Hntn

We rolled out of the inversion at about 5:15, not that the fog cleared but at least it didn't stink. Our new radio station was playing some Marley, things boded well. The Bonner truck stop was busy as a hive. Fluorescent lights gave an '80's sci-fi glow to the camo-and-blaze-orange clad fellas. Some poop juice in our mugs, we headed up 200 to location X in a little red Toyota that managed to stay upright.

Paddling a canoe across a black river on a foggy morning is fun. Kinda like ice skating with your eyes shut. Zach and I climbed the frozen bank, scrambling a bit on the frozen mud, and headed west on the frozen logging road.

The high pressure cycle plaguing us has turned the snow to not-so-sneaky crust. We were about as quiet as a fuckin' herd of elephants as we made the mile or so to the bottom of the draw we wanted to hunt. Since we both had A tags in our pockets, we decided to split up so there wouldn't be any bickering over who would shoot, not that we ever have before.

Blah blah blah, long day, no damn deer. At about 3, I decided I had better get my ass to a good spot to sit for the evening. Running down a snowy ridge with a gun is something your mother would probably advise against. About 1800 vert and two miles later I plopped down in my spot sweating my ass off. Oh well. I could see about 40 acres of sparsely timbered hillside above the river and I could hear even the squirrels walking on the crunchy snow.

The first buck was a biggun'. I heard him and turned to put him in my scope. He was weaving in and out of the thicker timber uphill from me, unaware of my sweaty self. The second time I saw him I put up, but he was still moving. I looked over my scope, saw him again and looked back into a foggy scope I had just managed to breath into. Damnit, he was gone.

Three, literally three, minutes later I heard another one, downhill from me this time.

Now as an aside, because I can already hear the shit I'm gonna get for this, I've had a cursed hunting season. Wrecked truck, bad schedule, battling elk, the works, so I had determined in the interest of feeding myself to shoot whatever the hell I could. So piss off Mikey.


Anyway, the whitetail spika was feeding at a slow pace. I rolled onto my side but couldn't get the butt onto my shoulder. Fuck it, I shot anyway. Yup, missed. Nice eh? Well young deer being just that, he didn't go anywhere, but looked around in confusion. This time I was standing and shot off hand. Zipped him dead nuts. He took off running and waiving his truce flag for the last time. When he hit the ponderosa head on, it sounded like two bolling balls clocking together. I raised an eyebrow at how hard he hit the damn thing. When I got down there, I saw he had snapped one of his cute little horns off on the trunk and it was sticking straight out of the tree. Doingoingoing, cartoon style.

Easy drag, easier paddle, short wait for an unsuccessful and downtrodden Zach and we were headed back through the pea soup to Zoo town. Sorry no pics, but here's one of our Gorge weekend. Thought it might help warm some folks up this turkey day.