Returned home late last night from a 13 day trip to Idaho.My annual DIY rifle hunt with four friends of mine.The hunting wasn't great,deer numbers are down there with two consecutive hard winters and those vermin called wolves chewing on to many deer and elk. We hunted our tails off and went 3 for 5 on kill's.A close friend of mine and I were covering some serious ground every day and we came in to an area on the 19th that was just loaded with brand new aggressive scrapes.We set up in area's that took advantage of wind direction and the manner in which a buck would have to travel to check all the new sign he had laid down. Long story short I killed a very nice 5x5 around 1:00 in the afternoon.Big bodied,good mass and beam length,just shy of 20 inches inside spread.He wasn't rutting hard yet,just light stains on his hocks buck he had the thickest neck on any buck I have ever taken. I am technologically challenged,or I would post pictures. Troy and I were going to meet up the evening before but I was dealing with a stomach virus that had me down for 24 hours,chills,body ache sensitive stomach.It was not fun! With Troy headed to Iowa I didn't think it right to expose him to illness.One of our guy's was throwing up for several days with what must have been a stronger dose than what I was effected by.
Sounds like a good trip(minus getting sick) Glad you scored on a nice one! Can't wait to see the pics.
Been thinking about ya Scot on how It was going out there. Glad you connected on a good one, congratulation's bud!!
Thank you Scott for posting the pictures! In the second picture you will see his broken eye gaurds and his ripped ear.He most definitely was doing some fighting.In the last picture there is a clearcut about three quarters of the way up on the left hand side.I shot this buck approximately a half mile to the right of the upper most right hand corner of the clear cut.It was quite a hoof to get back in to where we were hunting. One of his points is just barely an inch and he doesn't have long tine length but he was a stud of a buck and I am very happy with him.
Thank you very much everyone for the nice comments! Nice to hear from a lot of folks here that I hold in high regard.Lot's of genuinely nice people! So many people think that out of state trips are easy.I say with certainty that is not the case where we go.We work hard for the opportunities we get out there.I have been fortunate in that I have killed 3 5x5's in the last four years in Idaho all of them very nice deer (not Troy nice,but respectable bucks). What has really been discouraging is the deer numbers have been declining over the last few years.Three years ago I saw 17 bucks in 10 days of hunting,last year 9 in the same time frame,this year 4.The bucks rut late out there and I will say that had I not tagged out on day 7 this year I think I would have seen several more bucks.One of our guy's killed a buck (perfectly symetrical 5x5,17.5 inches wide,good tine length)and I have never seen a buck rutting like that deer.Hocks were black and he had urine soaked legs down to his hoofs. I attribute the reason for the decline in the deer numbers primarily to the wolves.I saw wolf tracks all over the place,many as big as my fist.I saw wolf beds in the snow a number of times,heard them howling a number of times.A friend of mine and I actually were howling back to one one morning and moving toward it as it answered back.He had a wolf tag.We broke through pines in to the mountain meadow the wolf was in and it saw us at the same time we saw it.He got lost quickly and proceeded to howl on the closest ridge fairly quickly. We did see six elk this year,4 bulls.I always marvel at how big those suckers are,and how for such an enourmous animal,how they can slip away so quietly.Conversely when they crash out when you jump them they are like a freight train. Sorry for the rambling here! These things just came to mind.
