After being referred to Huntin’ Fool by a friend, I applied for the Idaho unit 52 deer tag. It was a hard hunt and one that I otherwise never would have gone on had it not been for the “HF” recommendation in the magazine. It is typically a migratory hunt. This fall had irregularly high temperatures, and we didn’t see the amount of bucks that unit typically has potential for. There was a harsh winterkill the year before, and with the heat on top of that, the big deer were still in the Sawtooths.
I was joined by my father on this hunt, and we hunted hard. We glassed steep canyons and hiked many miles on ridges of the eastern end of the unit. We had talked with many other hunters and locals, and they had said they weren’t having much luck seeing deer either. We stayed persistent and slowly started to turn up more bucks. None were the 180"+ giants we had come for, but we saw countless 150-175" deer.
On the second to last day of the hunt, we had luck turning up two good bucks. We sat and glassed these deer all morning. They were skylined, and it was a great opportunity to pick them apart. We saw the tall, thick 4 I harvested and another wide 4x5. It was probably 175", not thick but with cool character. After carefully looking over these bucks, I decided I wanted the 4. I slammed down some water and then some jerky, and it was game on.
Cutting the distance on these bucks was a very difficult stalk. My father and I couldn’t seem to avoid other deer that were in between us and the two bedded bucks. Miraculously, none of the deer busted over the hill. Our bucks were hopefully still bedded where we had last seen them. As we got within 100 yards, I decided it would be best to do the rest of the stalk solo. However, it didn’t matter. The deer were only 50 yards on the backside of the ridge. I slowly crawled up on the two sleeping deer, found a steady rest, and delivered a great shot. The .300 Win did the trick. My old man was there to be a part of it all.
This hunt was definitely a lot harder than what we had anticipated. We hadn’t seen as many Booners as what years past had produced, but it was still an amazing memory that I can attribute to the information gathered from the kind folks at Huntin’ Fool. Thanks for all you do! Ever since we have subscribed, we frequently read the information you share.
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