

After lunch we had decided to start hiking up the mountain across from us, there were a few open areas that looked to provide good glassing points and it didn’t seem too steep. The topo map on the my phone showed what looked to be a couple of flat benches after we crested the first hill. We got to the top of the first hill and I think everyone in the group was feeling a little tired at that point but the next bench looked to be a little nicer of a vantage point so we continued on pushing at a snails pace to get to the top. An area opened up and I had decided I had went far enough, I wanted to just sit and watch the hillside across from us. Matt and I were close by, Justin was a couple hundred yards ahead of us set up looking out over the valley. The pines were so thick on the hill side directly across from us it seemed like it would be nearly impossible to see an animal walking through the woods.

Justin had taken off ahead of us, he was visibly frustrated at the lack of game in the area. We set out at a slower pace, taking in the scenery and hoping to come across anything out in the wilderness, at this point we were all pretty discouraged at our success of even being able to see live animals. As we cut our way through the thick brush following the creek back to the main trail it was evident that we were walking through moose territory. We were now in the area that the moose we had seen came through. He had tracks all up and down the creek banks and the ends of the shrubs were chewed down. It was at least entertaining to see how much one of those animals gets around. We made it back to camp about an hour before dark and Justin was no where to be found. Knowing that he’s a perfectly capable woodsman neither one of us were too worried, we had figured he probably took an alternate path or stopped in an area to glass. Matt and I started gathering fire wood and filling up the water bladders. I had brought a number of 2 liter water bladders and a gravity filter so we’d have plenty of fresh clean water. Someone had brought a saw so it would be easier to break down the dead fall trees into manageable pieces. We weren’t used to such a hot and fast burning wood. It seemed like you could go through two whole trees in just a few hours of burning in the evening.

Justin soon returned at dark, he had climbed to the top of a nearby ridge and sat until just before dark to see if any animals would come out as the sun set. No such luck. We ate our mountain house meals, relaxed our feet, hung some clothes over the fire to dry and laid down for the night.

Flying Into The Back Country

On By jlrineer1In Back Country, Hunting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We arrived at the airport bright and early on Monday morning, hopeful that the bad weather had passed and that we would have an airplane waiting on for us. The lady at the front desk told us the plane was in the air on it’s way to us. We unloaded the truck and shuffled our gear through the office to the back porch, anxiously waiting on our plane to arrive. We had our gear weighed, then ourselves weighed, and staged everything so that we could get loaded and on our way as quickly as possible. The plane touched down and taxied right up to our area. The pilot was a young gentleman in his mid twenties, he had a sense of humor about him when we first met. We loaded all our gear and were waiting for the airplane to be refueled, I asked the pilot in passing “How long have you been a bush pilot for”. He nonchalantly replied “oh, I just got my license last week”. Not knowing if he was serious or not I looked at the other guys with an ‘Oh shit’ look thinking the last thing I want to do is be apart of a real life ‘Hatchet’ book scenario. I looked at the pilot and asked him if he was serious and he cracked a wide smile and indicated he’d been flying for as long as he’d been driving a car. I liked the idea of having a pilot with a sense of humor, as long as he could actually fly. We loaded up in the small plane and began to taxi the runway.

Overlooking the town of Salmon, ID

The flight was to take about 50 minutes from take off to touch down on the small gravel runway in the back country. As we left the aircraft climbed up over the mountain and left the valley that Salmon Idaho laid in. The vastness of the wilderness began to sink in. It seemed there were a number of dirt roads dodging in and around the area for the first few miles. As the mountains became steeper and taller those roads became fewer and fewer until I couldn’t see anymore. There were hidden mountain ponds perched high up on the slopped landscape. Steep ravines and massive swaths of  lodge pole pine groves. It was like traveling back in time to a different era.

I was sitting up front with the pilot on our flight out and he had only brought two headsets along so we were able to talk a little bit on the flight. He pointed out road names and other significant landmarks like large peaks and which river’s we were flying over. As we approached our air strip he began to bank the plan for what I thought would be our landing approach, instead he kept turning, doing a complete loop around where he had pointed out the airstrip was. He indicated that the cloud cover was too low in elevation and that he couldn’t land the plane without having a clear view of the airstrip. I was both annoyed at the weather and nervous that we’d now probably have to turn around and head back to the town. He continued on past the airstrip a few miles to reveal another airstrip, one that was on a private ranch in the back country. He said his original plan was to drop us off, head over there and pick up a load of their guys and gear then fly back out. So he got on his radio, called down to the ranch and arranged a plan that involved us being dropped off there for a couple of hours until he could get their guys out and then come back for us. He asked me if that would work for us. I didn’t care where he dropped us off as long as it wasn’t back in the direction we had just come from. So we landed at the ranch and were greeted by a few people in front of some sheds, with all their gear, ready to get back to civilization.

After we unloaded our gear at the ranch and helped load up the next group of people getting onto the plane, the camp wrangler and cook invited us up to the ranch house for some coffee and soup. It was lunch time and we weren’t really interested in pulling our cold weather gear out to sit around outside so we accepted their invitation. The ranch was originally a camp maintained to feed the miners in the area during the late 1800s. I don’t know how anyone in that time period would have survived out there for any length of time, but they did. When the area became designated a national forest the federal government grandfathered the camp, along with a handful of other ones’ in the back country, to continue to be privately owned and operated. The walls were filled with bighorn sheep heads, bear rugs, mountain lion hides, and many more antique trophies from decades past.

Our plane had arrived back at the ranch for us a couple of hours later, faster than I had anticipated. I was kind of wishing we had found a place like the ranch to be based out of. It would be nice to have hot soup and fresh coffee in the coming days. We loaded into the plane for a short 3 minute ride over to our air strip. The valley was wide and sat around 6800′ elevation it seemed to go on for a couple of miles ahead of us as we made our approach. The landing was smooth for being just a gravel road in the middle of no where. We taxied to the end of the runway and unloaded our gear. It was colder than I had thought it would be. Snow covered the ground in a thin layer. The airplane fired up, did an about face on the runway, then the engine roared as the pilot went full throttle sending the small aircraft down the runway as he lifted off and disappeared. That feeling of knowing that if anything went wrong it would be a battle to get out was so surreal. We were officially away from civilization and on our own. I had all my gear unloaded in a pile and I set out to arrange everything the way I wanted it. We had a 7 or 8 mile hike ahead of us to get to where we wanted to set up base camp and nothing is more aggravating than hiking while being uncomfortable. The airstrip featured an outside toilet surrounded by a fence about four and a half feet tall. I found it odd, since I have never seen a toilet open to the elements, in the middle of no where. About 200 yards from the airstrip were 6 small log cabins, owned by the national forest service. As we passed them on our trek out they were all closed up, locked, and the windows were boarded up. It would have been nice if they would have been opened to the public.

We hiked south initially for about a mile on a national forest service trail, it took us east then between two mountains. When we got to the other side of the mountains into the next valley the trail shot north along the west side of the valley. We got clear of the woods and out into the open valley, searching for a place to set up camp. The best place we found was nearby to the creek nestled between some scattered pine trees. There seemed to be a few dead trees in the area that would make good fire wood, we were close enough to the creek that we wouldn’t be traveling very far for fresh water and it was centrally located in the area that we wanted to hunt. Justin was anxious to get out and get some glassing in so we quickly pulled the tent out, set up an area for a fire, and got on our way. We had about 3 hours of daylight left and I wasn’t in a big rush to burn all of my energy, so while the other two guys went north I headed east to the far side of the valley. From the air the grass field in the valley looked like perfect country to walk in, there’s no dead fall trees and it’s just grass so it can’t be difficult to walk through. The reality was that the grass was wet, about 4 feet tall, and thick. It did a good job of masking swampy areas until it was too late and you find yourself in thick soggy mud with no way forward. I began up a small draw filled with bushes bearing red berries, thinking maybe I could get a better vantage point of the area. I came across a massive track in the mud, it certainly was not a deer track, seemed even too small to be an elk track, so I took a picture of it and chalked it up to something I had never seen before. I didn’t know of, or really think about any other large game that would be in the area. I waited until about 30 minutes before dark and headed back to camp, the other guys followed shortly behind me. We finished setting up camp, started a small fire and decided our game plan for the next day.

The Potato State

On By jlrineer1In Back Country, Hunting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We started out on a Friday afternoon from Eastern Pennsylvania embarking on our second trip to the west. This time the estimated amount of time it would take was at 36 hours of straight driving. We’d be passing right through the spot we had hunted the year before and continuing on for another 9 hours after that. We crossed the Idaho-Montana line in the early morning hours of Sunday. The plan was to make it to the airport parking lot, get a few hours of shut eye in the truck before loading up in the bush plane and heading out.

Exhausted from the drive, we rolled into town at around 2 am and decided it would be really nice to get a hotel room and at least get a few hours of good sleep before heading out at daylight. We arrived at the airport at 7 am, the office was just opening up. The whole process wasn’t what I had expected. I never flew out of a small airport before, so I had a lot of questions about how things were done. We talked to the office clerk when we first walked in, an elderly woman, who had probably been doing this sort of thing for decades. She let us know they were talking to their other airport on the other side of the back country about 100 miles away. They were bringing a pilot over from McCall to fly us out of Salmon. The local weather channel was up, and she informed us it wasn’t looking good. A storm system was rolling in from the northwest and coming right through the center of the state, “The pilots can’t fly in that type of weather” she said. There was a little hope that it could clear out by afternoon and while we’d be pressed for time, he may be able to get us in before dark. We hung out at the office for most of the morning, pacing around, walking to the deck out back where the pilots load passengers and refuel their planes. On the picnic table out back there was a smaller 6 point bull, the skull wrapped in plastic. I asked the clerk where that bull was taken and she explained it was only a few miles from the air strip we were planning on being dropped off at. There was a private ranch nearby, it’s one of only a few in the back country, they offer horseback hunts and their party that week took the bull. This put our excitement at a whole new level. Just knowing someone had the opportunity on an elk near where we were going had the impatience setting in heavy.

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A small mule deer buck roamed around inside the airport fence area so we passed the time by watching him through our binos while he fed on grass at the edges of the nearby buildings. The staff took notice to our incessant pacing around the office area, in and out of the back door, they suggested we go get some lunch and that they would call us if the weather had improved. We headed into town to find a place to eat. It seemed as though there was no shortage of mule deer in the area, groups of does were intertwined throughout neighborhoods and feeding on the sides of the roads. It felt good to be seeing game. We ate lunch, then took a long drive down some back roads, looking for places to explore and to get a better understanding of the terrain we’d be in. We headed back to the airport a few hours later just to be told that it was a not going to happen that day, we should get a hotel for the night and be ready first thing in the morning to leave. We headed back in to town got a room for the night, hopeful that we’d have a plane ready for us in the morning.20171002_090936.jpg

The River of No Return

On By jlrineer1In Back Country, Hunting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

With the 2016 hunting season in the books I began looking for other hunting opportunities out west. I was hooked on finding the next great place to go. As a traveler by nature I like to find new places, explore new experiences, and meet new people. I felt as though our trip to Wyoming wasn’t as challenging as what I had anticipated so I set out to find my next destination. My main goal was to find a place to hunt elk, lets face it, that’s any big game hunter from the East’s dream is to harvest a mature elk. The animal itself is so foreign to me, we have a very small herd of them here in Pennsylvania. While traveling up north I occasionally see one crossing a road or wading through a shallow stream. Compared to the usual whitetail deer they’re just a monstrous animal. Every year I apply for a PA elk tag in hopes of getting an opportunity to hunt an animal expatriated then reintroduced to my home state, and every year I get another bonus point, maybe someday I’ll get the opportunity.

My hunt research was quickly narrowed down to two states, due to the fact that I only started applying for points the year prior. Idaho and Colorado both have over the counter elk tags and plenty of elk. Idaho though, is an opportunity managed state that allows hunters a wide array of species to hunt over a long season with many different weapon options. I settled on a unit in the Frank Church River of No Return wilderness area. Access to much of the unit is by foot, horse, or bush plane. It’s the largest wilderness area in the lower 48, as remote as it gets. With the hunt area decided it was now time to pitch the idea to the guys and see who wanted in. The odds were against us on being successful, as they were with Wyoming. This time though, there’d be no truck, no sleeping trailer, no running to town for a meal or shower. We’d be completely cut off from civilization, in the mountains, on our own. It sounded like a dream come true. I was able to convince Matt and Justin to join in on the fun.

The first step was to pick a specific air strip within the three units that would be open to us for hunting. I called a number of aviation companies in Idaho that fly frequent trips into the back country. Many of them had great advice on where to go and where not to go, what to bring, and what to expect. I settled on McCall Aviation, their rates were good and they offer a package to hunters that they’ll fly your game out if you’re successful. I poured over hunt forums, hiking websites, the Idaho fish and game website, and anything else I could find that would give me any information on the area. We were set to fly in around the first week of October and ready to spend 6 full days of hunting.

In the next post I’ll detail the journey of getting to the back country, the hunt, and making it back out.

The Final Days of Our First Trip West

On By jlrineer1In UncategorizedLeave a comment

This blog post is going to finish up the our Wyoming hunt and I am going to try to get to the Idaho hunt we did the following year then talk about our upcoming hunt for the 2018/2019 season.

The last few days of our Wyoming hunt were as action packed as the first two days. The third day a cold front moved in with some precipitation. We awoke to wind gusts in the 30 to 40 mph range and moderate rain. Nothing could have prepared me for driving on that wet clay soil. The dirt turns to a slippery solid mud that seems to stick to everything it touches. We opted to drive around the area to find other parcels of public land that we had already identified by using the OnX hunt app. It seemed that everyone hunting in the county had the same idea. We passed truck after truck, loaded with hunters sitting on the sides of the roads waiting for antelope to cross from private to public so they could get an opportunity on an animal. The allure of it all was lost on us, we didn’t find any sport in that type of hunting and quickly got bored with the idea. After finding nothing but piles of trucks lining the public land we had driven to, we decided to head back to camp and glass around camp. That was the only day we weren’t successful in locating game.

On Day four Matt and I headed out in the truck to a different spot down the highway a little farther. The landscape looked rugged and steep, juniper trees dotted the hillsides. This country looked ideal for deer looking to tuck away somewhere and not be seen. We hiked to the first hilltop, it was steep but not tall. The other side opened up to a beautiful scene with a sunrise at our backs, the wind to our faces, an area not far from a highway but seemingly untouched wilderness. The first few hours were exciting, we saw a herd of a dozen Mule deer does file out of a coulee in the distance headed in the direction we were intending to move. At 500 yards we sat and watched a spike buck with two does feeding on the hillside. Moments like these are truly indescribable to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand. I remember as a kid watching western hunts on TV, reading about them in magazines, or seeing highlight reels of outfitters at outdoor shows. Dreaming of the day I would be able to afford to go on a high dollar hunt just to experience the vast open terrain of unmolested land. This was it, this was the moment you knew you’d never forget, soaking it in one second at a time.

Matt and I knew we didn’t come the whole way to Wyoming to shoot a spike so we waiting until they slipped away into a ravine out of sight. We had a few hundred feet of climbing ahead of us into uncharted territory. Satellite and Topo maps are great tools, but there are no substitutes for laying eyes on a new piece of ground. We crested the hill  and saw a large open prairie gently sloping down to a creek bottom lined with juniper and cottonwood trees. There were a few does bedded down staring at us, their radar dish ears fully alert, wondering why humans have invaded their area. We sat down at the base of a small hillside glassing to see if any bucks made it in to their group. They jumped up and hopped of over a knoll. It felt as though we couldn’t move more than a couple hundred yards without running into deer, our hope was that we’d eventually glass up a nice buck.

We moved parallel with the road, hoping to get to higher ground to sit and glass for a while, when Matt spotted a buck. The deer was 150 yards down the hill from us, standing broadside. His antlers were wide and tall, bigger than anything I’ve ever killed before. It was a split second decision, shoot or not shoot. I pulled my rifle up, rested it on my trekking pole that has a rubber V mounted to the top of it. I could see the deer clearly in my scope, he only had 2 points on both sides. I decided to take the shot, I am not by any means a trophy hunter, and at the same rate, I am not going to shoot a spike. I decided I would be proud to shoot a deer of this size. I steadied the scope. Squeezed off a shot. He didn’t move, not an inch. He stood there staring at us. I looked at Matt as I was loading another round into the chamber. “Did I hit him?”. He replied “Nope. Clean miss high”. I couldn’t understand what happened I was lined up perfect, cross hairs dead on. Then it hit me, A rookie mistake many hunters have made in the past. I never set my scope back to zero when I took the shot on the antelope at 400 yards. I quickly turned the turret back to zero, at the same time Matt started yelling to look to our right. Two 3 point bucks jumped up at 60 yards from the tall grass, spooked by the shot they took off. I was hoping they’d come to a stop to get a better look on what was going on before taking off again. I took aim on the one to the right, Matt was full out yelling at this point that the buck on the right was the bigger deer. They paused for a moment at 100 yards. I knew it was the only opportunity I’d get on them and I was ready. I pulled the trigger they both took off. I made a clean double lung shot, but the deer was still running. I racked another round into the chamber, wanting to finish the deer as quick as possible. I put another round into him and he dropped only 40 yards from where he had initially stood. The excitement was exhilarating. I stood there shaking, processing what had just happened, the adrenaline still pumping through my body.

Matt and I had our few minutes of celebration, we took some pictures, and then got to work on caring for the meat. We packed the deer away in our packs and headed back to the truck. When we got cell phone service we got word from Nick and Todd that they took two mule deer bucks Then Justin and John had shot two antelope bucks, all before lunch time on the fourth day. This trip was shaping up to be a more fruitful hunt than any of us could have ever imagine.

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With 5 out of 6 hunters in the group tagged out we had one last buck to get John before everyone had full buck tags. We set off to where I had shot my deer with intentions of heading farther back into public land to see what we could find. Three of us accompanied John on the trip. Myself, Matt, and Justin decided to go along to make the pack out easier and to have the opportunity to see more of the area. We made it to the same spot Matt and I were at the day before when two 3 point bucks were moving from left to right at around 300 yards in front of us. They stopped at a perfect spot on the hillside across from us, John lined up his sites on his trigger stick tripod. He squeezed off  a shot and dirt flew behind them. He loaded another round but it was too late, they were gone. Running across the hillside to about a half a mile away where they crossed a road. I shot a waypoint on where I thought they crossed so we could maybe find them again.

We took the dirt road over to where they had crossed, the landscape opened up and it felt as though you could see for miles. We saw no signs of the deer. Justin and John were to the right of the road glassing when they motioned for Matt and I to get down and stay still. We thought they spotted the bucks, they were moving into position to get a shot. Then they got down and crossed the road in front of us, moving to a hillside to the left of the road. John rested his gun on the trigger stick pointed downward from the hill. The gun roared with a crack. Justin jumped up and took off running down the hill. Matt and I clueless to what just unfolded took off to catch up. Unbeknownst to us, there was an active watering hole tucked below the hill with a buck laying dead in it. Justin waded out into hip deep water to retrieve his father’s deer. It wasn’t one of the two bucks we had seen. When Justin and John were glass for those deer they saw a group of does with a different 3 point buck following behind them. The does headed to the watering hole and when the buck followed John was able to get a perfect shot on the deer.

The following day we packed up camp, with a chest freezer full of frozen meat, deer and antelope heads stacked in the trailer, and headed back east. The hunt was a success and to all of us it was the start of an obsession that would bring us back to the west again.

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Not Every Hunt Goes According To Plan

On By jlrineer1In UncategorizedLeave a comment

By the end of day one the group was very satisfied with the hunt so far, we had spent the afternoon de-boning meat to put in the freezer we had brought along. The generator was running to charge the trailer batteries and keep the freezer running. We made a quick run into Buffalo Wyoming to a campground to get showers and grab a bite to eat. The next day we would be working closer to filling the rest of our tags.

The next day I set out on my own to walk some ridge lines, hoping to push a big mule deer buck from his bed in hopes of getting a shot. While I was away Justin and Matt were getting a late start on the day sitting at camp, getting their gear together. They noticed a lone antelope way off in the distance. They glassed him for a little while before deciding to go after him. They hiked over 2 miles to close the distance. He stayed right where he was at, grazing on the sage brush within the public land boundary. They were able to sneak to within 50 yards of him. After some conversation of who wanted and who didn’t want to tag out on the second day Matt decided to take the shot on the buck. With his tags full he transitioned to helping us other guys on our hunt.

That afternoon while sitting at camp Todd and I noticed a herd of antelope out on a small grassy pasture feeding, we counted 9 of them and could identify at least one buck. They were a little farther from where I had shot my antelope the day before. We had about 4 hours of daylight left and I asked Todd if he wanted to go after them. He didn’t want to walk all that distance just to have them not be there when we finally made it to where we saw them last. I assured him it would be a quick kill, we could unload everything out of our packs, move quickly through the cattle pasture. The plan was to get up to the ridge where Justin and I had camped the night before the opener. It overlooked the grassy pasture, with any luck we could make a couple hundred yard shot and be back before dark. He liked the plan. We unloaded everything out of our packs and moved quickly through the pasture. We got to the hill that Justin and I had climbed and reached the top of the ridge. My recollection of the distance between the ridge and the grass pasture was a little off, we were closer to 800 yards than a couple hundred. The antelope weren’t there.

Their was a dirt road leading to the pasture where a gas well had been put in. We decided to get over to the dirt road to get a better look at the area and see if they had decided to bed down on the other side of the pasture. As we made our way up to the road we decided to take the dirt road around to get a better view of the pasture. Just then Todd got my attention, I looked straight in front of us to see a herd of over 20 antelope staring back at 200 yards. We slowly walked backwards to where we could get off the edge of the road and get down behind some cover. The distance was too far for a good shot. They were getting skittish and beginning to move around. They didn’t take off right away so we decided to keep low using the road as cover and to back away from them. We dropped our packs there so we could keep a low profile while moving. We were able to cross the road at a low spot so that we could try to flank them. It took some time but we came up about 150 yards from where they were laying.

Todd moved in quietly with his rifle to get a better look. He pointed to the right of the herd. Two mule deer buck were bedded on the hillside beside the herd of antelope. He returned so we could come up with a game plan. The deer blended in so well with their surroundings it was hard to see them. We finally were able to see they were smaller deer, one was a spike, the other a two point. By the time Todd decided he wanted to go after the antelope instead of the buck the antelope had begun to move. They trotted off around the side of the hill away from us. I talked Todd into going after them, they didn’t seem to be really scared, just seemed like they were trotting off. We moved a few hundred yards up the dirt road and located them at the bottom of a hill. We had perfect cover where we were able to watch them for a little. Todd didn’t really have a shot where we were at so we decided we’d back up cross the road and move in to flank them again. Just then it started raining. The rain was enough to get the antelope up out of their beds and they moved again. This time just walking, they didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all.

At this point, we have maybe 30 minutes of daylight left, we’re probably about 3.5 to 4 miles from camp and it’s starting to lightning all around us. Todd was ready to get back to camp before it was too dark to see anything. I was starting to feel the same way, but I had this feeling the antelope were only a couple hundred yards away on the other side of this small hill and we could be leaving a great opportunity just because of the dark and some rain. I told Todd if we got to the top of the hill and they weren’t there that was it, we’d head back get our packs and get back to camp. He agreed, I walked up an old dirt path to the top of the hill. Their were two fence posts in the ground with 2×4’s at the bottom and top. It was located in an odd spot but it ended up being a perfect gun rest. The whole herd was 200 yards directly in front of us. I crept back about 20 feet and let Todd get a comfortable rest. We had plenty of time. He steadied himself for a few moment then let a shot out of his Tikka .260. I quickly moved up behind him, just in time to see what I thought was an antelope drop. He reloaded quickly getting ready to take another shot. The herd stood there for a minute staring at us. I told him I thought he put one down. They scattered across the countryside as we made our way down the hill. At this point the sun was beginning to set.

We got down to where he thought he shot his buck. As we approached we saw 2 legs sticking up in the air. We had the bare essentials with us (Knife, tags, binos) but all of our other stuff was back at the packs. He started on quartering the animal out while I headed back for the packs. I pulled out my GPS to see how far it would be to go get them. We had made it a mile from the packs without even realizing it. I moved quickly down the dirt road, retrieved the packs and started heading back to the kill site. When I returned he had most of the meat off the animal and hanging on the sage brush. At this point we were both pretty hungry, wet, and starting to get cold. I pulled a mountain house double meal out and cooked it up while he was finishing putting the meat in the bags and getting the loins out. We had a quick meal before heading back. I pulled my GPS out and saw my battery life was at 25%. He had a little over 50% so I shut mine off in case we needed it later. In the pitch black it was difficult to even get started back, we needed to find the road so it would lead us to the pasture. We got to a spot that we could drop down in to the cattle pasture. Before we would be out of cell service I called back to the camp to let the guys know we’d be a little late and to start their way toward us in case we got turned around.

After getting slightly lost due to the dark we finally found the main cattle trail we were using and headed in the right direction. At about the halfway mark we saw headlamps in the distance and met up with the rest of the guys. They spread loaded some of the meat and we rolled in to camp around 10:30 that evening. This hunt taught me a good lesson, never take the bare essentials out of your pack. Had we gotten stuck out there over night it would’ve been nice to have a sweatshirt, safety blanket, and extra batteries. Luckily it all worked out, but whenever you plan for a quick kill and quick return it will inevitably not go as planned.

Success on Day One

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I awoke that first morning already two miles from camp. It was reminiscent of my first years whitetail hunting in the east. You never really sleep well the night before the season opener, this was no exception. Justin had already been up eating breakfast and packing up camp for about 20 minutes before I rolled out of my sleeping bag. I made a rookie mistake of leaving my clothes at the head of my sleeping bag the night before. Realizing the error of my ways, and not having spare clothes in my pack, I had to put on dew soaked pants to start the first day off. By the time breakfast was down and our backpacks were packed the sun was just beginning to breach the horizon. We had discussed a plan. We were going to head north, farther into the public land. The ridge we were on would take us 2 miles north, we could cross to another ridge and go another 2 miles to what seemed to be a nice sized pond.

We glassed for a few minutes from the ridge-top that we were on and hadn’t spotted any game. We decided to saddle up our packs for our hike north. Just before Justin put his pack on he spotted an Antelope to the south of us. We both go down low and pulled our binos out. It was a buck, he was across the canyon coming over a ridge-top opposite of us. I asked Justin to range him “538 yards, no way you’re shooting that far” he said. We had made a deal the night before, I got the first shot on an Antelope, Justin got first shooting rights on A mule deer. Trying to gauge an Antelopes size at nearly 550 yards and having very limited experience with these animals (our one day of scouting) had me nervous to even pursue this particular buck on the first day. Justin was sure he was a decent buck and started crawling to the next closest hill between us and the buck. I followed behind, with the top of my pack removed to use as a rest, and my rifle. We got to a good area where we were hidden and I had a steady rest. Justin ranged him again, 410 yards. “What do you want to do” he said. “I don’t know, it’s only 7:30 on the first morning and I don’t even know if hes a decent buck” I said back.

After some thought and conversation back and forth, I adjusted my Leupold 4-12×40 to max power, set the CDS dial to 400 yards and looked through the scope at the buck. He did look nice, compared to what we had seen the day before. As I was looking at him, I realized this was as steady of a rest I could get without sitting my gun in a bench vice. My crosshairs were solid, very little to no movement. To me, it was now or never. Looking through the scope, I clicked the safety off, let out a “ready”, and pulled the trigger. The animal dropped instantly. I looked at Justin, he looked at me, both sort of in shock. It was like our own hunting show (minus the camera crew) we had a momentary celebration, watching the animal to make sure he didn’t get back up and run away. I ran back to where we had camped to grab my pack while Justin headed down the hill. We hiked over to the downed animal.

I ended up being about 4 inches to the left of the Antelope sweet spot, where the white fur and brown fur meet on the corner of the shoulder. This put the bullet at the base of the neck, killing the buck instantly. We took some pictures with the buck before getting to the quartering of the animal. Justin asked if I had it from here, since their was still almost an entire day left to hunt and quartering an antelope is really a one man job, I told him I had it. He set off down the hill, back to his pack and to continue on the day. When we was about halfway down the hill, we heard shots ring out, 5 in a row. We weren’t sure how many guys were hunting this public land or where any of our guys even set out to hunt. They sounded close though, so I was excited to see if it was any of our guys.

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I had watched plenty of “gutless” method tutorials online prior to heading out west. Being a primarily whitetail hunter, all I have ever done was a field dress gut job, then a drag to the truck or four wheeler before getting it back to a garage or barn to skin and quarter the deer down. So this was a new experience in and of itself, and I was running solo, so no one would know if I made any mistakes. One thing I noticed immediately with the antelope is that they have thick course hair that just falls out everywhere. It was very difficult to keep the meat clean and get it into bags. It was hot that day (high 70s) so I was concerned with getting the meat back to camp and getting it cooled off in the freezer. All in all it took me about 45 minutes to get everything out and packed up. My pack weight about 90 lbs with all my sleeping gear and meat shelf full. I headed down the hill to the cattle pasture to start back to camp. As I got to the pasture I heard a shot, it came from the direction that Justin was headed to when he left me. I had to wait until I got to camp to get cell service to see if it was him.

About a mile from camp I spotted two orange hats leaned over something on the ground. I assumed it was two other hunters, the ones that shot earlier, quartering out their harvest. As I got closer I realized it was Todd and Matt. Matt had shot a 3pt mule deer. They had jumped a bachelor group of bucks. Three of them about 3 miles north of camp, the deer headed south. They trailed them and jumped them another time. The third time they caught up to them they decided they would do a 1,2,3 count so they could both have a chance at shooting something. Todd was the counter. They spotted the deer and they were sitting still, probably curious as to why they were being followed. Todd started the count 1…..2……. he couldn’t get the deer in his scope. Matt was holding on the deer he was going to shoot. Matt knew if they waited any longer their opportunity would be lost. He pulled the trigger hitting his dead on. Todd, trying to play catch up took a few shots at the other larger buck, but it was too late the other two were gone.

I had sat down with them while they finished quartering out Matt’s deer and packing the meat away. We hiked back the cattle pasture and up the steep trail to get to camp. I had a stream of text and picture messages from Justin when we returned. He downed a really nice 3pt mule deer buck shortly after leaving me. He was only 500 yards from where we had camped, he sat down to glass when a bachelor group of 3 bucks ran 50 yards in front of him. He pulled his rifle up and had only a split second to shoot before they were down the other side of the ridge from him and out of sight. He took the shot, hitting the buck at the base of the neck, dropping him instantly. He returned back to the campsite to get his pack, when he got back to his buck a coyote was already there circling the dead animal. He attempted to get it in his scope, but the coyote was too quick and took off.

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Beat from the hike, I put the meat away in the freezer and told Justin I’d be out to help him pack. I laid down on the back of the trailer drop down door to rest for a few minutes. John woke me up, I had been asleep for over an hour. Realizing I left Justin out there on his own to pack his deer back by himself I jumped up grabbed my pack and headed down the ridge, only to spot Justin about a half a mile away carrying two meat bags and no pack. I raced down to him, he was pouring sweat and soaked. He told me he dropped his pack a little ways back and just grabbed to meat bags. We loaded his meat into my pack and went back for the rest of the meat. The first day was a success in our book.

The Great Drive West

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After all of our hard work planning, building, shooting, more planning, and packing the day to leave was upon us. We had decided to leave Wednesday evening before the Saturday opener. It was a 28 hour ride by GPS which meant it would be closer to 30 hours of driving with fuel and food stops. We had six people in total, taking two trucks, and two trailers. Matt was pulling the sleeping trailer (8×16 enclosed) with gear and my truck was pulling the second trailer (7×14) with a deep freezer in it. It was starting to rain a little bit as we pulled off around 7 pm. The plan was to take shifts driving between fuel stops. It couldn’t have worked out better, Matt’s truck got a little better fuel mileage but had a smaller fuel tank than mine, so we were always within a few miles to empty of each other. We averaged about 220-250 mile at every fuel stop. This was much less than anticipated, but we couldn’t necessarily predict the exact fuel mileage of the trucks while towing cross country. We made it to Chicago right at 6 am, then our clocks went back an hour, forgot about timezone changes all together. We decided to stop at a small diner just past Chicago for some breakfast.

After breakfast we looked at the maps and decided since we were good on time, we’d continue on 80 west and catch up with 90 west through Iowa, since no one in the group had been through Iowa before. It looks a lot like Illinois, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Their was lots of corn, combines, grain wagons, and more corn. We linked back up with I90 in Minnesota and had a couple hour drive through Minnesota until we hit South Dakota. We made it through about 3/4 of SD before night fell on us for the second time while driving. Running on the excitement of what was to come we rolled into Wyoming around 10 that second night. We arrived close to the first camping location I had picked out sometime in the early morning hours of Friday. We turned on a dirt road, no lights in sight, pulled over and set up camp about a half a mile from the main road after we checked the GPS to make sure we were on BLM land. It was a beautiful night out so Justin and I decided to throw our sleeping mats on the ground and crawl in our sleeping bags to sleep under the stars.

After setting up my bed for the night, I decided to take my boots and socks off, then throw my boots back on to walk over to my sleeping bag. I was at the back of the tailgate kicked my right boot off and put my bare foot on the ground. I had a sharp stinging sensation hit me immediately. I unknowingly met my first Wyoming cactus, thinking maybe I stepped in some sort of razor grass that just slices your foot up I went to bed with a sore foot. When I awoke the next day I returned to the back of the truck to notice that I had a massive cactus directly under where I was changing my shoes. I pulled the spines from my foot when it was light enough. It was a painful lesson to learn the first night of the trip.

Morning came before we knew it, the sunrise was beyond description. Never having experienced terrain like this it was something i’ll never forget and would seal my love for the west for life. The bighorn mountains were to our west and we had flatter sage land to our east. A mix of terrain and miles of visibility, we were ready and excited to do some scouting and make a plan for the opening day.

When we got up and packed up camp we decided to check out the area. First thing that morning Justin spotted an Antelope buck and 2 doe only about 60 yards from where we set up for the evening, that got everyone out of bed real quick and to their feet. We drove back the dirt road as far as we could until the road ended at a 150 foot drop off to a canyon. The spot was flat, big enough for 2 trailers easily, and had an amazing view. While setting up someone looked out across the public land and saw a 4 point mule deer slowly making his way down a crevice to bed down. We got the Binos out and watched him for a while, he blended in with the scenery so well.

We split up, half the group going up to the local game and fish office and the other half, decided to explore around camp. In the hour it took to get up to the game and fish office, we stopped counting at 300 antelope. They were all over the place, most specifically in the irrigated hay fields. After returning to camp Justin and I decided we’d hike about 2 miles into the public land that evening to get a jump on the first day. We packed up our packs, strapped our guns down and headed out to the highest ridge we could find. The last hour of day light we glassed some antelope in the distance. The next day was on my mind all night and I was ready to finally be able to hunt the west.

Using The Tools Available to Scout

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The biggest disadvantage to living on the east coast and wanting to hunt out west is the sheer distance and time it takes to get out there. This doesn’t allow for easy preseason scouting. Unless you have a private jet at your disposal you’re going to want to find other avenues to scout. I use Eastmans forum or Randy Newberg’s HuntTalk forum. They both have experienced DIY hunters who always have good tips, advice for beginners, and good information on gear. With that being said if you’re planning a hunt to the middle of no where that not many people have traveled, you may not get as much information as you’d like.

Google maps and Google earth is an amazing tool when it comes to scouting. The terrain feature on maps allows you get a pretty good idea of the topography of the land. In some cases google maps and earth, will show trails in the area so you can better plan a travel route.

Federally managed land is by far the best option when it comes to finding public land to hunt. According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) you can camp on any BLM land for 28 days in the same spot before you have to move 5 miles. This gives you plenty of hunting time in one particular area. The national forest service also allows for ‘dispersed camping’ in the same area for up to 16 days before having to move 5 miles. I called the BML before going out for our trip to verify that there were not any special requirements for camping and gave them an idea of where I wanted to camp to make sure it was open to the public. They were more than helpful and let me know that as long as you stuck to dirt roads you could camp alongside anywhere you could find a spot on public land.

The difficult thing about this, that people on the east coast have a hard time figuring out are the private roads out west. If a road travels through someones private property and it is not maintained by the county then a private resident is within their legal right to close the road off as private. The roads can be scarcely posted and their is little information online that tells you which roads are public and which ones are private. I used google maps to look at highways or roads traveling through small towns to figure out at least some of the public roads. The county websites sometimes have map systems that show you which roads they maintain, although some of the county websites could be a little more user friendly when it comes to this. Once you’ve identified the public roads its easy to look at a BLM map and see where the public roads cross BLM, these are the areas that are open for camping.

We were fortunate to identify a few potential camping locations in case we got there and the area was packed with hunters we could always pick up and go with a different location. Luckily we found a spot at the end of a 3 mile dirt road that took us deep into public land and had no other hunters. The section of BLM we were on was 60,000 acres of BLM land and a few extra thousand acres of accessible state ground. This wasn’t all one block of land, it had private land parcels mixed in with it, but it was all accessible if you wanted to walk it. Many of the forum users were adamant that if you got out of the truck and just walked you’d have high odds of success.

Another great resource is the local fish and game department, I called out to the local office in the area we were hunting and asked a ton of questions. The receptionist put me in touch with one of the game wardens who gave me some good information. Things to think about when talking to the biologist is how bad have the winter kills been in the last few years? How successful was the harvest the previous year for the area? What’s the most common game violations they see from out of state hunters? Their are probably lots of questions that come to mind, I’d recommend having a list of a few of the most important ones before calling. The fish and game department probably get quite a few calls throughout the year and they probably increase in volume as hunting season gets closer, so tying them up on the phone lines isn’t always the best use of their time.