Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

Saturday, October 16th, Opening Day. Rechecked our equipment for the 132nd time and ate a quick breakfast. Took as much weight out of our packs as we could. We were going to hunt a basin called Paradise on the south side of the valley and Pat and his boys were going straight up from camp on the north side. Sure gotta like the sound of Paradise, eh! On the horses around 4:30 am toward Paradise. On the way there, we passed by a lone hunter�s camp (the only hunter we would come across up here). He had llamas picketed by his tent. I had no idea that horses don�t like llamas. After we got by the camp with no incident, we started into the black timber. I shut my eyes, opened them, shut them, and opened them. It was sooooo dark in there, there was no discernable difference in keeping my eyes open or closed. When I heard the guide going through the low hanging branches I ducked. Sure am glad the horses could see! Tied up the horses at the head of the valley and hiked through the timber to get above timberline. Dawn came and went with no elk sighted. This was a disappointment to Jake as he said in most years; there are 50-300 head of elk in each of these basins. Dad and I exchanged glances that said, �I hope this isn�t one of those, you-should-have-been-here-yesterday kind of deals�. At about 7:30, we hear one of our campmates open up with 4 shots and through our binoculars can see that one of them has a bull down. I am happy for him, but secretly I am glad it wasn�t over that quick for me! I am looking forward to the hunt! We spent the next hour or so glassing all we could see to no avail.

Jake figures that if they aren�t in Paradise, Waterfall must have a ton of elk in it so after a couple hours we slide down to the horses and ride them up this steep�.and when I say steep, I mean don�t-look-down kinda steep�.slope. We come out on top and ride across some relatively flat country above timberline. On the way we see a few ptarmigan (that gives you an idea of how high we were). We leave the horses with Daylon and slide over the edge into Waterfall to see�..nothing. Some tracks in the snow, but no wapiti. By now it is close to noon and Jake says lets head back to camp and compare notes with Pat as Pat would have glassed a bunch of stuff we couldn�t see.

Pat reports 20 or 30 elk around him, including 1 really nice bull that was out of range and a few smaller ones, but nothing on our side. Brad had been the lucky hunter and shot a nice 6X6 that would score about 275. Shot him at 109 yards. Brad and his bull are packed down to the cabin as his hunt is over. Jake decides to go to Golf Course this afternoon. Golf course is at the head of the valley on the western end. It is a huge area of basins with willows sporadic throughout. From the air, I imagine it would look like a golf course. We glass the whole area and no elk are spotted. Where are them critters? We go out over the top and peek into the next huge valley and don�t see any elk in there either. By this time, after doing a lot of riding, we decide to walk the horses down hill for a ways. This is prolly a good time to talk about my nose. It is so dry up there I, and everyone else, is having nose issues. As I am walking along, my nose starts to bleed. I hadn�t even touched it. I have never, and I mean ever, had such booger production as I had up there. And if you tried to blow your nose, you got a nosebleed. Next time I will definitely bring nasal spray. I don�t bring this up to be gross, but it was a significant part of the trip. Dealing with my nose was a never ending dilemma and even impacted our sleeping.

As we were plodding along in the late afternoon, I caught sight of about 25 elk coming down off this impossibly steep mountain right into the drainage next to us! The adrenaline spiked and we raced ahead and got behind a ridge. They looked like they were going to come right down our drainage without a tree for cover! We peered over the top and �and�.they had disappeared. Only one way for them to go and we took off to the other drainage. Completely out of breath, I caught sight of the rump of the last elk as it disappeared into the black timber. Oh, so close! We had been caught out in the open and the herd had undoubtedly seen us and changed directions. But at least we had seen some elk!

On the way back to camp, as we were riding though some sparse timber, Dad saw a nice bull about 100 yards ahead of us. We piled off the horses and took off in his direction. Unfortunately, he made it out the bottom and across the valley floor before we could get lined up. Our spirits were up as we rode to the sound of an occasional bugle and two good opportunities. Further on, as we were riding across the valley floor ourselves, we saw 3 cows cutting across from one side to the other. Dad and I got ready, hoping a bull was with them, but they were alone. Dad decided right then and there that he would sit and watch that area all day tomorrow as there had been a fair amount of activity crossing the bottom in that area.

Back at camp, an exhausted couple of hunters ate a quick supper and climbed into the cold sleeping bags.