So after striking out on a 5 day backpacking hunt the first week of the season I thought I was content with eating my tag. Well turns out I wasn’t I told my wife I had some business to settle and she gave me the green light to head up there for the last weekend. I had to teach my youth group Friday night so me and my 13 year old left Saturday morning at 3am to go try and fill my tag.
Hiked up during the middle of the day and didn’t see much life. Ended up hiking real high for the evening glassing session and glassed up a ton deer in huge basin essentially on the top of the range.
We hiked down to the flats by some water set up a base camp. We woke up brite and early made about a 2 mile hike in the dark to get up to an area to glass and hopefully make a play on a buck. At day brake the basin came to life probably had 50 deer in it but only one buck and he was a dink. I talked to my kid who at this point was frozen and he said let’s go get him. We had perfect wind and about an hour later we were in position.
I had a perfect rest laying prone on a rock. All the deer were out in the open except for the buck. He was behind a bush right next to a bright pink collared doe. I had my scope on the bush for about 30 minutes before he stepped out. I let the Tikka 260 eat at 370 yards he ran down hill the does went up.
We hike over to him and found him about 50 yards from impact. Got him boned out and in the pack. We got back to camp around noon put camp in our packs and finished our miserable yet wonderful pack out to the truck.
All in all this hunt kicked my butt. I had dreams of going deep and finding monster bucks up in high basins. That wasn’t the reality for me and instead of shooting my largest buck I shot my smallest. A hunt is what you make it and it was great getting to backpack hunt with my kid and pack out a buck. It is a memory that will last a lifetime. I did the 16 proud with this guy.
Hiked up during the middle of the day and didn’t see much life. Ended up hiking real high for the evening glassing session and glassed up a ton deer in huge basin essentially on the top of the range.
We hiked down to the flats by some water set up a base camp. We woke up brite and early made about a 2 mile hike in the dark to get up to an area to glass and hopefully make a play on a buck. At day brake the basin came to life probably had 50 deer in it but only one buck and he was a dink. I talked to my kid who at this point was frozen and he said let’s go get him. We had perfect wind and about an hour later we were in position.
I had a perfect rest laying prone on a rock. All the deer were out in the open except for the buck. He was behind a bush right next to a bright pink collared doe. I had my scope on the bush for about 30 minutes before he stepped out. I let the Tikka 260 eat at 370 yards he ran down hill the does went up.
We hike over to him and found him about 50 yards from impact. Got him boned out and in the pack. We got back to camp around noon put camp in our packs and finished our miserable yet wonderful pack out to the truck.
All in all this hunt kicked my butt. I had dreams of going deep and finding monster bucks up in high basins. That wasn’t the reality for me and instead of shooting my largest buck I shot my smallest. A hunt is what you make it and it was great getting to backpack hunt with my kid and pack out a buck. It is a memory that will last a lifetime. I did the 16 proud with this guy.
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