I am back from my central Idaho buck hunting trip and it was quite the experience. We took off Friday mid day and drove to the airport that was to fly us into the back country. We made arrangements with the airport to leave a door open so we could crash in their lobby for a few hours that night before our scheduled flight at 8am Saturday morning. We arrive to find all the doors locked even though we were told which door would be left open around 4pm that day.
We slept in a cold truck for a couple hours while the snow piled up thru the night, brrrrrrr......
We are ready to take off at 8am and find out that no pilots had even arrived yet. They could see the weather wouldnt allow them to get out, so they kind of dragged into the airport for the next few hours. These bush pilots are not your fancy airline type guys. These guys look like they just woke up from a bender that lasted a few days, and they couldnt find any new clothes. We get our gear unloaded and weighed and put on the plane. Not aware that this airport had no electronics and it was strictly a fly by sight kind of thing, we were a little confused why we were not getting out of town, we had hunting to do. We would learn that waiting for a plane is like waiting for a wife, only you spend a lot more time waiting on these planes. Finally around noon, after one of the pilots had made his 20th trip outside to look at the sky, he decided we could get to our destination. We open the hanger doors, get the plane out and take off. We need to go east, yet we keep flying south trying to find a hole thru the clouds. Finally we can see a hole thru the clouds over a low ridge. I swear the plane took the snow off the tree tops as we crossed this ridge, the pilots don't fly thru clouds as they kept telling me "there are rocks in those clouds". I later learned how tall the peaks were in the area when the clouds did go away. We get over this first ridge to only find a big hole in the clouds and no exit over any more ridges. We do 2 big circles about a mile radius which is all the clouds would allows us to do and then shave the snow off the other side of the same trees on that one low ridge we crossed earlier. My buddy was in another plane right behind me and his pilot didnt even attempt this low ridge crossing. After about 20 minutes of looking around we return to the airport and sit around till quiting time and all the pilots left. There are about 30 hunters hanging around the lobby waiting to get hunting and not another plane went up all day. One of the pilots owns the bar across the street and invited us all over for a beer, the first beer was on him. Needless to say 30 hunters headed across the street and spent most of the night drowning their sorrows. We questioned if the pilots didnt get out on purpose to boost the local economy
The next morning it looks better weather wise and we get up in our planes again right off. We circle for 20 minutes and land at another airport that was closer to our destination yet only 20 miles south from where we started. We get to talk to about 30 more hunters who had spent the previous day trying to go hunting and yet no planes left the ground from their airline either. After 3 hours of hanging around here, our pilots think the clouds are breaking and we go up again. We circle for 20 more minutes and return to our original airport. The now 40 or so guys waiting were not happy to see us return. They had hoped for an empty plane so they could get out. We give the airport our cell number and head across town for pizza and beer. About an hour later we get a call that they are going to try it again. We run back to the airport and get up for what will be our fourth flight in 2 days and the skys open up and we get to our dirt strip to land on. I have to say that this 700 foot of semi level dirt strip has a pucker factor of 99 as the plane circles a few times as it comes down into the canyon and then comes down the river following the bends in the river on final approach and makes a 45 degree turn about 50 feet before you touch down on top of a vertical bank. The plane bounces a few times then comes to rest at what seemed like 2 inches from end of the run way. The pilot throws your gear out in 1 minute and is gone in a flash. As the plane leaves the end of the runway it drops out of sight and it looks like it will not make it back up over the first ridge. The runway is not long enough to get enough speed up to take off with any climbing and there is no catapult in the dirt strip. That little cessna engine is screaming wide open and then you see it down river clear between a couple trees 50 feet apart and the plane has about a 38 foot wing span. I stood there watching the plane circle a few times getting enough vertical to get out of the canyon thinking,.... I wonder if it is easier with a full load of gear, rather than the empty plane that just left ????? There was a book at the airport that had the landing strips in the back country and the runways were rated 1 to 50. A 50 was almost certain crash on landing or take off, our dirt strip was a 42 :shocked: and now I knew why. I thought about walking 9 miles to the next airstrip to fly out of there, this one didnt look good. I had to clean my shorts, before I went anywhere
We have a couple hours of daylight left and we get the wall tent set up, cots assembled, met our neighbors and got ready for the next days hunt after a few drinks to calm the nerves. I noticed my tripod for my spotting scope broke and I was SOL on using or repairing the tripod. It would be my first equipment failure of the trip. There were 5 people in the wall tent next to us, 2 dome tents down the way that were empty the entire time we were there, those hunters were spike camped out in the brush and never made it to camp while we were around, another wall tent that had 3 guys hunting elk, and another tent with 4 guys hunting bucks. A few more camps came in while we were there. There were more hunters than I had hoped in the area but we were going to get away from them with a little luck with our plan.
The following morning we take off with our spike camp and hike 3 miles down river, at about a mile from base camp we spot a forky buck across the river feeding across the hill. The hunt we are in is 3 point or better. We get to the spot we were going to cross the river, we look across the river and there are 12 big horn sheep feeding along the river at about 80 yards. 3 rams in the bunch, the biggest was a little more than a 3/4 full curl the other 2 were about 2/3 curl from my best guess of sheep horn sizes. The 2 little rams are practicing their breeding on each other
We thought about cleaning up the gene pool, but decide we might get in trouble for this. We watched these rams mount each other over a dozen times and not even check out a ewe. Maybe this is normal for rams, I havent observed many. We inflate the raft and set a rope across the river to pull ourselves back and forth across the river. After getting myself, my hunting buddy and the 2 packs across the river we set up our spike camp a few hundred yards down river. We begin the climb up the ridge. It is very very steep, yet almost no trees on it, mostly just open grass and lots of rock. We climb a few hundred yards and run into the sheep again. I sneak up on them and get within about 60 yards of a ram on a rock point. I hope the photos turn out, he looked pretty cool standing their on a rock point. I see a few ewes to the side and try to get a close up shot. I am about 20 yards from a ewe, I am waiting for a camera shot as she was facing straight away. I look down and a baby sheep jumps up about 10 yards away and runs, taking them all with it. It was a pretty cool close up experience.
We hike up the ridge until we are about 1000 feet above the river. We spot a pair of bucks right on the ridge straight ahead. My buddy whips out his spotting scope and we see a 4x3 that we estimated 22 inches wide and a 3x3 that is 18 inches wide. We didnt see the half dozen does with them until later. We are 450 yards from these bucks and watch them for an hour or so, and neither of us want to punch our tag yet. We get a radio call from the 4 others in our party that arrived that day that 5 guys were headed for the same ridge we were on, though they never showed up. We drop off to the left of the ridge and push the bucks right, hoping they wouldnt head for base camp. We ended up spotting the rest of the day with only seeing one other decent buck that was a 3x3 and about 18 or 19 wide. We found 7 more sheep with a decent ram in it further up the same ridge. On our first day of hunting we ended up seeing one 4x3, 2 each 3x3, 3 forkys, 3 spikes, 41 does, 24 elk in 2 herds with one spike bull, and 19 sheep with 4 rams. :smile: We hike back to spike camp in the dark and have dinner. We discuss what idiots we are for letting these first 2 bigger bucks go. The widest buck in base camp was 22 inches wide for all the hunters and we just let one go that same size. Neither of us are patient hunters and we decide we are going to kill the 4x3 the next day if we can find him.
The next day we head back up the same ridge, we spot all the sheep again, and 5 does and a forky buck, and then we spot a man at about 1000 yards on the next ridge paralleling us up the hill. He hikes right by a 3x3 and doesnt see it that I estimated at 19 inches wide and way taller than he was wide. This was a cool looking buck and I decided I liked the height and heavy long dark horns. The buck is headed our way and we move into position to shoot him when he crossed the center ridge at about 300 yards. While waiting for the 3 x3 to arrive my buddy spots the 4x3 above us on the same ridge at 400 yards. He dumps him with one shot and the 3 x 3 with dark horns doesnt come over the little center ridge after we just shot ahead of him. The buck we got is the same one we spotted the day before, the buck was a 4x4 but had broke a tine off making it 3 on one side. While my buddy is skinning I go looking for the 3 x 3. I get to where I think he is and I spot him at 140 yards. I take a shot between some trees at 140 yards and he just walks ahead. When he gets in the next opening I shoot again and he disappears. I thought I had hit him, but several hours later I decided I must have missed. No blood, no hair, and tracks that just went around the hill and down the draw and across the next ridge and on and on. This buck took the only route he could and stay out of site. I have no idea how I missed this buck. I hike back up to my buddy who is done boning his buck and I shoot 300 yards at a rock the size of a dinner plate and break it so I know it wasnt a gun failure. I guess the buck got lucky, I cant explain the miss and am sure he didnt leave a drop of blood. We spotted no more deer that day as we were not glassing, and we spend the rest of the day packing the deer back to base camp. It measured 21.5 inches wide, so our guess of 22 wasnt far off.
The next day we go up river about 2 miles and then up a side canyon a mile or so and then climb a ridge into a big bowl. There was a cloud bank above us that allowed us to see a few hundred feet of vertical above the river when we first took off. We spot 2 each 3 points that we estimated at 18 inches wide with 11 does. We also saw 2 forkys. We finally climb up into the fog looking for a nicer buck and get probably 1500 or so feet above the river. The fog and clouds don't break and we end up sitting for a few hours with a visibility of 40 yards or so till mid day. Finally after a snow storm that lasted an hour or so the clouds break. We can see 4 more 3 points, and 27 does in the canyon with us. All the 3 points were between 15 and 18 inches wide, nothing we were after so we crossed the ridge and went into the next canyon.
Right off the bat my buddy spots 9 deer on the ridge and while he is looking for horns with the spotting scope, I can see a buck bedded down the far ridge. I look at him in the spotting scope and he is a 4x4 and I guess 20 inches wide. I tell my buddy that my feet hurt, I have 2 blisters the size of a quarter, I am catching a cold and tired of coughing, This buck will do. My buddy ranges him at 670 yards. We run over to a little center ridge and he ranges again at 460 yards, I can see a spot down the ridge even better and while running down to it, we spot 5 deer 200 yards to our side with another 3 point in it. I get set up on what appears to be the best spot to shoot. He ranges at 404 yards and I get set up to shoot. I try to put a shell in the gun and the bolt wont close the last 1/8 inch. I open the bolt and the shell is now stuck in the barrel. I look over at my buddy and tell him I need a ram rod to push the shell out of the barrel because the bolt wont pull it out. He laughs at me and shrugs his shoulders. I start beating the butt of the gun on a tree with the bolt open hard enough to split the stock and after 4 or 5 whacks the shell pops out the barrel. My buddy tells me the buck is up and walking, I can see he is about 20 yards from crossing the ridge. I jack another shell in and the same thing, the bolt wont close that last 1/8 inch. I start beating the butt again on the tree and this time the entire bolt pops out of the back of my A bolt Browning and goes down the hill 5 yards or so. After a few more hard whacks the shell pops out. I pull out my water bottle and start pouring water down the barrel trying to flush out what is holding the shell from getting all the way into the chamber. My buddy pulls my camera out of my pack and starts taking pictures of me in my frantic state while laughing. The good news is the buck bedded again and didnt cross the ridge. After dumping a pint of water or so down the barrel, I blow a few times to clear the water. I go down the hill to get the bolt and you have to line up this rotation piece to get it back in the gun. I see the entire face of the bolt is packed in mud ????????? That may have been the problem, or maybe it happened when it popped out from beating on the gun I don't know. I clean that out and get the gun reassembled. I say a short prayer and the next shell goes all the way into the chamber. The buck is laying down and I wasnt going to wait for him to stand. We have about an hour of light left and I am out of patients, tired and sore. I take my first shot and broke both a rear and front foot on the same side below the knees. I must have been a few inches low and got both feet where he had then tucked up underneath him. The buck gets to his feet and turns sideways, but is going nowhere with 2 broken legs. The second shot goes thru the boiler room and down he goes. We had to skin and bone the buck in the dark. When we get back to camp 2 of the 4 other guys in our party filled their tags on 4 points that day.
The next day we go to get our spike camp down river and pack it back to base camp. We spend some time in a hot springs about a mile from base camp getting cleaned up. When a plane flew in to get some guys out, we told the pilot we wanted our out time moved up from Sunday to Friday. On that Thursday the 2 other guys in our party got their 4 points and all 6 of us were punched out with 4 points. The smallest was about 17 inches wide, and the 5 others were between 19.5 and 21.5 inches wide.
Thursday the 5 guys camped next to us were suppose to get out, but no planes came to get them. We later found out there was a snow storm at the airport, even though there wasnt a cloud over us. On Friday the 5 guys got shuttled out and the pilot told us he would be back for us. We break down the wall tent and pack everything up only to have no plane return for us. At dark we put up the pup tent and spent another night in the cold. It was in the low 20's and with no heat in the pup tent it was a cold night. Saturday morning 2 planes flew in at 8:30 and loaded me and my buddy up and we got out. When the plane cleared the end of the runway, I was looking down river at those 2 big trees and trying figure out if we going to split the uprights. It is amazing how much lower the plane is full than empty :shocked: when it drops off the end of the runway. Next time I take a blindfold.
It was probably the easiest buck hunting I have ever done other than all the physical climbing. The bucks were rutting so hard they didnt care if we were in the area or not. It was nothing to walk by a little buck at a couple hundred yards and he would look at you for a minute and then go back to pushing does. On Friday and Saturday morning we could probably see a dozen deer each day from base camp on the surrounding ridges.
Several hunters came and left without filling their tags. They never left the trail along the river and didnt understand you had to climb up below the snow line to find deer. The 3 elk hunters never did see an elk and left.
I would rather have brought home the 19 inch wide very tall 3 x 3 I missed, than the 20 inch 4x4 I did get.
I look forward to next time.
(I tried to bring Birdhunter a wolf hide, but couldnt find one
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Idaho buck hunting results
skein
Jet~~~
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