Our story
Our trip started with us showing up at the trailhead Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. to very heavy rain. Due to the nasty weather we decided to nap in the truck until 3:00 a.m. when we grabbed our packs and hit the trail for our adventure.
The rain stuck with us for most of the hike but the sun finally came out and started to dry us out. We hiked until daylight and started glassing as we headed to camp.
We arrived at camp just after 7:00 a.m. and set up our tents and tarps. After setting up and throwing on some dry clothes, it was time to start looking for some animals. With our spotters setup and our butts parked in comfortable spots we went to work. After just a few minutes we had a couple deer spotted. Turned out to be a smaller 3x3 and a spike. Tough to get a good picture in the early light.
We watched them for a few minutes while looking for some more bucks. We were of course looking for a special buck. After glassing for awhile, littlebuf says "I've got a good buck". Sure enough, it was the buck we were looking for. He was feeding right were we had hoped to see him. After watching this buck for seven years now as a 4x4 he still amazes me. He is just an absolute stud deer. We all sat and watched him feed while dreaming of the chance we hoped to get on Sunday.
We watched him until he bedded for the day and then decided to hike to another basin and see if we could find a bear to shoot. Or maybe another good buck. We hiked for a couple miles and set up to glass. We couldn't find anything in the head of the basin so we started glassing down the ridges and lower in the basin. Finally we start picking out some deer. First a few does and a couple smaller bucks then littlebuf finds this unique buck feeding up a shoot until he beds for the day. He had really big front forks and super short G2's.
Well, we couldn't find any bears so we decided to hike back to camp and keep tabs on Mac-D. It didn't take long to find him feeding in his favorite meadow. We put him to bed, ate our Mt. house dinners and went to bed happy. The next morning we of course started off by checking up on Mac-D while we drank our coffee and ate breakfast. After he fed for awhile and bedded down for the day we decided to hike 4.5 miles to yet another spot where we hoped to get a chance at a bear.
After hiking for about an hour and a half we got to the spot we wanted to glass. We spread out along the ridge to get different vantage points and started looking for bears. We glassed for probably a half hour when Brock signaled me and said he had a bear feeding in a small meadow a little over a mile away. The bear was in a spot that would be pretty tough to get to without spooking him so we decided to wait and see if he would feed into a better spot so we could try and get a shot. As the day warmed up he fed into the trees and we couldn't see him for about an hour or so. Finally he popped back out in a lower meadow where could get a shot at him.
We hiked to the closest spot we could get and ranged him at 720 yds. We found a suitable rock and I set my pack on it for a rest while Brock and littlebuf set up to spot the shot. I got comfortable and dialed my scope up. As I was setting up, the bear fed into some trees and we lost sight of him. After about a fifteen minute wait he finally popped back out and gave us the chance we wanted. I steadied my gun checked my breathing and squeezed off the shot. The bear ran to the right into a small group of trees and littlebuf said "I think you missed". We sat there waiting and after just a minute the bear fed right back into the same spot. Once again I got steady and slowly squeezed off the shot. This time littlebuf could see the vapor trail in the spotting scope and said "the bullet went right over his back". The bear ran back into the trees and I adjusted my scope to correct the elevation. At this point I figure the game is over and I just screwed up on a nice bear. Well after a few minutes the bear feeds out of the trees to the right this time and gives me one more shot. I let out my breath and shoot again. This time littlebuf says "you hit him but the shot was back and high". The bear runs across the meadow and into the timber.
We hiked over to where we last saw the bear and found a couple drops of blood. The bear continued to side hill through the timber and we were finding a drop of blood about every ten feet. Not good. After about 200 feet the bleeding had slowed and we were finding drops about 30 feet apart. We ran out of blood 550 feet (using a gps) from where I had shot the bear. We circled until we were certain we had exhausted all possible routes the bear could have taken and had to give up. This is the first animal I have shot and lost and I am very disappointed that we were unable to find him. It was a long hike back to camp that afternoon. We arrived at camp at 7:30 Saturday night just in time to see Mac-D feeding until dark.
