Double down!
Hey guys! Short story first. A few months back there was a thread on California draws and I mentioned that my son and I drew X9A as a group! Steve was kind enough to offer his advice, and believe me, we took him up on it! Thank you Steve for all the advice! I promised to report back so here it goes. We managed to punch both tags! Dealing with a lot of venison right now and loving it!

Now for the long story. It’s been about a decade since I’ve written up a long deer hunting story on the forum and that was way back in the TOF days. That would’ve been the last deer for our family in which Kaden killed a doe on the J 11 junior hunt. Not gonna lie… We are kind of DHWR‘s… Dove Hunters With Rifles. The last deer I killed was in 1978. It was the last hunt I ever had with my dad. He died in a PSA plane crash a couple weeks later. Some of you will remember that. Big plane clipped a Cessna and crashed into the San Diego suburbs.
Anyway, after pulling the tags this year I started seeking out advice from wise people including Steve (Ilovesprig), my friend Tom from church and a couple others. Kaden and I had eight points each going into the draw this year so it took us nine years to get these tags. When you don’t hunt big game very much, a situation like this can feel like a lot of pressure. Nonetheless, we felt up for the task and were super stoked for our adventure. My buddy Mike allowed us to borrow his four-wheel-drive truck in case we needed it. A big, Ford F-350 diesel Redneck edition!
So after months of Google scouting, gear gathering, planning and preparation on Friday morning, September 16 we had the truck loaded up and we’re ready to leave Redlands at 8 AM. We got on the road and made our way up to Red Mountain and pulled off into the desert to get our rifles sighted in.
I was not only borrowing Mike’s truck, but also his Weatherby rifle. (And a bunch of other stuff…backpack, shooting stick, spotting scope etc.) His is a much finer weapon than what I own. Mine did belong to my grandfather and the optics reflect that! I need to make an upgrade. I took the first two shots with Mike’s rifle and they were tight in the black and I was happy. We used our ‘outdated’ lead ammo to get them dialed in and then tested the copper rounds. My friend Tom had suggested that we sight them in at 200 yards. I am used to having my rifle dialed in at 100 so it seemed like a long, dang way out there! Next step was Kaden‘s rifle a Remington 770 That I purchased for him when he was 12. The optics on it are not great and we had a hard time finding the paper! Took us about 2 1/2 hours to get that thing dialed in. It started off shooting a foot and a half to the right hand was off the board. In the end, we got it in the black moved up to 100 yards to make sure we could hit at that range as well. We are no dead eyes, but eventually got to a place of decent confidence. From there, back into the truck and next stop, Bishop. Went into the Mountain Rambler brewery for lunch. We had stopped in there when we went scouting last month and I found that their Dark Star Imperial Stout was one of the best beers I have ever had! I love a really good dark and trust me I have had a few… Super creamy and perfect!

The food… Meh… Kaden gave it a 2 and I gave it a four so we’ll call that a three. Time to head out. Next stop before heading up to camp was Vons to gas up the diesel truck and pick up enough ice to fill the two coffin coolers and any last minute essentials. So, out of the parking lot for the one block drive to Vons and I see a CHP car going in the opposite direction as they pass us, they make an immediate U-turn and the reds and blues go on… Mike’s truck has extremely dark window tinting. Apparently that’s not allowed… So we spent a half an hour sitting in a lumberyard having a citation written up before we could go the extra half a block to Vons. Anyway, We took care of business there and headed off to the camp ground.
We got to the campground and found it just as we expected. Primitive with pit toilets and water. Each site had a picnic table and a fire ring, so that was great. We purposefully selected a site that was relatively far away from as many people as possible so that if we had to spread out a deer on the table we wouldn’t scare anyone. We set up our new Quail Mountain 10 x 14 foot tent, which turned out to be decent, it held up to the wind storm on Sunday afternoon! It seems to be made to fold in on itself without ripping or tearing. (normally $299 at big five but, if you have the daily coupon, $199! I am nothing if I am not frugal!) We then set out to do some scouting in the evening. We headed toward the area we intended to hunt in the morning and stayed in the low lands glassing the hills. We managed to see multiple groups of deer moving about. However, it was all does and fawns and we did not see a single buck. Nonetheless, we were excited to see that there were deer in the area and they were moving! Back to camp for a fire, dinner and a strategy session.
Initially we had planned to drive to a high spot and then hike up higher from there. Based on what we had seen in the lower elevations we decided to hold off on driving in until it was legal shooting time and we could actually see both high and low. A couple of trucks drove past us into the zone, but we were OK with that. Once we could see well enough, we began to slowly drive in. We got about 1/3 of the way to where we wanted to start our hike and noticed a truck stopped out in the flats. They had driven past us while we were awaiting LST. It looked like one guy had a rifle with a shooting stick and the other guy had binoculars… Kapow! Apparently they had located some deer on the flats and took a shot. Suddenly, we saw a bunch of deer bounding around! Kaden noted several of them crossing the road about 300 yards in front of us… So, we carried on. We got to a point near where we thought the deer had crossed the road and hopped out of the truck with our binoculars. I took one look, and the hillside was alive with movement! A herd of probably 10 deer! I saw a legal set of horns on one and that was all I needed! “Kaden, Buck!“ We hopped out of the truck and started uncasing our rifles, trying to load them up, and getting our backpacks on! Meanwhile, the deer are trotting up the hill at a serious pace… Probably 300 yards and pretty much straight up! Then, I look to my right and see the guys out on the flats again and, Kapow! They shoot at the deer again I see it run a bit and then go down. So now, I have deer on my left that I can go and shoot, and a deer on my right that has gone down in the field. I watch the guys looking for their deer in the flats and they stop 50 yards short of where I saw it go down. So, I am doing my best to get their attention. Whistling and gently yelling so as to not spook the deer that my son and I are about to chase. Talk about being conflicted…I am giving hand signals and trying to get these guys to move forward to find their deer. In the end, I don’t know if they found their deer… Stay tuned…
So, after much urging from my son to get my butt in gear and leave those guys to their own deer, we are hoofing it up this steeeep 300 yard hill where the deer we are chasing went! The truth is I had to pause multiple times to catch my breath. When we finally crested the ridge, the deer were skylined on the next ridge over. Kaden had a fine buck in his scope but He knew we couldn’t take a skylined shot and passed up on the opportunity. We froze, and let the deer go over the next Ridge. And once they did we once again jumped into action! I suggested we leave our backpacks on the ridge, so as not to be impeded… We slowly crested the next Ridge and sure enough the deer were on the next hillside over… The rangefinder told me they were 163.5 yards away.
Seemed to be about 10 deer, eight of them being bucks! Kaden nestled into a bush and I found a rest on a boulder. He said I’m going to take one on the lower left. I wanted him to take the first shot! So, I was looking at the ones to the upper right. I found a nice wide fork and settled the crosshairs on its chest. As I was waiting, I thought, “hey, I should take a look at all the other deer as well and see if there is a bigger one in there… “ The next one I laid eyes on through my scope was a really big 3 x 3 still in velvet! A little off to the left was another tasty forky! How did those compare to my original targ Kapow! While I was shopping, Kaden found his target and pulled the trigger! I was caught off guard and now my heart was pumping, my hands were shaking and I couldn’t even see through the scope! I tried to line up on one of the bucks as they were fleeing, but to no avail… I was unable to pull the trigger. The deer ran over the next Ridge… I asked Kaden did you get one? He said, I don’t think so… I told him to go down and search for any signs of blood, etc. and I would go back and get our backpacks. Being unfamiliar with the territory I didn’t want to go over too many more ridges without our gear. When I got back, Kaden hadn’t found any evidence that he had hit the target. So, we went up and over the next Ridge in hopes of seeing this bachelor group of bucks again.
We crested the ridge slowly glassing and looking for any sign of movement hoping to find them one more time. All we found was a hunter on the ridge to the right of us and another hunter to the ridge on the left of us as we moved off to our right gaining elevation, we saw a third Hunter off in front of us and eventually two more hunters to our south east! Seems crazy that this herd of bucks could have gotten through everybody without getting fired upon again. Nonetheless, we spent another six hours hiking up and down the hills trying to find those deer again… Sitting on top of the mountain eating our sandwiches for lunch, I could tell Kaden was super bummed. I told him not to worry about it, and that this was just the start of the hunt. We made our way slowly hunting back to the truck and decided to head back to camp for a nap, lunch and decide on our evening strategy.
We had driven about halfway back to pavement and Kaden was reciting his report for uncle Mikey… “Well, the good news is we saw eight bucks… The bad news is they ran up and over the ridge before we could get a shot… The good news is we found them again… The bad news is they were skylined and we couldn’t shoot… The good news is when we got over the next Ridge we saw them and I was able to get a shot off… The bad news is I missed… The good news is we chased after them over the next Ridge… The bad news is, we never saw them again… Dad, I think I’m out of good news.…“ That was right as we were passing a little cattle watering trough, that we had passed many times before. However, this time as we passed it a deer stuck his head up from the far side, and it had horns! I slammed on the brakes! Kaden almost went through the windshield… Buck! I said… By the time we got our rifles out and ammo loaded they were A couple hundred yards off and heading for the main road. I knew there was a frontage road that I could get to and cut them off. So we unloaded the guns and boogied on down there! Sure enough, we were able to relocate them and they were about 135 yards from us. Now, we could see it was a group of three bucks. A spike, and a one by two… The fork on the one by two was barely a nub so, we did not consider it a legal buck or some thing that we wanted to pursue. Our focus was on the third deer which we could easily see was a 3 x 2 at least! We hopped out of the truck and were able to rest the rifles on the bed to get a good, steady shot! Unfortunately, the knobby little 1 x2 would not get out of the way of the 3 x 2. At first he was in front, and then he was behind, then they walked together… anyway, we waited for what seemed like an eternity to get a good shot on this guy and it just didn’t happen… They started moving away inter- twining their paths and we had to follow them. I grabbed my backpack, thinking this could be a good rest to shoot from. Kaden grabbed the shooting stick. At this point, I am praying, Lord, please don’t let them get away…We were probably 75 yards apart and pursuing the animal from different angles in hopes of getting an open shot. I had a couple of good broadside opportunities. I pulled my gun up freestyle and was way too wiggly! Not a good shot… I tried to get on one knee and the sagebrush was too high, all I could see was the head. The backpack was useless… So I left it. Meanwhile I see Kaden off to my right with his gun rested on his shooting stick KAPOW! I look at the group of three deer and the middle one simply disappears! Down in the dust and doing the funky chicken!
We continue walking to where it lay and found it just in time to hear its last breath… There is something really sacred about that and we did not take it lightly….What a beautiful animal! What a blessing! Kaden has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse in a matter of moments! We are elated!

Upon further inspection, we note that there is a bullet wound to the animals left fore leg. Kaden says “Yah, I think it was walking with a bit of a limp.“ The wound is fresh but there is dirt in it. We can’t help but thinking…is this the deer that the other guys knocked down in the flats this morning? If so, we get a deer, and put this poor fellow out of his misery. No meat lost. It’s a win-win situation! Some times all you can do is the next right thing. It is a good way to live life! Whether it is putting off your own pursuit of a deer to try to help someone else find theirs, passing up on a skylined shot or staying off the trigger if there is a chance that you could hurt a deer that you don’t mean to shoot. Call it Karma or what you will, I am just going to say that God is real and he is good!

I send Kaden back to the truck to put the guns away and get the backpack with the field dressing gear ( I have a knife and game bag in the pack I carried out for a rest) and suggest that maybe a cold beer or two could be placed in his backpack as well. He’s a good boy! He brought four! I asked his permission to start cutting the deer while he did that and he said that would be fine.

By the time he got back, the deer was pretty well gutted. He proceeded to fill out his tags etc. and then we began to drag the deer back to the truck. Mind you now, we are DHWR… We’re 250, 300 yards from the truck and it’s all flat sage. What is the proper way to drag a deer? We were pulling it by the back legs and with its back bone on the ground in order not to get dirt in the gut cavity. We were definitely dragging against the grain as far as the hide goes and the antlers would get hung up in the brush from time to time.

My boy and I were on top of the world! We drove to the nearest town and got the tag validated and then went back to camp and spent the rest of the afternoon taking the deer apart, getting it on ice, listening to excellent music and celebrating! It doesn’t get much better than that!

We fry up at the heart with onions for starters…meh, not a fan.

And grill the tenderloins for the main course!

Yessir! Big fan!
Following the celebration, we decided to hunt the valley where we were camped the next morning. On our scouting trip, the prior month we had seen a nice buck up in there. So, we were able to sleep a little bit longer. We got up, took care of business in the dumper, and hopped in the truck. I turn the key and it would not start… Just a big white clouds of unburned diesel smoke coming out of the tailpipe. It had been freezing that night… I knew I was supposed to turn the key to “on“ and then wait for the “wait to start“ message to go away and then fire it up. Totally forgot it the first time. Tried it the second time, third time, fourth time, no love… sent out a text and call to Mike at 6:30 and, God bless him, he got back to us by 8 AM and got us going! By the way, if you’re driving a diesel and ever run into this here is the key… Turn the key to start without turning over the engine. It will say wait to start. Give it a few seconds until it beeps and the light turns off. Do that same thing three times and then turn it over and you’re golden! Mike said the glow plugs were probably a little weak in warming up the coils so that is the key! The truck is beautiful but does have 325,000 miles on it… by the way, we FaceTimed Mike The day before to tell him our story as we were cleaning the deer and his one and only request was, “please do NOT wash any of that blood or hair out of the back of my truck!“
By the way, this was the teaser photo we sent him before fessing up!

Back to the hunt…
Well, now it is 8 o’clock and sunlight is flooding the valley. So, we get in the truck and drive up the valley. driving… Glassing… Driving… Glassing… Driving… Glassing… No signs of life in this valley. Back to camp for lunch and a nap. The wind comes up and it is gnarly! This is where we learned that our tent folds in on itself with heavy wind! Not great for sleeping but great for keeping your tent in one piece.
We head out for the Sunday evening hunt. We approach the same area that we hunted on opening day from the opposite side. This gives us a little elevation benefit. Being Sunday evening we see no other hunters… The deer are active, as we get out of the truck I see a doe crossing the road behind us where we just driven through. We hike up five minutes and glass a hill, we see four does actively feeding. We continue our hike and ultimately see well over 20 deer… All does and fawns. No shooting opportunities. There is just enough daylight to go back and take a look where we started opening morning we get there and see a decent number of deer moving. Again, all does and fawns. Back to camp for dinner and a strategy session for our last morning. As we enjoyed the campfire, toasts were made to my dad and to my father-in-law who passed away in May. We know they are part of the great cloud of witnesses above us and that they were cheering us on!

(if you are able to zoom in on this photo, check it out! It is sort of a time lapse… You can see the stars in the background and check out the sparks from the fire on the left! )
As we enjoy our dinner, we are strategizing for the next day and realize that we never made it up to the High Point, that Tom recommended that we hike up out of. So, that is our objective for the next day. However, we decide to use the same strategy of waiting until daylight to drive through the Hunt zone. Being Monday morning most of our fellow DHWR’s were gone and we don’t see ant traffic around us. We slowly start into the grounds and spot a couple of does off in the flats. And then a single Doe up on the hillside… When we get to the place where we had seen the initial herd on opening day, there is movement! We hop out of the truck. Grab binoculars. I look up and see at least one deer with a rack and it is game on! There appear to be about eight animals. They are moving towards the ridge at a leisurely pace. We let them go over…By the time I get my gun out and loaded it is too late… I know we are in for another climb! At least we know what lies over the next Ridge and the next Ridge and the next Ridge! and, hopefully there will be no other hunters up there…
Kaden wears the backpack today as he is tagged out. I am carrying my rifle and the shooting stick. we start trudging straight up. Having done this a couple of days before I know it is going to be ugly. Multiple stops to catch our breath… Finally, we get to the top. This is where they were skylined on opening day. Moving ever so slowly we allow our eyes to scan the valley as it unfolds before us… NOTHING… No worries, they probably just went over into the next valley… So we hustle down to the bottom and up to the next Ridge. Again, moving ever so slowly, And taking time to catch our breath, we take in the view of the next Valley step by step …NOTHING!' Up to the next ridge and again, slowly, letting the view before us unfold, there are no signs of life. I tell Kaden, “they either had to go to the left or the right and my gut is telling me they went to the right.
So, we turned to the right and hike about 200 yards and are now Going back over the ridges we had already crossed. We are gaining elevation and sneak back up and over the previous ridge… Nothing… So another 300 yards to the left now, and go up over the ridge nothing. Go another hundred yards to the left and this puts us on the backside of the mountain where the truck is… we slowly crest the ridge, peek over and…… NOTHING! Now our truck is a half a mile off to the right at the bottom of the hill and I’m thinking maybe the deer have double crossed us and nestled down between us in the truck. To my left I know there is a little ravine that I cannot see down into, so I whisper to Kaden “I am going to go and take a peek over here” as I walk to my left, the ravine slowly opens up to my field of vision and I see deer! I hold up a fist to Kaden as if to say stop. I throw my rifle on the shooting stick and take a quick look! There are three or four deer in my field of vision. I see a nice Forkey and that is good enough for me. Lay the crosshairs behind his shoulder, I take in a deep breath, slowly let it out and squeeze the trigger… Kapow! Game over… A couple of quick photos and then we gut it out, tag it and drag it.

The drag is mostly downhill and we pull by the antlers on this one. We take turns, So it was much easier… I am thinking this is the way to do it! Of course, gravity helps! Once we reached the bottom, I still had to walk a half a mile down the road to go get the truck to come back and pick this bad boy up! Seeing as we both had to work on Tuesday we moved quickly to get the deer back to camp, camp broken down and drove in to the next town to get the tag validated. We Filled up with diesel and got some big bags of ice to place in and on my deer and made the drive home to Redlands. Got home about 4 PM. We unloaded the truck and took a much-needed shower and a quick nap. However, neither of us could sleep…both of my son-in-law‘s joined us around 6 PM to help take the deer apart and get it on ice.

We are grateful to God for his blessings, timing and goodness! Just an incredible privilege to live out this dream adventure with my son. We just finished the butchering process yesterday afternoon and have a freezer full of fine venison. I will get the jerky going tomorrow and the heads are at the taxidermist! Thanks to the SCH family for all the great posts over the years! I truly have learned a lot from you all. God is good! Thanks for coming along on this journey, God bless, Mark

Hey guys! Short story first. A few months back there was a thread on California draws and I mentioned that my son and I drew X9A as a group! Steve was kind enough to offer his advice, and believe me, we took him up on it! Thank you Steve for all the advice! I promised to report back so here it goes. We managed to punch both tags! Dealing with a lot of venison right now and loving it!

Now for the long story. It’s been about a decade since I’ve written up a long deer hunting story on the forum and that was way back in the TOF days. That would’ve been the last deer for our family in which Kaden killed a doe on the J 11 junior hunt. Not gonna lie… We are kind of DHWR‘s… Dove Hunters With Rifles. The last deer I killed was in 1978. It was the last hunt I ever had with my dad. He died in a PSA plane crash a couple weeks later. Some of you will remember that. Big plane clipped a Cessna and crashed into the San Diego suburbs.

Anyway, after pulling the tags this year I started seeking out advice from wise people including Steve (Ilovesprig), my friend Tom from church and a couple others. Kaden and I had eight points each going into the draw this year so it took us nine years to get these tags. When you don’t hunt big game very much, a situation like this can feel like a lot of pressure. Nonetheless, we felt up for the task and were super stoked for our adventure. My buddy Mike allowed us to borrow his four-wheel-drive truck in case we needed it. A big, Ford F-350 diesel Redneck edition!
So after months of Google scouting, gear gathering, planning and preparation on Friday morning, September 16 we had the truck loaded up and we’re ready to leave Redlands at 8 AM. We got on the road and made our way up to Red Mountain and pulled off into the desert to get our rifles sighted in.

I was not only borrowing Mike’s truck, but also his Weatherby rifle. (And a bunch of other stuff…backpack, shooting stick, spotting scope etc.) His is a much finer weapon than what I own. Mine did belong to my grandfather and the optics reflect that! I need to make an upgrade. I took the first two shots with Mike’s rifle and they were tight in the black and I was happy. We used our ‘outdated’ lead ammo to get them dialed in and then tested the copper rounds. My friend Tom had suggested that we sight them in at 200 yards. I am used to having my rifle dialed in at 100 so it seemed like a long, dang way out there! Next step was Kaden‘s rifle a Remington 770 That I purchased for him when he was 12. The optics on it are not great and we had a hard time finding the paper! Took us about 2 1/2 hours to get that thing dialed in. It started off shooting a foot and a half to the right hand was off the board. In the end, we got it in the black moved up to 100 yards to make sure we could hit at that range as well. We are no dead eyes, but eventually got to a place of decent confidence. From there, back into the truck and next stop, Bishop. Went into the Mountain Rambler brewery for lunch. We had stopped in there when we went scouting last month and I found that their Dark Star Imperial Stout was one of the best beers I have ever had! I love a really good dark and trust me I have had a few… Super creamy and perfect!

The food… Meh… Kaden gave it a 2 and I gave it a four so we’ll call that a three. Time to head out. Next stop before heading up to camp was Vons to gas up the diesel truck and pick up enough ice to fill the two coffin coolers and any last minute essentials. So, out of the parking lot for the one block drive to Vons and I see a CHP car going in the opposite direction as they pass us, they make an immediate U-turn and the reds and blues go on… Mike’s truck has extremely dark window tinting. Apparently that’s not allowed… So we spent a half an hour sitting in a lumberyard having a citation written up before we could go the extra half a block to Vons. Anyway, We took care of business there and headed off to the camp ground.
We got to the campground and found it just as we expected. Primitive with pit toilets and water. Each site had a picnic table and a fire ring, so that was great. We purposefully selected a site that was relatively far away from as many people as possible so that if we had to spread out a deer on the table we wouldn’t scare anyone. We set up our new Quail Mountain 10 x 14 foot tent, which turned out to be decent, it held up to the wind storm on Sunday afternoon! It seems to be made to fold in on itself without ripping or tearing. (normally $299 at big five but, if you have the daily coupon, $199! I am nothing if I am not frugal!) We then set out to do some scouting in the evening. We headed toward the area we intended to hunt in the morning and stayed in the low lands glassing the hills. We managed to see multiple groups of deer moving about. However, it was all does and fawns and we did not see a single buck. Nonetheless, we were excited to see that there were deer in the area and they were moving! Back to camp for a fire, dinner and a strategy session.
Initially we had planned to drive to a high spot and then hike up higher from there. Based on what we had seen in the lower elevations we decided to hold off on driving in until it was legal shooting time and we could actually see both high and low. A couple of trucks drove past us into the zone, but we were OK with that. Once we could see well enough, we began to slowly drive in. We got about 1/3 of the way to where we wanted to start our hike and noticed a truck stopped out in the flats. They had driven past us while we were awaiting LST. It looked like one guy had a rifle with a shooting stick and the other guy had binoculars… Kapow! Apparently they had located some deer on the flats and took a shot. Suddenly, we saw a bunch of deer bounding around! Kaden noted several of them crossing the road about 300 yards in front of us… So, we carried on. We got to a point near where we thought the deer had crossed the road and hopped out of the truck with our binoculars. I took one look, and the hillside was alive with movement! A herd of probably 10 deer! I saw a legal set of horns on one and that was all I needed! “Kaden, Buck!“ We hopped out of the truck and started uncasing our rifles, trying to load them up, and getting our backpacks on! Meanwhile, the deer are trotting up the hill at a serious pace… Probably 300 yards and pretty much straight up! Then, I look to my right and see the guys out on the flats again and, Kapow! They shoot at the deer again I see it run a bit and then go down. So now, I have deer on my left that I can go and shoot, and a deer on my right that has gone down in the field. I watch the guys looking for their deer in the flats and they stop 50 yards short of where I saw it go down. So, I am doing my best to get their attention. Whistling and gently yelling so as to not spook the deer that my son and I are about to chase. Talk about being conflicted…I am giving hand signals and trying to get these guys to move forward to find their deer. In the end, I don’t know if they found their deer… Stay tuned…
So, after much urging from my son to get my butt in gear and leave those guys to their own deer, we are hoofing it up this steeeep 300 yard hill where the deer we are chasing went! The truth is I had to pause multiple times to catch my breath. When we finally crested the ridge, the deer were skylined on the next ridge over. Kaden had a fine buck in his scope but He knew we couldn’t take a skylined shot and passed up on the opportunity. We froze, and let the deer go over the next Ridge. And once they did we once again jumped into action! I suggested we leave our backpacks on the ridge, so as not to be impeded… We slowly crested the next Ridge and sure enough the deer were on the next hillside over… The rangefinder told me they were 163.5 yards away.
Seemed to be about 10 deer, eight of them being bucks! Kaden nestled into a bush and I found a rest on a boulder. He said I’m going to take one on the lower left. I wanted him to take the first shot! So, I was looking at the ones to the upper right. I found a nice wide fork and settled the crosshairs on its chest. As I was waiting, I thought, “hey, I should take a look at all the other deer as well and see if there is a bigger one in there… “ The next one I laid eyes on through my scope was a really big 3 x 3 still in velvet! A little off to the left was another tasty forky! How did those compare to my original targ Kapow! While I was shopping, Kaden found his target and pulled the trigger! I was caught off guard and now my heart was pumping, my hands were shaking and I couldn’t even see through the scope! I tried to line up on one of the bucks as they were fleeing, but to no avail… I was unable to pull the trigger. The deer ran over the next Ridge… I asked Kaden did you get one? He said, I don’t think so… I told him to go down and search for any signs of blood, etc. and I would go back and get our backpacks. Being unfamiliar with the territory I didn’t want to go over too many more ridges without our gear. When I got back, Kaden hadn’t found any evidence that he had hit the target. So, we went up and over the next Ridge in hopes of seeing this bachelor group of bucks again.
We crested the ridge slowly glassing and looking for any sign of movement hoping to find them one more time. All we found was a hunter on the ridge to the right of us and another hunter to the ridge on the left of us as we moved off to our right gaining elevation, we saw a third Hunter off in front of us and eventually two more hunters to our south east! Seems crazy that this herd of bucks could have gotten through everybody without getting fired upon again. Nonetheless, we spent another six hours hiking up and down the hills trying to find those deer again… Sitting on top of the mountain eating our sandwiches for lunch, I could tell Kaden was super bummed. I told him not to worry about it, and that this was just the start of the hunt. We made our way slowly hunting back to the truck and decided to head back to camp for a nap, lunch and decide on our evening strategy.
We had driven about halfway back to pavement and Kaden was reciting his report for uncle Mikey… “Well, the good news is we saw eight bucks… The bad news is they ran up and over the ridge before we could get a shot… The good news is we found them again… The bad news is they were skylined and we couldn’t shoot… The good news is when we got over the next Ridge we saw them and I was able to get a shot off… The bad news is I missed… The good news is we chased after them over the next Ridge… The bad news is, we never saw them again… Dad, I think I’m out of good news.…“ That was right as we were passing a little cattle watering trough, that we had passed many times before. However, this time as we passed it a deer stuck his head up from the far side, and it had horns! I slammed on the brakes! Kaden almost went through the windshield… Buck! I said… By the time we got our rifles out and ammo loaded they were A couple hundred yards off and heading for the main road. I knew there was a frontage road that I could get to and cut them off. So we unloaded the guns and boogied on down there! Sure enough, we were able to relocate them and they were about 135 yards from us. Now, we could see it was a group of three bucks. A spike, and a one by two… The fork on the one by two was barely a nub so, we did not consider it a legal buck or some thing that we wanted to pursue. Our focus was on the third deer which we could easily see was a 3 x 2 at least! We hopped out of the truck and were able to rest the rifles on the bed to get a good, steady shot! Unfortunately, the knobby little 1 x2 would not get out of the way of the 3 x 2. At first he was in front, and then he was behind, then they walked together… anyway, we waited for what seemed like an eternity to get a good shot on this guy and it just didn’t happen… They started moving away inter- twining their paths and we had to follow them. I grabbed my backpack, thinking this could be a good rest to shoot from. Kaden grabbed the shooting stick. At this point, I am praying, Lord, please don’t let them get away…We were probably 75 yards apart and pursuing the animal from different angles in hopes of getting an open shot. I had a couple of good broadside opportunities. I pulled my gun up freestyle and was way too wiggly! Not a good shot… I tried to get on one knee and the sagebrush was too high, all I could see was the head. The backpack was useless… So I left it. Meanwhile I see Kaden off to my right with his gun rested on his shooting stick KAPOW! I look at the group of three deer and the middle one simply disappears! Down in the dust and doing the funky chicken!
We continue walking to where it lay and found it just in time to hear its last breath… There is something really sacred about that and we did not take it lightly….What a beautiful animal! What a blessing! Kaden has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse in a matter of moments! We are elated!

Upon further inspection, we note that there is a bullet wound to the animals left fore leg. Kaden says “Yah, I think it was walking with a bit of a limp.“ The wound is fresh but there is dirt in it. We can’t help but thinking…is this the deer that the other guys knocked down in the flats this morning? If so, we get a deer, and put this poor fellow out of his misery. No meat lost. It’s a win-win situation! Some times all you can do is the next right thing. It is a good way to live life! Whether it is putting off your own pursuit of a deer to try to help someone else find theirs, passing up on a skylined shot or staying off the trigger if there is a chance that you could hurt a deer that you don’t mean to shoot. Call it Karma or what you will, I am just going to say that God is real and he is good!

I send Kaden back to the truck to put the guns away and get the backpack with the field dressing gear ( I have a knife and game bag in the pack I carried out for a rest) and suggest that maybe a cold beer or two could be placed in his backpack as well. He’s a good boy! He brought four! I asked his permission to start cutting the deer while he did that and he said that would be fine.

By the time he got back, the deer was pretty well gutted. He proceeded to fill out his tags etc. and then we began to drag the deer back to the truck. Mind you now, we are DHWR… We’re 250, 300 yards from the truck and it’s all flat sage. What is the proper way to drag a deer? We were pulling it by the back legs and with its back bone on the ground in order not to get dirt in the gut cavity. We were definitely dragging against the grain as far as the hide goes and the antlers would get hung up in the brush from time to time.

My boy and I were on top of the world! We drove to the nearest town and got the tag validated and then went back to camp and spent the rest of the afternoon taking the deer apart, getting it on ice, listening to excellent music and celebrating! It doesn’t get much better than that!

We fry up at the heart with onions for starters…meh, not a fan.

And grill the tenderloins for the main course!


Yessir! Big fan!
Following the celebration, we decided to hunt the valley where we were camped the next morning. On our scouting trip, the prior month we had seen a nice buck up in there. So, we were able to sleep a little bit longer. We got up, took care of business in the dumper, and hopped in the truck. I turn the key and it would not start… Just a big white clouds of unburned diesel smoke coming out of the tailpipe. It had been freezing that night… I knew I was supposed to turn the key to “on“ and then wait for the “wait to start“ message to go away and then fire it up. Totally forgot it the first time. Tried it the second time, third time, fourth time, no love… sent out a text and call to Mike at 6:30 and, God bless him, he got back to us by 8 AM and got us going! By the way, if you’re driving a diesel and ever run into this here is the key… Turn the key to start without turning over the engine. It will say wait to start. Give it a few seconds until it beeps and the light turns off. Do that same thing three times and then turn it over and you’re golden! Mike said the glow plugs were probably a little weak in warming up the coils so that is the key! The truck is beautiful but does have 325,000 miles on it… by the way, we FaceTimed Mike The day before to tell him our story as we were cleaning the deer and his one and only request was, “please do NOT wash any of that blood or hair out of the back of my truck!“
By the way, this was the teaser photo we sent him before fessing up!

Back to the hunt…
Well, now it is 8 o’clock and sunlight is flooding the valley. So, we get in the truck and drive up the valley. driving… Glassing… Driving… Glassing… Driving… Glassing… No signs of life in this valley. Back to camp for lunch and a nap. The wind comes up and it is gnarly! This is where we learned that our tent folds in on itself with heavy wind! Not great for sleeping but great for keeping your tent in one piece.
We head out for the Sunday evening hunt. We approach the same area that we hunted on opening day from the opposite side. This gives us a little elevation benefit. Being Sunday evening we see no other hunters… The deer are active, as we get out of the truck I see a doe crossing the road behind us where we just driven through. We hike up five minutes and glass a hill, we see four does actively feeding. We continue our hike and ultimately see well over 20 deer… All does and fawns. No shooting opportunities. There is just enough daylight to go back and take a look where we started opening morning we get there and see a decent number of deer moving. Again, all does and fawns. Back to camp for dinner and a strategy session for our last morning. As we enjoyed the campfire, toasts were made to my dad and to my father-in-law who passed away in May. We know they are part of the great cloud of witnesses above us and that they were cheering us on!

(if you are able to zoom in on this photo, check it out! It is sort of a time lapse… You can see the stars in the background and check out the sparks from the fire on the left! )
As we enjoy our dinner, we are strategizing for the next day and realize that we never made it up to the High Point, that Tom recommended that we hike up out of. So, that is our objective for the next day. However, we decide to use the same strategy of waiting until daylight to drive through the Hunt zone. Being Monday morning most of our fellow DHWR’s were gone and we don’t see ant traffic around us. We slowly start into the grounds and spot a couple of does off in the flats. And then a single Doe up on the hillside… When we get to the place where we had seen the initial herd on opening day, there is movement! We hop out of the truck. Grab binoculars. I look up and see at least one deer with a rack and it is game on! There appear to be about eight animals. They are moving towards the ridge at a leisurely pace. We let them go over…By the time I get my gun out and loaded it is too late… I know we are in for another climb! At least we know what lies over the next Ridge and the next Ridge and the next Ridge! and, hopefully there will be no other hunters up there…
Kaden wears the backpack today as he is tagged out. I am carrying my rifle and the shooting stick. we start trudging straight up. Having done this a couple of days before I know it is going to be ugly. Multiple stops to catch our breath… Finally, we get to the top. This is where they were skylined on opening day. Moving ever so slowly we allow our eyes to scan the valley as it unfolds before us… NOTHING… No worries, they probably just went over into the next valley… So we hustle down to the bottom and up to the next Ridge. Again, moving ever so slowly, And taking time to catch our breath, we take in the view of the next Valley step by step …NOTHING!' Up to the next ridge and again, slowly, letting the view before us unfold, there are no signs of life. I tell Kaden, “they either had to go to the left or the right and my gut is telling me they went to the right.
So, we turned to the right and hike about 200 yards and are now Going back over the ridges we had already crossed. We are gaining elevation and sneak back up and over the previous ridge… Nothing… So another 300 yards to the left now, and go up over the ridge nothing. Go another hundred yards to the left and this puts us on the backside of the mountain where the truck is… we slowly crest the ridge, peek over and…… NOTHING! Now our truck is a half a mile off to the right at the bottom of the hill and I’m thinking maybe the deer have double crossed us and nestled down between us in the truck. To my left I know there is a little ravine that I cannot see down into, so I whisper to Kaden “I am going to go and take a peek over here” as I walk to my left, the ravine slowly opens up to my field of vision and I see deer! I hold up a fist to Kaden as if to say stop. I throw my rifle on the shooting stick and take a quick look! There are three or four deer in my field of vision. I see a nice Forkey and that is good enough for me. Lay the crosshairs behind his shoulder, I take in a deep breath, slowly let it out and squeeze the trigger… Kapow! Game over… A couple of quick photos and then we gut it out, tag it and drag it.

The drag is mostly downhill and we pull by the antlers on this one. We take turns, So it was much easier… I am thinking this is the way to do it! Of course, gravity helps! Once we reached the bottom, I still had to walk a half a mile down the road to go get the truck to come back and pick this bad boy up! Seeing as we both had to work on Tuesday we moved quickly to get the deer back to camp, camp broken down and drove in to the next town to get the tag validated. We Filled up with diesel and got some big bags of ice to place in and on my deer and made the drive home to Redlands. Got home about 4 PM. We unloaded the truck and took a much-needed shower and a quick nap. However, neither of us could sleep…both of my son-in-law‘s joined us around 6 PM to help take the deer apart and get it on ice.



We are grateful to God for his blessings, timing and goodness! Just an incredible privilege to live out this dream adventure with my son. We just finished the butchering process yesterday afternoon and have a freezer full of fine venison. I will get the jerky going tomorrow and the heads are at the taxidermist! Thanks to the SCH family for all the great posts over the years! I truly have learned a lot from you all. God is good! Thanks for coming along on this journey, God bless, Mark

