My dad, grandpa, and I had been waiting for this mule deer hunting trip for three years. Sadly, my grandpa couldn’t come due to Covid. It ended up just being my dad and me going on a late October rifle hunt in the Ruby Mountains outside Elko, Nevada. It was a five-day hunt with Currant Creek Outfitters.
The drive was 23 hours, but I didn’t mind. I liked seeing new country and animals. When we got into Wyoming, I saw my first herd of antelope. I thought they were so cool. I really liked their colors and horns. The first thing my dad and I did when we got home was apply for antelope points in Wyoming. Then we drove through the Great Salt Lake. I was surprised by all the waterfowl there. When we went across the Salt Flats, we kept thinking we were closer to being across them than we actually were, and we ended up being on them for two hours.
Once we got to Elko, it was pretty late, so we had a quick dinner and went to bed. When we were packing up the next morning, a big flock of snow geese flew over. I had never seen snow geese before, and I thought they were pretty cool. We went to meet our guide, Dalton Frank. He introduced himself, and then we were off. We were going to a big chunk of public land south of town. The roads were so dusty that we had to stay about 300 yards behind Dalton and the trailer. It had been extremely dry in the area all year. It hadn’t rained in two months, so reliable water sources were scarce.
We got to the hunting spot and set up camp. There was an hour or two to go out glassing before sunset. I realized how beautiful it was out there. We saw three does, so we were off to a promising start. We had little idea of what was to come.
The next morning, we woke up with high hopes. Overnight lows around 0 should have the deer up and moving in the sun. We got up to the same spot we were glassing the previous afternoon. After hiking and glassing a few different spots, we couldn’t turn anything up other than a small doe a little before daylight. Dalton said he had another spot we could check out about 20 miles away. On the way to the spot, we saw many wild mustangs and the damage they were doing to existing water sources. We glassed around at the new spot for a bit but didn’t see anything, so we headed back to the trailer and had a snack. Dalton said he had a better spot in mind. We picked up camp and headed to the new spot. We set up camp and headed out to do some glassing.
After driving up some rough two-tracks high in the mountains, we glassed around. However, we still couldn’t find anything. Then we looked through two big canyons until dark. On the way back, we were slightly confused on why we hadn’t seen anything. We figured it was just the first day of hunting, so we didn’t let it bother us.
The next morning, Dalton said we were going to go as high as the roads would take us and then hike higher. My dad, Dalton, and I hiked up to 9,600 feet and glassed around. Camp was at 5,600 feet. We were glassing for around four hours, slowly moving our way around a mountain, but we didn’t see any deer.
When we got back to camp, we had a quick snack. Dalton put some fuel in his truck, and we headed back up into the mountains. We drove up to a peak near the spot where we were the previous evening. We had no luck glassing again.
When we woke up the next morning, we decided we were going to hunt some lower draws. Although we didn’t see any horns, we turned up five does, which was some progress. In the evening, we turned up 17 does at pretty much the same spot. At this point, we were really stumped on why we couldn’t find any bucks, especially since the rut was starting. We knew they would be somewhat nocturnal, but not like this.
The next morning, we went to the same spot where we were seeing all the does before, hoping to find a decent buck. Dalton went up high to glass while my dad and I hunted around the bottom of the mountain. We found seven does and set up on them, hoping a buck would step out. We waited half an hour but nothing came out. Dalton drove down in his truck and picked us up. He said he had a different area nearby to check out. We went over to the other area and saw a good amount of deer sign, so we moved camp to the base of the new mountain.
We headed out from camp to a good lookout on a ridge. After about 15 minutes of glassing, we spotted four does way up high on a mountain across a valley. There were still no bucks in sight. That was until Dalton said some powerful words, “I found your buck.” He was a beautiful 4x4. There were a few problems, though. Dalton thought the buck was a mountain goat because it was so high. We marked him at almost two miles across a deep valley, but we were running out of shooting light. We had just over an hour of hunting left.
After some quick planning, we took off down into the valley as fast as we could. Dalton had 30 pounds of gear and I was 11, so when we got to the bottom of the valley, Dalton said to my dad, “If you think you can get up to that buck faster than we can, give it a shot.” My dad took off ahead, and Dalton and I started up the mountain. My dad climbed up on a rocky point, while Dalton and I were still 200 yards behind him. The buck hadn’t stepped out from the thick brush yet. Finally, Dalton and I got over to my dad, and Dalton relocated the buck coming out of cover above the group of does. My dad got set up to take the shot as the buck was 323 yards away. All the driving, all the glassing, and all the hiking led to this moment. Boom! The shot sounded like a hit. Dalton recorded the shot through his Phone Skope to make it easier to find the blood trail. After reviewing the footage, we saw it was a solid hit. I watched through the spotting scope to direct my dad and Dalton to the shot location. A few minutes after they disappeared into the brush, I heard cheers of joy.
I ran over there as fast as I could. We celebrated and took pictures and then we made a plan to get him down the mountain. Dalton and Dad dragged the buck down through the brush and rocks while I carried the packs and the rifle. It took about an hour to get to the two-track in the valley. We waited and admired the deer and talked about the hunt while Dalton went to get the truck. We loaded everything up and headed back to camp. As soon as we got there, I took off my boots and passed out immediately. That was one of the best trips I have ever had.
We were in a great mood all the way home and were excited to hunt the whitetail rut back in Wisconsin. Our good luck continued when I shot a beautiful 9-point opening morning with my Dad’s 6.5 PRC. It was a great hunting season. I just wish my grandpa could have been there to see it all.