Irrelevant
Well-known member
I thought at length about this writeup on my way out of the mountains. I’d periodically checked in on @tbr’s excellent thread looking forward to every update. It was an exceptionally well thought out thread, with all the details that make a story great. I wondered if I was capable of something similar but concluded I am not. And furthermore, that is not me nor my writing style. Which further caused me to ponder what is my writing style and how it came to be mine. I have written threads along two veins, one humor, which is my favorite to write and look back on, the other is more depressing, generally negative, and introspective, drawing on conclusions that are very real in the moment, but lose their shine rather quickly. This is something a little different for me, just the story of my hunt, without anything added or subtracted, without a conclusion or a meaning. Hopefully not too deep nor too shallow.
...
I have written about this hunt many times. The conclusion is always, the scenery is nice, but I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and never see, let alone shoot, a legal buck. Sometimes, I don’t even see any deer. To make a short story shorter, that trend continued.
In years past I’ve ventured to the tops of many peaks looking for the elusive “high country buck.”
I’ve done this enough to realize that they don’t exist, at least not here and not now, or possibly that I am too crappy a deer hunter to find them. So, this year I tried to learn from the past, or at least from my perceptions of it, and ventured into a basin well below treeline, but still high enough to provide good forage in these waning days of summer.
Unable to get there before season I left the morning of opening day after seeing the kids off to school and tackled one of the few still unknown to me trails in the nearest wilderness area. Trip reports, trail logs, and first-person accounts were all consistent that this was a terrible trail, unmaintained for many years, in a decade old burn, with 100s of down trees across the trail, often on incredibly steep terrain. This trail doesn’t access much of the classically scenic alpine terrain or lakes or peaks. It's just a high, burned over, timbered basin with a few open slopes and plenty of water. Honestly, it sort of sounds like the perfect place to get away from other hunters and finally kill a buck.
Unfortunately, half of the State had the same idea. The parking lot was full when I got there. And based on the number of rigs there on my way out, even more showed up after me.
The trail was in fact, terrible, but due to the amount traffic, there were fairly good walk arounds already established on all but a couple of downed trees.
My plan was to hike to the first trail intersection, then take a trail described by many as completely abandoned and unnavigable. I struggled to find it. Once I did, I lost it within a ¼ mile and gave up the idea of trying to locate it again.
I made my way 1 ½ miles out into the basin, found a nice little camp spot near a creek, and set camp.
It was mid-day so I waited around a little, then proceeded to hike up an open ridge to find a spot to glass for the evening. It was one of those perfect late summer days, not necessarily a perfect day to hunt, but still a perfect day, clear skies, dead calm, too hot in the sun just right in the shade, not a bug to be found. A day that checks all the boxes and really makes you appreciate life. I set into a fairly good little spot, a mix of sun and shade, commanding view of the entire basin.
Unfortunately, one of my assumptions about this burn was that it was open enough to glass into. It was not, at least not much of it. There were so few pockets to glass that it felt hopeless and pointless.
Then, just as the golden hour was setting in, voices. Deep, loud voices from somewhere within the basin. A discussion or argument about something between two people. The detail of the words lost to the distance, but a continuous back the forth with an ebb and flow to the tenor and tone and commitment to the argument. It was just so out of place in the wilderness, on a day like this, as to be laughable in a hair pulling out kind of way. How in the flying fck do people not understand that there is a noise threshold in the wilderness? It’s dictated by the conditions; and on a day like that it was a quiet whisper at most. It was so still thoughts could be heard without words.
I went through the motions that evening, but found no deer, no wildlife save a few song birds. And found two other hunters, not the debaters, setup in a better location, glassing a better looking part of the drainage.
That night as I descended, I was able to triangulate where the voices appeared to be coming from and crossed the section of the basin off for further investigation. Somehow, they were camped even further into the mess of deadfall than I was, a depressing fact. Then while waiting for my dinner to rehydrate, I heard more voices, this time below me, and while quieter, it was clear my hunt was over before it began. No self-respecting buck would put up with this BS and I debated packing up that night and leaving. But the time was allotted, and you can’t kill them from home so I stuck it out.
The next day was spent still hunting the green patches and the few stringers of timber that didn’t burn. It was brushy and noisy as it could be and while I bumped deer, I never saw one before they heard me and bounced. I saw 4 of the 5 that day, none of them bucks. I was actually just as successful at getting close when going hellbent for leather and making a helluva racket as I was going as slow and quietly as I know how. At one point I went 500 yards in 3.5 hours. And it wasn’t even close to slow enough, certainly not quiet enough. Maybe there at those out there that can, but I’m not one of them. (Can you spot the deer below?)
There was only so much terrain I wanted to push through and not run the risk of pushing everything out. So middle of the day, I did what has come to be my favorite part of the hunt. I napped in the shade and read a book. This is the time in my year when I really can just melt into the ground and allow myself to think and not think and think again, and nap, and snack, and just lay there and look at the sky and listen to the birds, and just be. It is wonderful.
The next day was a mirror of the last, except I bounced fewer deer.
This burn is truly terrible to try to move through, let alone quietly.
Already knowing the outcome long before I set off, that no deer would be harmed in this hunt, I allowed myself, more successfully this year than in the past, to accept that conclusion yet continue to try and enjoy every damn bit of it.
...
I have written about this hunt many times. The conclusion is always, the scenery is nice, but I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and never see, let alone shoot, a legal buck. Sometimes, I don’t even see any deer. To make a short story shorter, that trend continued.
In years past I’ve ventured to the tops of many peaks looking for the elusive “high country buck.”
I’ve done this enough to realize that they don’t exist, at least not here and not now, or possibly that I am too crappy a deer hunter to find them. So, this year I tried to learn from the past, or at least from my perceptions of it, and ventured into a basin well below treeline, but still high enough to provide good forage in these waning days of summer.
Unable to get there before season I left the morning of opening day after seeing the kids off to school and tackled one of the few still unknown to me trails in the nearest wilderness area. Trip reports, trail logs, and first-person accounts were all consistent that this was a terrible trail, unmaintained for many years, in a decade old burn, with 100s of down trees across the trail, often on incredibly steep terrain. This trail doesn’t access much of the classically scenic alpine terrain or lakes or peaks. It's just a high, burned over, timbered basin with a few open slopes and plenty of water. Honestly, it sort of sounds like the perfect place to get away from other hunters and finally kill a buck.
Unfortunately, half of the State had the same idea. The parking lot was full when I got there. And based on the number of rigs there on my way out, even more showed up after me.
The trail was in fact, terrible, but due to the amount traffic, there were fairly good walk arounds already established on all but a couple of downed trees.
My plan was to hike to the first trail intersection, then take a trail described by many as completely abandoned and unnavigable. I struggled to find it. Once I did, I lost it within a ¼ mile and gave up the idea of trying to locate it again.
I made my way 1 ½ miles out into the basin, found a nice little camp spot near a creek, and set camp.
It was mid-day so I waited around a little, then proceeded to hike up an open ridge to find a spot to glass for the evening. It was one of those perfect late summer days, not necessarily a perfect day to hunt, but still a perfect day, clear skies, dead calm, too hot in the sun just right in the shade, not a bug to be found. A day that checks all the boxes and really makes you appreciate life. I set into a fairly good little spot, a mix of sun and shade, commanding view of the entire basin.
Unfortunately, one of my assumptions about this burn was that it was open enough to glass into. It was not, at least not much of it. There were so few pockets to glass that it felt hopeless and pointless.
Then, just as the golden hour was setting in, voices. Deep, loud voices from somewhere within the basin. A discussion or argument about something between two people. The detail of the words lost to the distance, but a continuous back the forth with an ebb and flow to the tenor and tone and commitment to the argument. It was just so out of place in the wilderness, on a day like this, as to be laughable in a hair pulling out kind of way. How in the flying fck do people not understand that there is a noise threshold in the wilderness? It’s dictated by the conditions; and on a day like that it was a quiet whisper at most. It was so still thoughts could be heard without words.
I went through the motions that evening, but found no deer, no wildlife save a few song birds. And found two other hunters, not the debaters, setup in a better location, glassing a better looking part of the drainage.
That night as I descended, I was able to triangulate where the voices appeared to be coming from and crossed the section of the basin off for further investigation. Somehow, they were camped even further into the mess of deadfall than I was, a depressing fact. Then while waiting for my dinner to rehydrate, I heard more voices, this time below me, and while quieter, it was clear my hunt was over before it began. No self-respecting buck would put up with this BS and I debated packing up that night and leaving. But the time was allotted, and you can’t kill them from home so I stuck it out.
The next day was spent still hunting the green patches and the few stringers of timber that didn’t burn. It was brushy and noisy as it could be and while I bumped deer, I never saw one before they heard me and bounced. I saw 4 of the 5 that day, none of them bucks. I was actually just as successful at getting close when going hellbent for leather and making a helluva racket as I was going as slow and quietly as I know how. At one point I went 500 yards in 3.5 hours. And it wasn’t even close to slow enough, certainly not quiet enough. Maybe there at those out there that can, but I’m not one of them. (Can you spot the deer below?)
There was only so much terrain I wanted to push through and not run the risk of pushing everything out. So middle of the day, I did what has come to be my favorite part of the hunt. I napped in the shade and read a book. This is the time in my year when I really can just melt into the ground and allow myself to think and not think and think again, and nap, and snack, and just lay there and look at the sky and listen to the birds, and just be. It is wonderful.
The next day was a mirror of the last, except I bounced fewer deer.
This burn is truly terrible to try to move through, let alone quietly.
Already knowing the outcome long before I set off, that no deer would be harmed in this hunt, I allowed myself, more successfully this year than in the past, to accept that conclusion yet continue to try and enjoy every damn bit of it.
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