Leaseman
08-22-2008, 07:07 AM
Got talked into heading up shooting and to check out our favorite deer hang out for the day by my soon to be 14 year old son! Still recovering from my operation, my son has/had made arrangements for a good buddy of mine to come along with us and has also talked him into a 3 day, opening day trip! (In other words my buddy is going to be our "gopher" for the trip!)
Anyways, up 4:00, make lunches, load up and wait for buddy to arrive from Richmond. On the road 5:30ish and with a quick fuel stop in Hope, we are following in the logging trucks to our private paradise! A quick (actually an hour) stop to check on my sons accurracy with his .308 and away we go to finish the roughly 50km gravel drive!
The weather made it feel like a mid to late October hunt (not Aug 21st!) as the clouds were low, strong easterly wind and the temp didn't rise past 4C unilt mid afternoon... As soon as we left the logging trucks, we saw our first animal, a nice young blackie that just couldn't figure out what we were!
Headed up one of our favorite side roads and started to climb (elevation runs 4500-6000 ft Approx)...Son is getting excited now after seeing the bear and now there is the odd grouse crossing our path. We come accross a nice heathly doe that was more interested in eating that what we were doing, so we sat and watched her for several minutes... Stopping at an older slash, we do some glassing and have a snack. just before we leave, we are rewarded by a rather large, good looking 2 point at a 150 yards! Big body with his rack going just wider than his ears and nice and high!! With Nick seeing this, I don't think he is going to sleep in the next ten days!!
We hit a few more roads with a few more sightings, saving our favorite for last.... And we weren't disappointed!! In a 10+ year old slash that has held some nice bucks in the past has some movement on it...... 1...2...no look over there!!!....3.......4.....:shock:.....bucks!!! One small 2 point and the other three are 2 4 points and the biggest 3x3 I have ever seen!! He was 4 inches plus out side his ears and tall, very tall and heavy! His body size was probably 50-70 pounds heavier than the 4 points....By now my son is beside himself as he has now seen 5 shooters in under 2 hours (yes this is mid day with a heavy wind and a soaker mist with the clouds rolling through every 10-15 minutes!!)....after about 15 minutes of glassing, we spot another couple of butts up higher that we cant tell if does or bucks, so we dont add them to the count...
A five minute journey brings us the the end slash and end of this road. Time to glass and have a later lunch....In this slash we have views ranging from 150-600 yards, the landing is in the middle and there usually is something to see....Again we weren't disappointed as we soon picked out a rather large bodied deer that turned out to be a spiker(??? big body, small horns!!) we watched him feed for 10 minutes before he suddenly left, we thought he heard/smelt us but we were proved wrong!! 1-2 minutes later a rather large sow ambled into the clearing followed by her two cubs who entertained us for several minutes with there playing!
A great day to be out, great weather as there was NO bugs all day (usually get eaten alive this time of year)....
End score...sightings
4 willow grouse
10 blue grouse
4 blackies
8 does, fawns,yearlings
6 bucks
one very dirty truck!!!
Mike, one tired but happy hunter...:tongue:
Anyways, up 4:00, make lunches, load up and wait for buddy to arrive from Richmond. On the road 5:30ish and with a quick fuel stop in Hope, we are following in the logging trucks to our private paradise! A quick (actually an hour) stop to check on my sons accurracy with his .308 and away we go to finish the roughly 50km gravel drive!
The weather made it feel like a mid to late October hunt (not Aug 21st!) as the clouds were low, strong easterly wind and the temp didn't rise past 4C unilt mid afternoon... As soon as we left the logging trucks, we saw our first animal, a nice young blackie that just couldn't figure out what we were!
Headed up one of our favorite side roads and started to climb (elevation runs 4500-6000 ft Approx)...Son is getting excited now after seeing the bear and now there is the odd grouse crossing our path. We come accross a nice heathly doe that was more interested in eating that what we were doing, so we sat and watched her for several minutes... Stopping at an older slash, we do some glassing and have a snack. just before we leave, we are rewarded by a rather large, good looking 2 point at a 150 yards! Big body with his rack going just wider than his ears and nice and high!! With Nick seeing this, I don't think he is going to sleep in the next ten days!!
We hit a few more roads with a few more sightings, saving our favorite for last.... And we weren't disappointed!! In a 10+ year old slash that has held some nice bucks in the past has some movement on it...... 1...2...no look over there!!!....3.......4.....:shock:.....bucks!!! One small 2 point and the other three are 2 4 points and the biggest 3x3 I have ever seen!! He was 4 inches plus out side his ears and tall, very tall and heavy! His body size was probably 50-70 pounds heavier than the 4 points....By now my son is beside himself as he has now seen 5 shooters in under 2 hours (yes this is mid day with a heavy wind and a soaker mist with the clouds rolling through every 10-15 minutes!!)....after about 15 minutes of glassing, we spot another couple of butts up higher that we cant tell if does or bucks, so we dont add them to the count...
A five minute journey brings us the the end slash and end of this road. Time to glass and have a later lunch....In this slash we have views ranging from 150-600 yards, the landing is in the middle and there usually is something to see....Again we weren't disappointed as we soon picked out a rather large bodied deer that turned out to be a spiker(??? big body, small horns!!) we watched him feed for 10 minutes before he suddenly left, we thought he heard/smelt us but we were proved wrong!! 1-2 minutes later a rather large sow ambled into the clearing followed by her two cubs who entertained us for several minutes with there playing!
A great day to be out, great weather as there was NO bugs all day (usually get eaten alive this time of year)....
End score...sightings
4 willow grouse
10 blue grouse
4 blackies
8 does, fawns,yearlings
6 bucks
one very dirty truck!!!
Mike, one tired but happy hunter...:tongue: