Obviously, since I'm posting this in December for a trip that happened in September, this isn't going to end with me holding antlers. But a fun trip and a few pictures nonetheless.
Let's just start off by saying that everything on this trip was just a 'little off.' We had a bearing go out on the trailer, had multiple flats, the 4WD on my truck went out, it was the week of rain that started the Colorado floods... and more importantly the deer weren't where they normally were. At least not the ones I was willing to shoot.
We hunt on national forest ground near Breckenridge. We can drive high clearance vehicles up to about 11,800 feet where we pitch camp. Then we can ride ATVs to certain points on the mountain and then we strike out from there on foot.
My Colorado buddy has a wall tent, so it's a pretty good setup.
We spend the mid-day of the first day getting the tent set up, digging a fire pit, chopping wood... in general just organizing things.
It rained the whole first night but opening day dawned clear.
We headed straight to the mountain where I shot Uno last year and sure enough found deer. But not the right deer. That seemed to be the story for the week. Well, when it wasn't pouring down rain.
We kept working over the country we knew. We were finding deer (and a crap-ton of moose) but no real shooters.
We had another guy and his son join us for a few days so they put some stalks on some younger bucks. It is an interesting thing to watch from afar through the spotter.
We spent the next several days glassing every mountain, every bowl, every slide we could get to. We made a couple of stalks on deer that were 'iffy' but never got the right deer in the right place.
Five days into the hunt we had given up on our normal hunts. The season started later this year and it overlapped more with mountain goat season so there were quite a few hunters including some of the Waddell crew up trying to film hunts. If I ever find it, I'll be interested to see how they make it look like a real hunt. You can literally pee on their head and stab them up there. But it had the deer jumpy as hell.
We moved farther over, and across some steeper country. If you know me, you know it doesn't bother me at all to climb stupid cliffs, but I am not a mechanical guy and I HATE taking vehicles up or down sketchy terrain. After making the trip one time I opted to add 4 miles to the trip and go down one basin and up the next to avoid a spot where I watched a dirt bike guy turn 20 somersaults as he careened down a cliff.
We got on top just in time to get battered by an awful rain, lightning, and hail storm. I was NOT riding back down that crap in the rain so we waited it out. At the end of it we were treated to one hell of a sight. Maybe the most breathtaking rainbow (Oh My! A Double Rainbow!!) I've ever seen.
As we were wandering around like little girls talking about rainbows we looked over into the next valley and *voila* deer everywhere. And BIG ones. At least a couple. And the biggest was standing right at the end of the rainbow. It almost seemed too cliche... and I suppose it was. Nonetheless, we called him the Rainbow buck.
Over the next few days we watched them trying learn their patterns. We got to spend a lot of time watching them during the day and they seemed to have 4 different patterns they liked to follow.
The rest of the time we spent back at camp waiting out rain, throwing axes (damn right throwing axes!)
Suck it Biebs!
And then catching dinner. We have a nice little creek running near the camp and a couple of beaver ponds. The water was lower this year and the fish were super spooky.
Ultimately I had to stand well back from the ponds, and make a cast where only the last 8-10" of the leader and the fly dropped on the water with all the fly line on dry land. When you could do that? Bang. Fish almost every cast.
Then they came back to camp, into some foil, and right onto the fire pit.
And they. Were. Delicious.
Finally with 3 days to go I had my chance and I blew it. I was watching a buddy take his turn stalking the deer when they turned back and headed a different direction. So on a whim I grabbed my bow, and started to sprint up the mountain as fast as I could. Bad news: I hurt my back in April and didn't get to work out much this summer at all, so "as fast as I could" was not very fast. I made it in front of the deer, but not fast enough. A few minutes earlier and they would have been very close to the timber that I was using to shield myself from view. But by the time I got there they were veering away from the trees and towards their bedding area. I scrambled across a couple of openings, threw myself behind a tree, peeked out and saw Rainbow. I leaned, ranged quickly and came back with 69 yards. BAM. I've got that. I've been shooting to 100 for months. I draw, lean out, he's looking at me. I anchor, settle my 65 yard pin just high and trigger the release. He ducks like a stinking whitetail doe and I watch the arrow sail over his back. Disbelief. Flummoxed. Deer scattering everywhere.
No way I should miss by 6". What the hell happened? I re-range and realize that in my haste I ranged the trees behind the deer, not the deer itself. He had to be more like 55 and I just sailed it over him. ...that was it. He's a 190"+ deer and I blew it. Insert semi-suicidal thoughts here.
Over the next few days we made a few more stalks but could never get the big deer back in the right location. At this point for me it was Rainbow or nothing.
On the last day, sure enough, I find Rainbow again. But this time he has taken to the mountaintops. No trees, no willows. Nothing. Bald face mountain slope. But I gave it a shot anyway.
This is the view the rest of the crew had as I was making my final stalk. We all knew it was low odds, but it was the last day, so what did I have to lose?
If you blow the next 2 photos up you can actually see me working that ridge top to get behind and above the deer, then drop down on top of them with virtually no cover whatsoever.
It took so long to climb that mountain, and then skirt the top that by the time I got where I needed to be Rainbow was already up and feeding. He picked me off immediately and slowly but steadily fed away.
I chased him, tried to loop in front of him, come from below, from above... but all to no avail.
The last stalk ended up being an almost 11 mile quest where I topped out over 13,500 on four different occasions. I got within 80 yards of Rainbow, but could never get any close as he kept 3 satellite bucks between us. As tired and frustrated as I was I almost shot one but he was young and it would have been a bad decision. Ultimately I gave up on the chase, but not before I was treated to this sight to close my 2013 season.
Let's just start off by saying that everything on this trip was just a 'little off.' We had a bearing go out on the trailer, had multiple flats, the 4WD on my truck went out, it was the week of rain that started the Colorado floods... and more importantly the deer weren't where they normally were. At least not the ones I was willing to shoot.
We hunt on national forest ground near Breckenridge. We can drive high clearance vehicles up to about 11,800 feet where we pitch camp. Then we can ride ATVs to certain points on the mountain and then we strike out from there on foot.
My Colorado buddy has a wall tent, so it's a pretty good setup.
We spend the mid-day of the first day getting the tent set up, digging a fire pit, chopping wood... in general just organizing things.
It rained the whole first night but opening day dawned clear.
We headed straight to the mountain where I shot Uno last year and sure enough found deer. But not the right deer. That seemed to be the story for the week. Well, when it wasn't pouring down rain.
We kept working over the country we knew. We were finding deer (and a crap-ton of moose) but no real shooters.
We had another guy and his son join us for a few days so they put some stalks on some younger bucks. It is an interesting thing to watch from afar through the spotter.
We spent the next several days glassing every mountain, every bowl, every slide we could get to. We made a couple of stalks on deer that were 'iffy' but never got the right deer in the right place.
Five days into the hunt we had given up on our normal hunts. The season started later this year and it overlapped more with mountain goat season so there were quite a few hunters including some of the Waddell crew up trying to film hunts. If I ever find it, I'll be interested to see how they make it look like a real hunt. You can literally pee on their head and stab them up there. But it had the deer jumpy as hell.
We moved farther over, and across some steeper country. If you know me, you know it doesn't bother me at all to climb stupid cliffs, but I am not a mechanical guy and I HATE taking vehicles up or down sketchy terrain. After making the trip one time I opted to add 4 miles to the trip and go down one basin and up the next to avoid a spot where I watched a dirt bike guy turn 20 somersaults as he careened down a cliff.
We got on top just in time to get battered by an awful rain, lightning, and hail storm. I was NOT riding back down that crap in the rain so we waited it out. At the end of it we were treated to one hell of a sight. Maybe the most breathtaking rainbow (Oh My! A Double Rainbow!!) I've ever seen.
As we were wandering around like little girls talking about rainbows we looked over into the next valley and *voila* deer everywhere. And BIG ones. At least a couple. And the biggest was standing right at the end of the rainbow. It almost seemed too cliche... and I suppose it was. Nonetheless, we called him the Rainbow buck.
Over the next few days we watched them trying learn their patterns. We got to spend a lot of time watching them during the day and they seemed to have 4 different patterns they liked to follow.
The rest of the time we spent back at camp waiting out rain, throwing axes (damn right throwing axes!)
Suck it Biebs!
And then catching dinner. We have a nice little creek running near the camp and a couple of beaver ponds. The water was lower this year and the fish were super spooky.
Ultimately I had to stand well back from the ponds, and make a cast where only the last 8-10" of the leader and the fly dropped on the water with all the fly line on dry land. When you could do that? Bang. Fish almost every cast.
Then they came back to camp, into some foil, and right onto the fire pit.
And they. Were. Delicious.
Finally with 3 days to go I had my chance and I blew it. I was watching a buddy take his turn stalking the deer when they turned back and headed a different direction. So on a whim I grabbed my bow, and started to sprint up the mountain as fast as I could. Bad news: I hurt my back in April and didn't get to work out much this summer at all, so "as fast as I could" was not very fast. I made it in front of the deer, but not fast enough. A few minutes earlier and they would have been very close to the timber that I was using to shield myself from view. But by the time I got there they were veering away from the trees and towards their bedding area. I scrambled across a couple of openings, threw myself behind a tree, peeked out and saw Rainbow. I leaned, ranged quickly and came back with 69 yards. BAM. I've got that. I've been shooting to 100 for months. I draw, lean out, he's looking at me. I anchor, settle my 65 yard pin just high and trigger the release. He ducks like a stinking whitetail doe and I watch the arrow sail over his back. Disbelief. Flummoxed. Deer scattering everywhere.
No way I should miss by 6". What the hell happened? I re-range and realize that in my haste I ranged the trees behind the deer, not the deer itself. He had to be more like 55 and I just sailed it over him. ...that was it. He's a 190"+ deer and I blew it. Insert semi-suicidal thoughts here.
Over the next few days we made a few more stalks but could never get the big deer back in the right location. At this point for me it was Rainbow or nothing.
On the last day, sure enough, I find Rainbow again. But this time he has taken to the mountaintops. No trees, no willows. Nothing. Bald face mountain slope. But I gave it a shot anyway.
This is the view the rest of the crew had as I was making my final stalk. We all knew it was low odds, but it was the last day, so what did I have to lose?
If you blow the next 2 photos up you can actually see me working that ridge top to get behind and above the deer, then drop down on top of them with virtually no cover whatsoever.
It took so long to climb that mountain, and then skirt the top that by the time I got where I needed to be Rainbow was already up and feeding. He picked me off immediately and slowly but steadily fed away.
I chased him, tried to loop in front of him, come from below, from above... but all to no avail.
The last stalk ended up being an almost 11 mile quest where I topped out over 13,500 on four different occasions. I got within 80 yards of Rainbow, but could never get any close as he kept 3 satellite bucks between us. As tired and frustrated as I was I almost shot one but he was young and it would have been a bad decision. Ultimately I gave up on the chase, but not before I was treated to this sight to close my 2013 season.
