flinginarrows
FNG
I've been bow hiking for 4 years now. All of my hunting excursions have been absolute garbage. I've mostly been up to Mendocino NF where it's too thick to glass (where I'd go anyway) and the place was overrun with road hunters. I'd hike around making a bunch of noise, scaring everything away and never getting eyes on anything legal to shoot. This year someone I met at the archery range said he's going out to D6, alone, for the first time, and asked if I wanted to go to. We hit off and decided to go out together. We haphazardly studied some maps, figured out where we want to go in the wilderness and went out.
Our original plan got trashed because the hike in was longer and harder than we anticipated. We changed planes went somewhere on the other side of the mountain that looked good but there was no chance of getting anything there because the place was occupied by dozens of cows. After resting the night, we head out the towards another spot but came up to a cliff because we suck at reading topo maps. I swear those topo lines look far enough when you zoom in :|
Eventually we traversed the mountain down and got to our originally planned spot. On the way in we bumped a couple of does, saw beds and scat. This gave us hope as it was the first sign of deer we'd seen. That spot was awesome as it let us glass quite a bit of country all around. We concentrated on the mountain in front of us. Some guys that were camping there told us it was a great spot as they'd seen deer and other hunters up there bumping them around. The other hunters part aint that great but least there's deer there.
We spent Sunday morning glassing with them and found a shooter. One of them went up on a failed stalk and they left. We relaxed in the afternoon and got ready for the evening glassing session. This was the first hunting trip I actually glassed and I gotta say... that shit is HARD! Much harder than it looks.
I spotted 2 deer feeding high up but couldn't see their head gear with the binos. The spotter confirmed that 1 of em was a shooter (2x2) and after a few minutes of super negative thoughts, trying to convince ourselves that there's no way we could get there on time etc. we snapped out of it and decided I should get after it. This was our last night there and likely our last chance. We lost em in some trees too but were pretty confident they were there because the area around was open and we didn't see them leave.
I hauled ass to get up there and once close enough nocked an arrow, got the release ready and slowly approached where i thought they were. The wind was right, everything was good until I somehow spooked em and they jumped off but stayed near by. They just kept looking at the tree I was behind. The one I was after was also behind a tree and I kept watching him. We danced around a bit, i moved to a better position, he hopped off, came back but I never had a clear shot. We repeated this for what felt like an eternity until he gave me a good shot at ~55 yards. I took it, not my best to be honest as it hit him pretty far back and high. I must have hit the top of his lungs. I saw the hole when he ran off. I went and got my arrow and slowly started to look for him. I couldn't followed what I thought was the path of least resistance and a good escape route for a deer and found him maybe 200-300 yards away from where I shot him. My buddy watched it through the spotter and said he went down quick.
It was late and we didn't have much light left and were a few miles away from camp. Being the rookies that we are, we were scared shitless of bears. I quickly and haphazardly gutted and drug him down the mountain where my buddy was waiting. I was in such a rush that I didn't even check the lungs for the hit. I didn't keep any keep the heard or liver like I was planning too because we couldn't eat it there. Fire restrictions and windy conditions meant no fire to cook any of it.
We very haphazardly skinned, quartered it, and hung it up in a tree in the super dark and made our scary hike back to camp. Those woods are so damn fright inducing at night.
The following morning we slept in and it was the first night I got some decent sleep. Packed up camp, went and picked up the meat and made our way out. 5+ miles of coming down the mountain with half a deer plus my gear on my back. It was the hardest hike I've ever been on.
This is was my first proper mountain hunt, first time glassing, first time putting eyes on a legal buck while hunting, first shot at a deer and it all worked out and I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to be out there again.
My respect level for all you bad MFers who have been doing this for years, in much rougher places, and with bigger animals is through the roof. This shit is HARD! I still don't understand the solo hunters. That's just on another level that I don't think I'll ever get to.
Our original plan got trashed because the hike in was longer and harder than we anticipated. We changed planes went somewhere on the other side of the mountain that looked good but there was no chance of getting anything there because the place was occupied by dozens of cows. After resting the night, we head out the towards another spot but came up to a cliff because we suck at reading topo maps. I swear those topo lines look far enough when you zoom in :|
Eventually we traversed the mountain down and got to our originally planned spot. On the way in we bumped a couple of does, saw beds and scat. This gave us hope as it was the first sign of deer we'd seen. That spot was awesome as it let us glass quite a bit of country all around. We concentrated on the mountain in front of us. Some guys that were camping there told us it was a great spot as they'd seen deer and other hunters up there bumping them around. The other hunters part aint that great but least there's deer there.
We spent Sunday morning glassing with them and found a shooter. One of them went up on a failed stalk and they left. We relaxed in the afternoon and got ready for the evening glassing session. This was the first hunting trip I actually glassed and I gotta say... that shit is HARD! Much harder than it looks.
I spotted 2 deer feeding high up but couldn't see their head gear with the binos. The spotter confirmed that 1 of em was a shooter (2x2) and after a few minutes of super negative thoughts, trying to convince ourselves that there's no way we could get there on time etc. we snapped out of it and decided I should get after it. This was our last night there and likely our last chance. We lost em in some trees too but were pretty confident they were there because the area around was open and we didn't see them leave.
I hauled ass to get up there and once close enough nocked an arrow, got the release ready and slowly approached where i thought they were. The wind was right, everything was good until I somehow spooked em and they jumped off but stayed near by. They just kept looking at the tree I was behind. The one I was after was also behind a tree and I kept watching him. We danced around a bit, i moved to a better position, he hopped off, came back but I never had a clear shot. We repeated this for what felt like an eternity until he gave me a good shot at ~55 yards. I took it, not my best to be honest as it hit him pretty far back and high. I must have hit the top of his lungs. I saw the hole when he ran off. I went and got my arrow and slowly started to look for him. I couldn't followed what I thought was the path of least resistance and a good escape route for a deer and found him maybe 200-300 yards away from where I shot him. My buddy watched it through the spotter and said he went down quick.
It was late and we didn't have much light left and were a few miles away from camp. Being the rookies that we are, we were scared shitless of bears. I quickly and haphazardly gutted and drug him down the mountain where my buddy was waiting. I was in such a rush that I didn't even check the lungs for the hit. I didn't keep any keep the heard or liver like I was planning too because we couldn't eat it there. Fire restrictions and windy conditions meant no fire to cook any of it.
We very haphazardly skinned, quartered it, and hung it up in a tree in the super dark and made our scary hike back to camp. Those woods are so damn fright inducing at night.
The following morning we slept in and it was the first night I got some decent sleep. Packed up camp, went and picked up the meat and made our way out. 5+ miles of coming down the mountain with half a deer plus my gear on my back. It was the hardest hike I've ever been on.
This is was my first proper mountain hunt, first time glassing, first time putting eyes on a legal buck while hunting, first shot at a deer and it all worked out and I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to be out there again.
My respect level for all you bad MFers who have been doing this for years, in much rougher places, and with bigger animals is through the roof. This shit is HARD! I still don't understand the solo hunters. That's just on another level that I don't think I'll ever get to.
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