7 replies to this topic

[troutbum24]

Well, did not ever connect with the 4X5 I saw on opener of archery this year. So I headed back into the alps this past weekend with my buddy Aaron to shoot anything with horns since I need some meat to survive the winter. He had already filled both tags during archery season (with compound) so he brought his long bow to try and arrow a bear. We headed in on Friday evening, about 3 miles in just before dark we hear some crashing around up in the timber above and I immediatly think bear. We do a real quick scan and my buddy confirms its a bear about 80 yards out. So I grab my buddies pack off his back and he sneaks off with bow to try and arrow the beast. Between the crunchy twig covered forest floor and the bears fast walking pace he never gets close enough to fling a stick at it so we continue on to camp. Sat morn we wake up before light and start heading up the mountain to be welcomed by windy, cold foggy conditions. We never made it as high as we wanted to go as the fog was just to thick up high so we stayed midslope. We spotted several does in the thick scrub oak patches. By about 8:00 we decided to make a fire and just sit there for a few to warm our hands and glass for deer. We continued hunting around and every time the fog would clear we could glass far away brush patches and see a deer butt here, a head there and maybe a full body every once in a while. Man they like those acorns. Anyhow around noon the fog really socked us in to where you could see approx 100 yards so we made another fire bigger. I heated some rocks to lay around me and fell asleep and woke up with a huge hole in my jacket.....ooops, at least I was toasty. Around 2:00 the fog moved up in elevation and we could see almost everything for the most part so I wanted to go climb up this cliff and look into the next draw below and spotted 3 bucks ranged them around 210 yards about a 40 degree downhill shot. I wanted to get a good rest with all the wind but then two of the bucks began feeding my way and looking around so I just froze and shot off my knee. I shot the buck jumped, I thought for sure he was hit but my buddy says, "You shot low, a rock exploded shoot again!" The deer were conused still so I racked another round in the 30.06 and let it fly and the deer fell!! Sweet deal I was stoked, so we made it down to him cut him up packed him back to camp and ate some tenerloin it was a good day! Foggyness Awesome way to glass for deer for sure. The deerAaron who is a fly fishing/hunting guide actually packed my deer back to base camp. What a guy!! He really wanted to try out his new pack, I was fine with that. =)

[whatjeffhunts]

Nice deer. What zones are the Trinity Alps in?

[troutbum24]

B Zone. Got my second tag on Monday hoping to go back next weekend and get another. Would this weekend but its Northeast Duck opener so I'll be doing that thing and catching monster trout!

[BullsEye]

Congrats! That is some nice looking country too.

[mjc89]

Nice buck. I hunted the B Zones 3 years ago and had no luck. First went up to B6. Saw a lot of does but no bucks. Camped there for 4 days and saw about 4 bucks taken. The funny thing was they were all really small. The second spot i went to was in B3. A lot of deer in that area but saw no bucks all were does. Even saw a black bear there and a lot of bear tracks all around. Your area you hunted looks like really nice country. Looks steep like the B2 zone.

[sportyg]

Nice hunt, good story.... Congrats....

[Thumper Dunker]

Way to go. Nice one.

[Bennie]

Congrats! Beautiful country up there.