WA High Hunt Stories

[JustEffort]

Got my first scouting trip coming up this weekend and September is just right around the corner. Anyone starting to feel that itch?!

Anyway hoping we could hear some good high buck hunt stories from those willing to share. Some learned lessons, tips, and ultimate just some good old hunting stories.

I got a 6 day solo trip planned for this year and will be sure to add my story from the trip. I’ve been out the last 3 years on this hunt kind of half ass (2-3 days hunts) but decided to take this year more seriously. Lots of research, lots of training, and gear upgrading these past few months. Excited to finally get boots on the ground and head in to scout some new country.

 

[longrangelead]

A buddy and I tried the high buck hunt a couple years ago. "no precip" in the forecastall week...day 3 brought 4" of snow and we weren't prepared for snow...

We learned some things...

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Get off the trails. Way off the trails.

 

[JustEffort]

A buddy and I tried the high buck hunt a couple years ago. "no precip" in the forecastall week...day 3 brought 4" of snow and we weren't prepared for snow...

We learned some things...

Wow! I still have never been hit by one of those storms on this hunt but have hiked in 8 hours just to sit in a tent for two days then hike out becuase of rain/heavy fog.

Crossing fingers fires stay out of my area as well cause the smoke is just as bad as fog I have learned.

 

[Ridgerunner]

First high hunt was 1993. Friends had a concert to go to the night of the 15th so got up early and packed in on the 16th. Ran into a guy packing out a 20" 3 point and talked about a 5x7 that was killed. That turned out to be a very small buck. Saw a handful of small bucks and a couple of bears over the next 3/4 days. Tag not punched but it was the beginning of many years in the alpine chasing bucks. It's definitely gotten more popular and truth be told probably isn't the best season to kill a big deer (although some do get killed on the high hunt) but it is a fun hunt for sure.

 

[.284reaper]

Why has this hunt seen such a decline In quality deer, seemed 20 years ago everyone had a nice buck ok the wall from that hunt.

 

[JustEffort]

@ridgeru

First high hunt was 1993. Friends had a concert to go to the night of the 15th so got up early and packed in on the 16th. Ran into a guy packing out a 20" 3 point and talked about a 5x7 that was killed. That turned out to be a very small buck. Saw a handful of small bucks and a couple of bears over the next 3/4 days. Tag not punched but it was the beginning of many years in the alpine chasing bucks. It's definitely gotten more popular and truth be told probably isn't the best season to kill a big deer (although some do get killed on the high hunt) but it is a fun hunt for sure.

That’s awesome! I grew up listening to my dad and his hunting buddies stories of their first couple high hunts. I believe their first year of the high buck hunt was 1991 as 17-20 year olds. They hunted the same general area every year for over 10+ years.

That spot they hunted has now become pretty popular and doesn’t quite have the same magic that it did back then. But the pictures they have of 70lb packs on the way in, bucks every year well over 165”, huge storms with terrible terrible gear, and awesome success pics in crazy country really inspired me.

I was actually able to do an overnight trip to this area with my dad a couple years back. One of the fondest memories I have with my dad just because I know how much this area means to him. Even at almost 60 years old he just chugged on up the 4000’+ of elevation, you backcountry hunters from that era are just tougher haha!

 

[JustEffort]

Why has this hunt seen such a decline In quality deer, seemed 20 years ago everyone had a nice buck ok the wall from that hunt.

I’m sure @Ridgerunner can answer better than myself but I think it’s a lot of things.

One everything gets inflated with time. Not saying it wasn’t better many years ago because it almost certainly was.

Two, it’s much much easier to get into the high country now then it was 30 years ago. Which is bringing in more hunters ie pressure. To go off this, it’s bringing in a lot of newer hunters who are happy with just any legal 3pt. In just my short four high hunt trips, 3 guys out of the 11 I’ve ran into were on there first deer hunt. I think your casual hunter 30 years ago wasn’t interested in doing this type of hunt and the primary “high hunt hunter” was a more experienced or selective hunter that wasn’t willing to pack out a 140” buck on a shitty aluminum external frame pack with another 60lbs of camp weight haha.

I still like to believe the quality is still there. Maybe not in the numbers it once was and as educated as the deer are now. But I like to believe they exist. There’s a couple big deer taken on this hunt every year

 

[.284reaper]

I’m sure @Ridgerunner can answer better than myself but I think it’s a lot of things.

One everything gets inflated with time. Not saying it wasn’t better many years ago because it almost certainly was.

Two, it’s much much easier to get into the high country now then it was 30 years ago. Which is bringing in more hunters ie pressure. To go off this, it’s bringing in a lot of newer hunters who are happy with just any legal 3pt. In just my short four high hunt trips, 3 guys out of the 11 I’ve ran into were on there first deer hunt. I think your casual hunter 30 years ago wasn’t interested in doing this type of hunt and the primary “high hunt hunter” was a more experienced or selective hunter that wasn’t willing to pack out a 140” buck on a shitty aluminum external frame pack with another 60lbs of camp weight haha.

I still like to believe the quality is still there. Maybe not in the numbers it once was and as educated as the deer are now. But I like to believe they exist. There’s a couple big deer taken on this hunt every year

I think that last sentence in your second section hit the nail on the head.

 

[longrangelead]

I’m sure @Ridgerunner can answer better than myself but I think it’s a lot of things.

One everything gets inflated with time. Not saying it wasn’t better many years ago because it almost certainly was.

Two, it’s much much easier to get into the high country now then it was 30 years ago. Which is bringing in more hunters ie pressure. To go off this, it’s bringing in a lot of newer hunters who are happy with just any legal 3pt. In just my short four high hunt trips, 3 guys out of the 11 I’ve ran into were on there first deer hunt. I think your casual hunter 30 years ago wasn’t interested in doing this type of hunt and the primary “high hunt hunter” was a more experienced or selective hunter that wasn’t willing to pack out a 140” buck on a shitty aluminum external frame pack with another 60lbs of camp weight haha.

I still like to believe the quality is still there. Maybe not in the numbers it once was and as educated as the deer are now. But I like to believe they exist. There’s a couple big deer taken on this hunt every year

wolves recently. Two September ago we had two wolves come up behind us while we were glassing. pretty bold too, they followed our tacks for several hundred yards, walked within feet of our packs and gear and stayed on our tracks another hundred yards.
we never saw them, we were intently glassing across the valley. From the tracks, they never stopped, just turned and disappeared into the timber a few hundred feet from us.

 

[JustEffort]

Yep

wolves recently. Two September ago we had two wolves come up behind us while we were glassing. pretty bold too, they followed our tacks for several hundred yards, walked within feet of our packs and gear and stayed on our tracks another hundred yards.
we never saw them, we were intently glassing across the valley. From the tracks, they never stopped, just turned and disappeared into the timber a few hundred feet from us.

Yes forgot to mention the fallout of predator management in this state this as well. This is a big one

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are a lot of reasons why this hunt is not as good as it once was. That being said I would wager a benji that most of the bucks killed on the high hunt throughout its history have been small to medium bucks. Every year there are some great bucks killed and I think that keeps guys coming back for more.

A few thoughts that pop into my head, back in the early 90's, late 80's not many people knew about the high hunt. Those that did were hunting with equipment that just wasn't as good, in particular glass. I remember going to Wyoming region G in 2001 and being amazed at how just about every hunter had swarovski glass. That wasn't the case in WA at all back then. Most guys were rocking cheap glass, leupold was pretty high end. In the late 90's Eastmans did an article on a couple of guys who had success on the WA high hunt, I believe that opened alot of eyes to it. Around the same time Mike Eastman's book Hunting High Country mule deer came out. The predator boom the last 30 years has made this hunt much tougher as well. The internet and the ease of which information can be figured out (and success pics shared motivating more folks) has also contributed to the increased popularity of the hunt.

So alot of different factors come into play. I also think the habitat has changed, some areas have had big fires which really changed the dynamics. I know a guy who has hunted one high hunt spot during September and the general season for over 35 years, he has noted that in the last few years there have been very subtle habitat changes and the deer numbers are not what they once were. He still tags out yearly but it is not nearly as productive of habitat as it used to be. This is a non burn area.

Lots of different factors at play and the reality is even in the late 80's and early 90's certain areas were just as popular as they are now.

 

[longrangelead]

they're there, I saw one buck almost from the trail head that I doubt anyone else saw because "you gotta go deep!", however he was a mile or more away, couldn't be seen from anywhere else, 7 miles around to him and had the wind at his back in 99% of weather conditions.

 

[SteveAndTheCrigBoys]

I shot a dinker 3x2 in 2022. Not an easy area to get into, but we showed up to about 15-20 people up there. Area could support about 6 hunters, which is what we saw up there the year before.

Had some much nicer bucks on camera up there but they disappeared mid-August. Not sure where they went.

As others said, don't trust the forecast. We've had t-shirt weather followed by snow 12 hours later. I don't dedicate any time off to it anymore. Juice ain't worth the squeeze. I'd rather allocate time off to hunt a general tag in other states.

 

[shootnrun]

My brother and I started in at daylight. Set up camp 7.5 miles in. Hiked up the ridge and glassed. Killed 2 4pts right at dark 2miles from camp. Broke mine down but couldn't turn his up. Slept there bundled up in our clothes with a fire going. It was terribly cold. Got up and found his buck 50 yards from where we slept. Packed them back to camp, broke it down, ate all the food we could, and walked back to the truck. It was the most brutal pack of my life. I'd guess our packs were over 150#s with a whole deer each with camp split between us for 7.5 miles. We'd walk 400 yards at a time. Took us 8 hours to get out.

2 years later we went to a closer basin and I was setting up on a true giant, dudes appeared in the basin and blew every deer out of the county. Didn't see another deer for 3 days and went home. Haven't done the high hunt since.

 

[longrangelead]

I shot a dinker 3x2 in 2022. Not an easy area to get into, but we showed up to about 15-20 people up there. Area could support about 6 hunters, which is what we saw up there the year before.

Had some much nicer bucks on camera up there but they disappeared mid-August. Not sure where they went.

As others said, don't trust the forecast. We've had t-shirt weather followed by snow 12 hours later. I don't dedicate any time off to it anymore. Juice ain't worth the squeeze. I'd rather allocate time off to hunt a general tag in other states.

That's not helping disway people from the high hunt!

 

[SteveAndTheCrigBoys]

That's not helping disway people from the high hunt!

Haha, key phrase being “they disappeared in August”

 

[longrangelead]

Haha, key phrase being “they disappeared in August”

they gotta go somewhere?

that bigger 4 is a good buck for WA.