During the summer of 2017 while on a backpacking trip through big buck country in the Uinta Mountains, I had an epiphany, a sudden clarity of thought. I needed to find more opportunities to hunt outside of my home state of Utah. I love to hunt Utah, have had good success, and have made some incredible memories, but it was time to start expanding my opportunities. As soon as I got home, I contacted my friend, Rich Howard, whom I knew had found great success in recent years in states outside of Utah, and he told me the first thing I needed to do was sign up for Huntin’ Fool. With Rich’s help and through the detailed information I was able to find in the Huntin’ Fool Member Research section, I discovered that this late in the game, one of my best options was to buy one of the many non-resident over- the-counter tags available in Idaho. I researched, asked questions in the Huntin’ Fool forum, studied Google Maps, and found what I thought would be a great spot for a guy to have a self-guided backcountry hunt for mule deer right in the middle of the rut.
The most meticulous plans can sometimes be disrupted, and Mother Nature is often the one causing the problems. The week of my planned hunt, a large storm system moved into the area I was backpacking into, resulting in dropping temperatures and blizzard-like conditions. As a husband and father of five, a solo hunt in the backcountry in those conditions didn’t seem like the most responsible decision, so I made the hard choice to cancel my hunt. I let a couple buddies know of my decision, and they provided an immediate solution. “Hey, you already have the time off. Drive east instead of north, buy an over- the-counter archery tag, and join us in South Dakota.” I drove home from work, traded my rifle for my bow, and within an hour, my plans had shifted 180 degrees. I was hunting whitetail instead of mule deer and archery instead of rifle, but I was still hunting the rut on a non-resident over-the-counter tag. I ended up harvesting a beautiful whitetail buck, my first ever, and spent the weekend with great friends as they each connected on trophy mule deer.
Fast forward two years and the memory of that canceled hunt in the Idaho backcountry had been tugging at the back of my mind with greater and greater intensity. I had never set foot in the country I had planned to hunt, but there were vivid images burned in my mind from studying Google Earth, reading hunting reports of the area, and watching videos of any similar hunt I could find. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could envision the steep, rugged country, the skiff of snow on gold/brown hillsides, and big bucks trolling hot does during the rut. I needed to get back up there and turn those dreams into reality.
This time, I’d be better prepared and I wouldn’t be attempting the trip alone. Enter my good friend Dylan. We had talked for years about a hunt like this, and when I called him in July, he said, “Heck yeah!” without hearing anything more than mule deer, Idaho, and November.
As we were making the eight-hour drive the night before our hunt started, I started to feel a little guilty. You see, after years of running ultra-distance races through the mountains, my idea of an easy pace has become somewhat distorted, and I knew that even with pulling on the reins, there was a chance that I would set a pace that Dylan wouldn’t appreciate. On the drive up with deer and bear tags in our pockets, I told Dylan that whatever we came across, he had the first shot.
By the time we had hiked the six and a half miles and 3,000 feet of elevation to get to our campsite, we were both ready for a rest. However, we still needed to fill up on water and the closest spring was almost a mile away. We decided to hunt our way to the spring, and even though the temperatures were unseasonably warm and we hadn’t seen an animal other than a few bighorn sheep, the fact that it was primetime for the rut and we were in new country with opportunity in each new draw had us optimistic.
It was late afternoon as we made our way along the hillside towards the spring, and just as I was about to comment to Dylan that this was the time of day that anything could appear out of nowhere, Dylan held his hand up and whispered, “Deer.” I pulled my binoculars up and told him I saw does. He said there was a buck above them, and all it took was one glance and I told him it was a shooter. Dylan had his pack off in a flash and settled in for the shot.
He later told me that he looked over at me wondering when I was going to shoot and when he saw that I had a camera andnotaguninmy hand, he knew I was serious about him taking the first shot. Dylan made an incredible off-hand shot up a steep hillside and dropped the buck in its tracks.
Over the next few days, I hunted hard, looking for the buck I had envisioned for the last two years. It was all exactly as I had dreamed – the steep, rugged country and the skiff of snow on gold/brown hillsides, but there were no more big bucks trolling hot does, only a couple of small fork horns pretending like they knew what they were doing.
On the pack out, I couldn’t help but reflect on how fortunate I was. Sure, I hadn’t found the buck I was hoping for, but I had spent four days in some of the most beautiful country I’d ever been blessed to be in with a good friend as he harvested his biggest buck to date. We listened to bighorn rams cracking skulls and elk bugling long past when they should have been. We swapped hunting tales our dads had passed on to us and told a few of our own. We stoked the fire for more adventures to come. Idaho, we’ll be back.
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