Hunting 2010

Fall time has arrived, and when the fall comes everyone knows that hunting season is right around the corner. This year Brett and I both had deer tags. Brett had a muzzle loader tag, and I had a rifle tag. Brett also had bought a spike elk tag, so for the past couple of weeks we have been on a hunting frenzy. Unfortunately Brett didn't get a deer, or a spike. However, he did enjoy hunting with his brothers, and one of his brother's got the "Big One" out at their property, and they were all way excited about that.

Well soon October 23rd came around the corner the opening day of the rifle hunt, which also happened to be Brett's Birthday. We were hoping that it wouldn't rain a whole lot the night before because the roads would be way muddy. We woke up that morning at 5:30 and started our adventure. We left about 6:15 and headed for the mountains. As we started it was way muddy. We were going to try and take our truck up to the top, but it kept getting worse and worse, so when we couldn't go anymore, we parked at a flat area a mile from the top, and climbed in with his brother in a little Toyota. The soil is very loose, and it has a lot of clay in it, so our truck was just digging like crazy because it is too heavy. Well we decided to go the long way around because we figured the short cut would be too hard to get up with it raining. We came along and a Jeep was stuck almost going to go into a hole. Brett and his brother got out and were able to get them turned around, and we almost turned around ourselves, but we figured we might as well give it a shot. The clay was so slick that when Brett was coming back to the truck he was just standing up and he slid down the road. A little further up, we ran into a big Ford that had slid off the road, and we were able to get around it, but we weren't able to stop else we would have lost momentum. After we got up on top the roads are more rocky so we didn't even run into problems. We finally got to where we wanted to be, and there were soo many people up there it was ridiculous!! I didn't even know if I dared shoot if I saw a buck because I didn't know if there were people sitting below me. After a while of sitting there it got quite cold, and we were hearing shots all around us, but we saw no bucks. We headed back to the Toyota and Brett's dad and his brother were making a fire. All 6 of Brett's brother's were there and his dad so it was all of the boys and me. We sat around the fire for a while, and we decided we wanted to go try a different spot so we left. We drove about 2 miles, and stopped and talked to someone we knew, and continued down the road. Everyone else had pulled off a different road, and we thought they were still ahead of us so we kept going. Brett and his brother saw some does, and I spotted the Buck! I was literally almost pushing Brett out of the truck! The deer took off, so Brett and I took off trying to cut them off. In a second the does and fawns came across but the buck never did. We cut back a little ways and Brett spotted him. He was about 80 yards away. I knelt down and shot him. I didn't know if I had hit him or anything, but Brett reassured me that he saw it hit. We started to follow where we had seen the deer, and it took off down into a canyon. We got on the tracks, and eventually saw blood along the trail. I wasn't sure if he was dead or not, but about 100 yards down the steep canyon, we lost the trail, and Brett looked around for a second. It had gone into a group of pine trees and died. I haven't shot a deer in a long time, and I forgot how much your adrenaline gets pumping!

This picture was shortly after we found him

Brett was kind enough to Gut it for me. He later told me if I shoot big ones he'll gut them, but if they're little he won't. Luckily he was just teasing me and said he'd really gut anything! The dark spot on it's body is where I shot it at!

I had my own personal hauling crew!

We were able to bring the rhino down a ways and take it to the truck

All of the boys!




More Antler shots

Brett's best birthday present this year!

We hung the buck in a tree outside of Brett's dad's house. It was way funny to see people (especially hunters) driving by and their reactions! The game warden even stopped by in the evening and said that it was the biggest buck he had seen all day.

I had a fun time being with the family and spending this time with Brett, but I'm also glad that I'm done because it's supposed to snow the rest of the hunt!