Sorry for the firestorm on Ross, but details left unsaid were:

We were dropped off in the morning at the bottom of a canyon we were to hunt and the boat wouldn't be back to pick us up until evening. We had to spend the whole day in this canyon. On the hike into the top of the canyon I had slipped on Bentonite, which is slicker that anything you will ever want to step in, fallen and banged my rifle.

You hope nothing is wrong and keep on hunting. When we got to the point where we saw the 3 hunters, we waited behind a cedar and watched them to see which direction they were going. We waited quite awhile and when they got to the bottom we knew we were going to stay high and hopefully end up south of them while they were low.

At this point I figured there weren't any mule deer bucks in our immediate vicinity and after the gun getting dropped, I did fire one round at the sandstone rock face above and beyond us and the rifle hadn't changed zero. They did notice us, but didn't move from the knob they were on in the bottom of the canyon.

I was not pissed off at seeing other hunters, as it is public land, disappointed, yes, but not pissed off. As we continued south we did jump a handful of cottontails which I love to hunt anyhow and I did shoot a couple.

Meanwhile the guys stayed on the knob in the bottom causing us to wonder why our presence hadn't made them move on. We did find that humorous, but saying we intentionally tried to screw up their hunting is wrong. If they were eating lunch or playing cribbage, I will never know, all I know is they stayed there the entire time we traversed the rim rocks at the top of the canyon.

They did eventually leave and we kept on hunting south, never crossing paths. They were not stalking a big mule deer buck, and they observed that we were not shooting at another big mule deer buck, but that is what got printed, nothing more, nothing less.

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