2012 Washington State High Buck Hunt

jmden

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Washington State
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Camp on the ridgetop at 7200' on the edge of the Pasayten Wilderness Area 9/14/12 anticipating the opening of 'High Buck' season at shooting light the next morning. We both bought TarpTent Rainbows this year for this kind of hunt. 2 lbs. 3 oz. and very room and incredibly versatile for 1 person. Could squeeze two into one if you had to. Cars are down in the valley below down a very steep slope.

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I apologize for my ugly mug! 540yd. 23 deg down angle. It was unseasonably warm up there this year! I misaimed the rushed shot as he was just about to walk out from where we could see him and and mistakenly aimed for the onside shoulder with the 300g Berger Hybrid OTM traveling at 2954 fps MV from the Allen Precision 338AX exiting out the offside neck. Bang, flop as he was slightly quartered away with his neck bent downhill feeding. My brother shot one at the same distance 5 minutes later as 4 more bucks were standing around after I put down the larger one going 'what happened'? 2 bucks down an hour after shooting light on opening day, shot 5 minutes apart, hit in nearly the same location on the hillside. His was heart shot with a 210 VLD out of a 300 WSM and made it about 50 yds downhill below mine. We were both cleaning deer at the same time in nearly the same place in some of the most beautiful God's country one can imagine. What a blessing!

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Partway back up to camp with a 95 lb load. 80 of it was boned out meat and antlers. The entire green section of the pack is filled with meat only. It was about 700' vertical back up to camp and then a very steep, dicey, x-country 1800' vert. down to the car with the same load of meat and then back up to camp to get camp out. The slope from camp down to the car would be suicide without trekking poles and years of mountaineering and x-country backcountry experience. Gotta get moving towards home 'cause that meat isn't going to cooldown up there. Got home a little after 11p last night. What a ton of satisfying work! Hope you guys get some meat in the freezer soon! Jon

Edit: BTW, I tried out Len's small, lightweight rear bag that he sells here at the lrh.com store on this trip. It is 11 oz. if you take the plastic belt clip off. It gave me 3 very solid (and adjustable by squeezing...this bag is small enough you can do that quite readily) shooting heights, based on it's three dimensions. Len has the best price for these I've seen on the internet and for the price would encourage anyone to try one out, especially if you are going on hunts like this where weight and space, but a solid, highly adjustable to the situation, rear bag is a must.
 
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Awesome!!! Great story and wonderful pics. Beautiful buck! Congrats!!! Enjoy the wonderful reward of hardwork and dedication to hunt. How great to share with your brother.
 
Great buck, great hunt, great shot, great pictures! A lot of good hikes here in Washington, not so many with good bucks at the end of them. Congratulations, and thanks.
 
Awesome! I had to miss the opener this year. My buddy went, bagged a deer and was hiking half of it out when he was found by rangers who rushed him out and wouldn't let him go back for the other half because of the wildfires closing in. He's super bummed. Glad you were able to close the deal. How far of a march did you have out???
 
Not too far. Just very steep down from camp (very close to 45 deg and that and more in a few places--when you look down the slope, you can't tell if you are looking more vertically than horizontally or vice versa) with very poor footing. Just a lot of focusing effort, especially with a 95 lb. pack, on foot placement and assessing the rock/soil type for every step before committing to it.
 
What a great hunt! You guys had a plan and it worked. Glad to see the Bergers put the bucks down fast as that saved you a lot of work gettng them out. Nice going to both of you, it might be a while before you top this hunt. Thanks for sharing the story and pics, beautiful country for sure!

Jeff
 
Thanks, guys!

Roy, we camouflaged ourselves as 'nature loving' backpackers and not hunters and the deer were then visibly unconcerned about us! The ploy worked well! :D:D No, after the shots, we headed back to camp (100 yds away) to unload virtually everything we could from our packs before heading down the hill to the deer. No reason to pack up any more than you have to and it was also getting hot! The white wicking layers are from summer mountaineering--keeps you warm but not so hot in the sun when it's hot and it was quite warm. I've never worn sunglasses and shorts up there, but they sure helped.
 
jmden, great story and very nice buck. I love the camp photos also. Just picked up a tarptent contrail and have a spot just like that picked out up in the Salmon area in Idaho for opening week-----can hardly wait. I don't think we'll disguise ourselves as nature loving backpackers----this is Idaho for gods sake. I think we'll go as wolf howlers..................

Nice to see someone else use the quads that god gave you.

Randy
 
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