2019 Season Stories, A Year of Firsts

[Rangerpants]

I have learned a lot from a bunch of different Rokslide members, and I have really enjoyed reading people's hunting stories, so I wanted to share some stories from my 2019 season. All told, I hunted Northern California blacktail deer, cow and bull elk in Utah, and Arizona Coues deer, all on public land, mostly solo. These were my first elk and Coues deer hunts.

My year started in July scouting for the rifle blacktail season in Northern California. I'd hunted a lot of different public land areas over the years with only intermittent success. I think a lot of the reason for that was that I had hunted in a scattershot kind of way without putting in sufficient time to scout and really get to know any particular area well. I wanted to change that in 2019. I decided to focus on a wilderness area by the coast. I went out a few times from late July into August, putting out cameras, glassing promising areas, and hiking around looking for deer sign. I found a few decent bucks, bumped into some bears, and identified a couple areas to focus on for the rifle season starting in late August.


Not bad scenery to scout in!

A decent buck I never found during the season

Toward the beginning of August, I traveled to an area near Salt lake in Utah to spend some time with my wife's family and sneak in a few days of hunting elk on an early season cow tag and scouting for the general bull season in October. I had a fun trip, but didn't see much in the way of elk. I covered a TON of ground over two days and only located one active wallow and a few piles of reasonably fresh scat.


Utah has some nice scenery too!

I did find a batch of rattlesnakes, a whole lot more grouse than I expected, and several moose in the high country, including some nice bulls. I have some ideas for future upland hunts when I am in the area, and if I ever draw a moose tag (dreaming, I know...), I have some places to start looking. For anyone that does draw one in the Ogden unit, feel free to PM me. I am happy to give specific locations for where I found some good bulls.


Nearly stepped on this guy

There are something like six grouse hidden in the sage. At least a couple are visible if you look close

Decent bull moose off in the distance

That trip taught me a lot about where not to look for elk! It also gave me a real appreciation for just how difficult a pack out of a big animal was likely to be far from roads through thick brush. If I had somehow lucked into a cow in the area I found the wallow, I would have had to figure out a way to pack out about 6 miles, about three quarters of a mile of which was through nasty brush, solo.

 

[Rangerpants]

Back in California for deer season! I didn't have any vacation time set aside for in-state hunting, so I was stuck doing day and weekend trips. I went out the Sunday of opening weekend with my brother. We started hiking in the dark and reached a knob overlooking some coastal ridges right around daylight.



We glassed up a bunch of does and a few other deer that we though might have been bucks way out in the distance. We made the mistake of only bringing binoculars with us and leaving the spotter back in the truck. That ended up making us cover a lot of ground in order to get closer looks at does and spikes, but at least we got to look at a lot of those! We ended up leaving empty handed, but I learned my lesson about bringing along the spotting scope, we had a great time taking in the scenery and seeing animals, and any time I get to spend with my brother in the woods is time well spent.

A week or so later, my wife and I spent the weekend in a nearby area. I did a lot of glassing, saw a lot of does and some spike bucks, and made one loooong distance stalk on a decent buck a couple canyons over, but again came away with nothing but photos.



In mid September, I went out again, this time to an area I had located some decent sign in, but had not actually seen a buck. I hiked in well before first light, and arrived at a big ridgetop prairie just before first light. Just as legal shooting light started and I could start to see enough to glass, I found a legal buck feeding at the edge of the prairie. I worked my way along a big hedge of poison oak that bordered the prairie before I was forced to either stop or move straight toward the buck in the open. I ranged the buck at 222 yards. It wasn't the longest shot I had taken, but was a pretty close second. The buck was quartering hard toward me, but was relaxed and staying put. I got set up on my frame pack, settled in for the shot, and squeezed the trigger. I looked over the scope as I worked the bolt and watched the buck drop where it stood.

I knew I had hit the buck in or near the spine, since I had been aiming at it's neck. I know from experience that once in a great while, bucks get up and run after falling over neck shots, so I gathered up my gear and hurried down toward the buck to make sure it was good and dead. As I crested a little rise about 50 yards from the first buck, I saw a second buck, bigger buck feeding out in the open in a little depression about 40 yards away like nothing had happened. I had a second tag in my pocket, but it still took me a second to register what I was seeing and another to decide if packing out two deer was worth it, but I decided to shoot the second buck as well.

I shouldered my rifle and fired a shot. The buck just stood there and looked up at me. I had no idea if buck fever had grabbed hold of me and I had missed or what, so I worked the bolt and fired another shot. I saw the buck buckle at the second shot and start running towards a stand of fir trees on a seriously steep downhill slope. I fired another insurance shot at the running deer just as it was dropping out of sight, trying to stop it from barreling down the steep embankment. I was pretty sure I had missed the last shot at the running buck and wasn't sure exactly what had happened with the first two shots. So I ran over to where I had last seen the buck.

I was relieved to see the buck lying in the grass just short of the trees. When I walked over to it, I saw I had hit it twice, probably with the first two shots. Once I confirmed that the second buck was down, I went back to where the first buck had dropped to be sure it was still there. It turns out I didn't have to worry, because the buck was stone dead. I had just shot my first buck double, and it wasn't even 7AM!


Deer #1

Deer #2

It took me a couple hours to break down both bucks. The pack out was a bit more than two miles, mostly uphill, and it took me about six and half hours to get everything packed out. The area is known for a large bear population, so I shuttled game bags with multiple quarters in each in 300-400 yard increments instead of taking loads all the way back to the truck. It was my first time packing out a large load solo and the shuttle system worked better than I expected. Having lots of breaks going back empty for the next load really helped with preventing exhaustion.

 

[Rangerpants]

At the beginning of October I went back to Utah with a general any-bull tag to fill solo. I started the season in a unit near Salt Lake. I spent a couple days trying to get away from the road hunters and work out where the elk were, but got pretty frustrated with bumping into other hunters, hikers, and OHVs. I also had a hard time figuring out how and where best to hunt because the roads were all on ridge tops with canyons and ridges dropping down from them. Since any canyon could be easily glassed into from near the road, I had a hard time figuring out how to get away from the crowds and into places elk felt safe. I ended up deciding to head for my back-up unit in Southern Utah instead of fighting the crowds.

I was glad I went to my back-up unit as soon as I had arrived. There were a few other hunters around, but the numbers were much more reasonable, and there were very few other people out and about recreating. I got camp set up and started hitting areas I had identified in my e-scouting each day. It took me about four days until I saw my first elk. I was spending most of my time up to that point going high and trying to glass down into likely bowls, canyons, and aspen groves. After four days of nothing, I tried going a lot lower into pinion/juniper/sagebrush scrub and immediately began seeing tracks and scat on a regular basis. The next day I saw a group of three spike bulls wayyyy off in the distance in the last few minutes of daylight. I won't bore you with every elk sighting I had, but I saw quite a few at various times and had a close encounter with a single spike bull that I screwed up.


High country, devoid of elk it turned out

Looking the other way, down toward the pinion/juniper scrub

Finally, on the 12th day of the 13 day season, I saw what I believe was the same group of three spike bulls I saw several days before, across a small canyon on the opposite ridge. I tried to cover the distance to be able to shoot across the canyon as the elk fed down the ridge. Just as I reached the point where I felt comfortable shooting (about 300 yards), the elk fed down the backside of the ridge and out of view. I hustled down the canyon and up to the opposite ridge. When I reached the point I had last seen the elk, I couldn't tell which way they had gone. I crossed to the next hillside, which was only about 50-100 yards and looked back across to the ridge the elk had been on. I saw two spike bulls partially hidden in the pinions, looking at me from about 75 yards away.

I dropped my backpack on the ground and sat down to shoot from it. I picked the larger bull and shot it right behind the shoulder. It humped up and moved behind a pinion pine with just its hindquarters exposed, but stayed on its feet. I had heard enough times that if an elk is on its feet, to keep shooting it until it's down, so I fired another shot into its hip, trying to break the pelvis. The elk wheeled around, exposing its front shoulder again, so I fired another shot into its front shoulder. At that shot, the elk fell to the ground and slid down the hill, coming to rest against some sagebrush. I crossed the small canyon back to where the bull had fallen. It turned out to be a spike with a small branch on one side. Even though it was a small bull, I was pumped to get my first elk!



I broke it down over the next couple hours and packed it back to the truck using the same shuttling method I had used with my deer earlier in the season. This time, the distance to my truck was only a mile and some change, with more downhill sections than up, but I even with those better conditions, I can confidently saw that packing one elk is a lot more work than two deer!

 

[Rangerpants]

The last big game hunt I did in 2019 was for Coues deer in Southern Arizona in late November. My travel days before the beginning of the season happened to coincide with a major nationwide storm. On the trip to the deer unit I stayed just in front of the storm, but it caught up with me just as I reached the National Forest I planned to hunt. I set up my tent just before gale force winds and torrential rain set in. I had packed a cheap throwaway tent because I was concerned about theft issues from illegal border crossers or drug mules, which turned out to be a big mistake. Halfway through the night, my tent was bending almost all the way over in the wind and water was getting in everywhere. I ended up moving everything out of the tent into the truck and spending the night curled up on the driver seat.

The next day was the day before the season so I spent it out and about scouting for opening day. I started by hiking in the dark up to a ridge I had found in e-scouting that looked promising. The storm was still in full force and the fog came in thick waves, so I wasn't able to see much. I saw a few does and fawns and just as I was about to pack up, a string of 7 men in drab clothing carrying burlap sacks came hiking out of a deep canyon. They all hiked in a line out of the canyon and northward. I tried calling Border Patrol right there, but didn't have enough cell service to connect the call.

I hiked down and spent the rest of the day scouting and glassing does from my car below the fog level. I bumped into a Border Patrol agent and told him about the guys I had seen. In my travels, I happened on a few mallards sitting on stock ponds and managed to jump shoot a couple of them, as well as a few doves. I also got a great look at a covey of Mearns Quail, but the season for Mearns wasn't open for a few more days. To top off my day, I went back to camp before dark to start cooking dinner, and a coyote came sniffing around my campsite. I was able to plug the coyote with my shotgun before he spooked.


Visibility was not ideal...

I ate better than expected this trip!

Mearns Quail

The tip of its tail was missing...Wonder where it went?

The next day, it was absolutely dumping and the wind was blowing like crazy when I woke up. I couldn't build up the motivation to go hiking in the dark, so I stayed in the truck until just before first light. I drove to a sparsely treed area of rolling hills that had looked promising and started hiking up the first hill to look over the area and about six Coues deer took off from a clump of trees only a few hundred yards from the road. There were at least two bucks with the group, and the larger of the two stopped alongside a doe about 100 yards away. I pinched my rifle against a tree trunk and hesitated a few moments because the wind was blowing so hard. I adjusted for the wind deflection and fired a shot at the buck's shoulder. When I recovered from the recoil, the buck was nowhere to be seen. I walked over to where the buck had been standing and found it lying on the ground. The bullet had deflected in the wind even further than I had expected and hit the deer at the base of the neck instead of the shoulder, but the deer was just as dead!



It turns out Coues deer aren't very big, and I was able to easily drag the little deer back to the truck. I quartered the buck out and packed up camp to head back home. As I was trying to leave the National Forest, I found a flash flood going over a spillway blocking the road out. I had to wait a couple hours for the water to recede as the rain abated. I wasn't thrilled with having to wait a couple extra hours, but it was an interesting experience!



All told, I had a great year. It was my best ever in terms of variety, meat poundage, and most importantly, experiences. None of the animals I harvested were jaw dropping, but all of them are trophies to me. I learned a lot from all the experiences and I hope to take that knowledge into future years and share it with others.

Best of luck to everyone in 2020!

 

[rooster440]

Solid write up!


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[Captnky]

Awesome story!

 

[twdjr]

Well done, Congrats!