BACKROUND-

Craig Wyosnick invited Ted Eyre and Bill Nelson on a Wyoming deer hunt.  He had heard of an area and a guide through the writings of K(C)athy E..., a magazine and book hunting writer.  Craig has become a hunter of trophies and has his eye open for big deer (he considers mule deer the most challenging quarry he has met {since he got married}) opportunities.  We said, yes, thank you.  I suggested we apply for an antelope license and make a safari out of it.  So it was written, so it was done.

Craig handled all the application stuff and all communications with our outfitter.  ***I will call Gene Carrico, of Out West Safaris, 'outfitter': He did not guide our hunts and he did not outfit us with anything, but, for a fee, per person, of $700 for our deer area and $125 for our antelope, he gained for us access privileges to his family's ranch and a couple of other ranches, let us camp on his place, and drove out with us to show us good areas.***  Surprisingly enough, we all got our licenses.  Plans began to form.

During the Rancho Hondo Oldtimers weekend we huddled over the maps I had gotten over the Web, set dates, and assigned duties.  Craig would bring his canvas tent, to be used for cooking and sleeping, I would bring my tent for Ted and me and I would be fodder provider.  Ted was given no responsibilities.

STATISTICS -

My Bronco traveled 3194 miles.
Licenses - $195 deer, $195 antelope.
Access fees - $825 per person.
Location - about 30 miles south of Rawlins, WY, east of hwy 71, west of the
Medicine Bow Nat'l Forest and the town of Saratoga, north of the town of
Encampment.  Antelope east of the Continental Divide, south of Sage Creek and
west of the North Platte, deer west of the CD.
Hunting Area - private land and public contiguous.
Dates - leave Calif. Fri. morning Oct. 2, arrive Calif. Sat. night Oct. 18.
Vehicles - Bill's Bronco & Craig's shelled pick-up.
Food - excellent.

Wed., Sept. 30

Get off work at noon, about eleven hours later than expected.  Buy Sorrels on way home, Tri-City doesn't sell aux. liners!!!  Sleep, miss chance to use 5% coupon at Safeway for food (expired 9/30).  Essentially lose a full day of planned preparation.

Thurs., Oct. 1

Fill living room up with gear, make sure camp kitchen cleaned since last BunnyBust (whew), shop (had bought non-perishables two wks. earlier), decide to bring Mom's .257 as backup rifle, discover 100 rounds of hollow-pt. .257's and grab them for rabbits or prairie dogs, set up fanny pack with emergency supplies in anticipation of getting lost.

Friday, Oct. 2

Take way too long to tie tent bag and chairs to top of Bronco.  Call Ted, ask how much volume I need to fit (his 'duffel bag' turns out to be the size of a body bag!).  Rolled rear seat up in order to fit all the boxes.  Discover I own only one set of tire chains, not two as strongly recommended by Craig, will buy one on the road. Leave at 10:00, 1.5 hrs. late (what's new?), arrive Ted's, pack, roll out of town.  Arrive Craig's in Reno, view his mounted heads, discuss our trophy standards & hopes, leave.  We stayed in close convoy all the way, using Craig's handy Motorola walkie-talkies to stay in touch and to remind Craig to turn off his dang turn signals and to quit trying to read the fine print on my bumper, you get the idea.  Elko sure has grown- lotsa lights. Arrive Wells, NV 9:30 pm, donate $50 to the casino, sleep at motel.  Leave 9:30 am, get stuck in bad traffic at the Salt Lake City construction detour (did we really leave the Bay Area?), Ted made us miss our exit at Echo but we got there.  Ted had hunted for elk last year out of Echo and said we needed to try the taste of the cafe's milk shakes and the patience of the cute waitress. We did both; they were agreeable.  I had the open-face chili burger (will be germane later).  From the freeway we saw the bottom of some of the canyons that Ted elked.  The hills had some brushy oak plants in various color phases. Began to get snow/rain.  In Wyoming, saw some antelope off the hiway.  Neat butte formations- seemingly sedimentary with 50' of volcanic swirls & folds on top.  Land similar to NV, but in shades of brown rather than gray/green.  The plains across are at 6500-7000'.  Lotsa sno fences.  See three permanent signs warning of freeway closure when flashing; one spot even has a gate to close across 80!  My chili lunch begins to haunt Ted.

Made Rawlins at 7:30 pm.  Cleaned up at the motel, met for dinner Kathy Etling, the hunting writer, with her hubby, daughter, son-in-law?  Craig kept her ear warm.  She had been hunting for a few days on the ranch to which we were going, and gave intelligence to us.  Unfortunately the weather had made travel on the ranch roads difficult to impossible.  Lack of forethought made for an uncomfortable moment at dinner check time, but Craig rescued us with the right decision and words.  The guys decide to flip coins to choose a loser to share the motel room with flatulating Bill.  Craig lost.

Sun., Oct. 4

Awaken, breakfast, pick up groceries (Craig wanted salad extras like mushrooms, blooo cheese, & olive oil; we needed chicken to replace the meat I left at home in the freezer; Ted wanted to make GORP; extra ice; and our WY 'conservation stamp').  I ran out to find a second set of tire chains, a difficult job because Rawlins was not yet shelving winter supplies.  We were rushing around on these jobs because we expected to meet our outfitter at 10:00 for a tour of our hunting area.  We hung around the motel lobby, watching 'Robin and the Seven Hoods (one of my favorite movies), concerned about the character of our outfitter who wasn't keeping the first appointment, until about 11, when we got his phone call.  He had been out helping a hunter bring in a deer in the bad conditions.  He persuaded us to remain in town another night and let the storm go by before trying to set up camp and drive the dirt (mud) roads.  He gave us directions to our antelope area, which borders the county road, so we could get our feet wet (we did).

On our way out there we stopped by the processor/taxidermy shop to review heads.  We met Tom Entinger, the 'Pronghorn Professional, a frenetic, wiry little guy with a large handlebar mustache.  He showed us around, though he was busy, giving us pointers on estimating antelope on the hoof.  --trophy antelope are somewhat difficult to identify: save the obvious hugies, one looks for length of horn (an inch is a great difference), length and 'mass' of prong ( a half-inch ibid), and mass of the horn both below and above the
prong.--

We drove south to the intersection of Sage Creek and the county road, the northern boundary of our antelope area.  We pulled to the side of the road and hauled out the spotting scopes to look at the antelope, standing around as if on que.  The weather was blowing and snowing, so we sorta stayed in the cars. Then we got adventurous, bundled up, and hopped the rancher's fence.  Just as we discovered the marvelous slippery-but-sticky quality of the bentonite mud of which we had heard, Gene Carrico, our outfitter pulled off the hiway.  We helloed, set up a time to meet on the morrow, byed, and continued out through the mud.

We looked at a group or two of 'lopes, then saw a lone buck well up on a foothill.  I elected to stay behind and observe while the pards attempted to stalk within good viewing range.  I had my best experience with camo: Ted's brown-based clothing disappeared him very, very quickly.  If he had walked slower I would not have been able to see him at 150 yds.; as it was, he reminded me of the alien in the movie, 'Predator', who was visible just as a slight distortion of the scenery.  The buck left before the guys could get up there but they did see a mulie buck up the hill.  After we returned to the cars we spotted around, and Craig saw a pair of bull elk near an aspen grove. These were my first wild elk.

A note on the spotting scopes- Craig has owned a 45 power for a number of years, using it at the ranch and for all his hunting; he carries it in his pack and would not want to hunt without it.  Ted bought, in time for this trip, a fancier, 60 power scope.  Its quality of image was amazing to us all, and it became the scope of choice when tough viewing obtained.  Judging horns at 1000 yds is not difficult at 60 pwr and with the clarity that scope has.

I think we had dinner with Gene that night, joined by Kathy Etling & her husband, and a couple of Gene's guides.  Gene pulled out his two photo books to get us revved up, I happened to have my pics of Paul's 4-pt. blacktail & my latest pig.  We talked hunting, got directions around the ranch, etc. I don't remember if we flipped coins for the anti-privelege of sharing a room with me, but Craig was once again the goat.  That was best because he can fire back at a person at will.  I still don't know why they didn't just banish me
to the single room as quarantine.

Mon., Oct. 5

We met Gene for breakfast, then he led us, at too great a speed for the snowy road, to our home of the next two weeks.  He gave us keys to his ranch and the others to which he had access, took us 1/4 mi. into his place and showed us some camp site options.  We (wisely) declined the area outside the old frame and log cabins as being probably muddy after the snow, and didn't want to be inside them or the open-ended barn (although they were a possible retreat in case of worse weather), and chose instead a flat area at the side of the road just inside a grove of aspens 50 yards further on.  (Turned out to be a great choice-- what a beautiful camp we had!: somewhat protected from wind, shady but with sunlight filtering through the yellow aspen leaves that twinkled in the breeze, with an open view out our 'back yard' of sage flats and one hill, and a little rivulet running just behind the tents.  Wood was abundant in the form of standing dead trees just across the road and kindling was hanging off the aspens mere feet from the fire pit.)

We set up camp there while Gene did some chores at the main house a mile away.  We found two flat spots for our tents, giving us a 'living area', our fire pit, kitchen table and beach chairs, between them.  Craig had a large old-style canvas tent in which he set up his cot, a table for the propane stove with cooking supplies, and the 8 or so food boxes lined around the tent perimeter.  I had my synthetic Winnebago tent to house Ted and me and Ted's huge duffel blimp.

We finished unloading the vehicles, dressed for cold-weather hunting, got out our guns and optics, and drove in my Bronco up the road to meet Gene.  Before he led us to the hunting area I stopped to verify my rifle's aim.  Ted set out a target, the making of which I had used as a lesson for Mom with her computer, on a paper bag.  I shot twice- ok, then, while unloading my magazine I noticed that I had used my hollow-point ammo.  Ted had to put the target back in place while I dug out the correct bullets.  (The real McCoy shot ok also, and it was comforting to learn that my rabbit/prairie dog ammo shot to about the same aim.)

Gene took Craig in his truck as he led us through the snow.  We stopped at a small fenced enclosure where he demonstrated a solar-powered water pump we were allowed to use (we tried it once, failed [frozen?], and settled for water from a gas station hose on each trip to Rawlins).  We went on, around a couple of ridges and stopped on a ridge top beyond which the road was likely impassable with snow & mud.  Gene pointed out creeks and ridges, parks (open areas on hillsides) and roads, and warned us of the boundary of the Hansen ranch.  A truck on another ridge demonstrated the edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest.

We saw deer out, in the near distance and in the far, across Savery Creek on a succession of hillsides.  The nearbies had us estimating at between 300 & 600 yards distance; Gene's range finder put them at 460.  This revelation of our abilities put no confidence in my mind.  We saw some bands of elk, also.

We drove back a short distance, then Gene went bye-bye while we made plans to begin hunting.  Those plans were quickly put on hold because I was stuck in the mud!  We put on chains (yes, I started one inside-out), drove a short distance, and stopped to hike out to a knob to do some spotting.  We saw a fair number of deer feeding at every point of the compass, although no bucks worth mentioning, and I even saw a band of pronghorns out there, far higher up than I expected.

We then parked a little beyond the spot at which we had gotten stuck and took a walk.  Craig went down the ridge on which we were parked and sat on its end to scope the hillsides on the other side of the creek below him while Ted & I took parallel routes in another direction.  It looked like an easy walk up a slope in the snow but I soon discovered that there was a steep canyon to cross: the complete blanket of snow had fooled me, making the near ridge top blend in with the side of the ridge beyond- I thought it was a straight shot. At the bottom I crossed on a beaver dam, a first for me and a dicey proposition because I could not see the nature of the footing under the snow.

Looking back I saw a good-sized fork in the forest above the Bronco.  I walked on one side of a large grove of aspen on the other hillside while Ted skirted the other.  He pushed a group of does out of the creek bottom up the hill and I saw them and a few others in the open and sneaking around just inside the aspens.

Ted & I met up at the top of that ridge, went to the next to get a view up the canyon, then headed back.  On the walk back we spotted a small area of red in the snow.  As we approached it we saw an eagle on the ground nearby; I could get within about 20 yards of it before it would flap/waddle away a bit. We saw no sign of injury and wonder if it wasn't too full from eating, on the gut pile that was the bloody area we had seen, to fly.  Silly me, I had not brought my camera; one of my trip regrets is that I did not take more photos during the early part of the trip.  The gut pile was right on a road (we had walked to public land); we figure that the truck we had seen earlier in the morning had had a successful hunt.  I saw the fork in the forest again on the way back, and Ted spooked them away.  I was now getting a knowledge of how much larger than our blacktails the mulies are.  We made it back to the car, a bit worn out and glad we had brought our Sorels.

Craig had seen plenty of deer, out feeding during the day to make up for the time they had spent huddled under trees during the storm, but no bucks of import.  We headed towards camp and I dropped the others off at the beginning of a ridge to hunt for 'The Hog', a large buck that Kathy Entling's party had been chasing the week before.  I chose to go to camp to rest and finish setting things up.

They took their walk; did not see the Hog.  -- Understand that we saw deer wherever we went, mainly does & fawns but plenty of young bucks: forks & 3-pointers abounded.  We saw few mature bucks and only one in the trophy class.  Both Craig and Ted were very impressed with the quality of the area as deer & elk habitat, and the number of deer we saw affirmed their conviction notwithstanding the deer that may have been pressed out of the adjoining national forest.--  They crossed above camp and walked around the last hill, covered with sage, as the land sloped down to sage flats.  There they saw a bunch more deer.  They came into camp about dark and found a dinner of ribeye steaks and corn-on-the-cob nearly ready.

A word about our camp fire: the aspen was a medium burner; except for its dampness from the recent weather the small stuff would catch, but sticks larger than an inch-and-a-half needed smaller around to flame well.  Pieces even larger did a lot of smoking!  A great, great help in starting each fire was the mil-surp trioxane tablets I had bought through my Sportsman's Guide catalogue.  They burn for up to seven minutes and wouldn't be snuffed out by an overload of kindling.  Good addition to a camp or survival kit. As bed time neared I realized that I had forgotten my sleeping bag. Considering the snow on the ground and the probability that night temperatures would be in the 20's or low 30's, I was a bit disconcerted, 'nonplussed' as Ted might now say.  I made do as best I could, and, except for the constriction from all my clothing, I slept very comfortably, toasty warm.  I went to bed in 2 sets of long-john bottoms and a pair of jeans; a wool, long- sleeved undershirt under a cotton shirt under a down vest under a wool over- shirt under a wool jacket; a balaclava and a wool cap on top; with a jacket wrapped around the 3 pairs of wool hiking socks on my feet; and a wool blanket encompassing all.  I still had plenty of cold-weather clothing left over!

Tues., Oct. 6

We arose at a reasonable time, none of this 4:00 AM stuff, and drove back to our mud-stuck area.  Ted stayed high to do some scoping while Craig & I walked to the ridge end on which Craig had sat the day before.  On our way I looked back and saw a large buck trotting on the next ridge over (twice several hundred yards away).  We assume it was pushed; Craig thinks we pushed it but I disagree, since it was now quite behind us and was trotting parallel to us across the open ridge instead of ducking into the forest.  I got a big laugh when Craig tried to put his spotting scope into action: He had to unsling his rifle and place it carefully, take off his mittens, pull off his rucksack and unzip it, haul out the scope, extend the tripod legs- oops, one leg is frozen shut!  He was pulling, tugging, grunting, cursing.  Scopes are nice but maybe not always handy when a buck is leaving the country.  We got the leg undone with the help of my lighter.  The deer was a 4x4 or so, not bad but narrow and without mass.  It was not quite good enough to tempt Craig on a stalk.

We spent a few hours perched on frozen rocks in the snow with the wind peeling all our heat from our bodies, using binocs and Craig's spotting scope to view the elk and deer on the other side of Savery Creek.  Not my style but probably necessary for serious trophy hunters, and certainly a good way for us newcomers to learn the lay of the land.

Craig and I walked back to the vehicle by way of the draw next to our look- out point, I in the bottom, he on the side hill.  As I walked through the aspens in the creek I saw lots & lots of deer tracks, trails, and beds in the snow.  I spooked a couple of does out; they didn't go hell bent for leather but snuck around through the trees, watching me.  After I left the trees and headed up the draw in the bare, snow-covered hillside, according to Craig a few does walked down from the next ridge and passed close behind me.  I never noticed and we sure don't know why they would do such an exposed thing. We drove back to camp and ate lunch behind the tents outside the edge of the aspens, basking in the sun on our lounge chairs.  We then split up: they headed back to hunt the Hog while I drove to Rawlins in Craig's pick-up to buy a sleeping bag.

In town I filled a water can from a hose at a gas station and bought some mushrooms, plastic utensils and paper plates & cups for Craig. Craig's tradition and propensity while car-camping is to cook over the propane stove in a cook tent and minimize dish washing.  Mine is to cook and eat over a fire and use only a few dishes, washing them with coffee (the greatest detergent known to man) and paper towels.  We had a good time vying for Ted's companionship, Craig tempting him with a warm, windless, smokeless, well-lighted tent, and I with ...what, smoke in the eyes, chill in the air, no light by which to eat,... 

I bought the only sleeping bag with a low-temp rating left at the store, a huge sack made for Fat Albert.  It hung about 1.5 feet off both the foot and the side of my cot!  Rawlins is laid out in a strange way, quite a confused sprawl, with access made more difficult by few streets that cross the railroad tracks.  Craig figured it out almost instinctively, but I, being mentally challenged, was challenged every time I got behind the wheel. The boys were out Hog hunting when I returned to camp and it was late so I went to hunt the sage hill nearby, where they had seen a few deer.  I saw 13, including a pair of 3-pointers.  As I sat on a hillside I saw several deer come up to the flats from a deep, steep arroyo.  I resolved to check it out on another hunt.  On the way back I saw 3 beavers in the pond just above camp. We ate teriyaki chicken and oriental Rice-a-Roni for dinner.

On one of Ted's hunts he saw a porcupine, all puffed up with quills out. We were surprised at the number of broken aspen tops; the snow was early & heavy and, with leaves still on the trees, too much for the quakies. The weather stayed clear from the time we set up camp.  The snow, only disrupting the very first day, was a nice touch rather than a trip-ruining condition.

Wed., Oct. 7

Last night I began feeling the symptoms of a cold.  Just what I need on a cold weather hunting trip!

We were not thrilled with the area we had hunted the past two days and wanted very much to get on the other side of Savery Creek to hunt the parks & aspens we'd been watching through our optics and the Dirtyman Creek (my reputation preceded me?) area of which we'd heard, but the roads were still snowy and muddy so we decided to drive down to the lower elevation of Sage Creek to put in a day of antelope hunting and give the roads another day of sunshine. Gene had suggested that we should drive in from the back, on top of the plateau, so that we could view from a height and have a vantage from which to see many animals.  It took a bit of map reading (Ted was right) and some muddy going but we found our way onto a huge grass-covered plateau, a peninsula poking out into the huge valley that was our hunting ground.  The idea was that we could drive from point to point on the plateau and scope out new vistas of the valley below.

Somewhere on top we found two fieldstone monuments, perhaps 8' tall and 3-4' wide; we haven't a clue as to their significance but we recognized a photo-op when we saw one.  The wind was really whipping at the time (all the time) and it was an uncomfortable shoot but worth it because Ted's baggy pants in the wind made for a ridiculous-looking picture.

The first place we stopped overlooked the area we had walked on Sunday, so we were well oriented to start the day.  There were some aspen pockets on the slope that dropped to the valley and the boys remarked that there could be deer around.  Later in the trip we saw a few, and even some elk, and ran into some deer hunters.

We saw antelope all over: a band here, a herd there, a pair over yonder, etc. What's the phrase, 'eye-candy'?  It was to us.  We saw no great heads.  We were fairly new at this game and I mentioned before the difficulty of determining better from good on antelope; we were trusting in the 'WOW factor': the expectation that when we saw a trophy buck we would recognize it and involuntarily let out a 'WOW'.

We decided to drop down to the valley (why this early in the day I don't recall) and found a road heading down, but soon discovered that mama nature and papa erosion had hatched a nasty little trap for us.  We backed out of there and continued on top of the plateau, stopping occasionally at the edge to look over new bands of antelope.  We saw them mainly in herds of from 6-15, with some loners drifting around.  The bands would consist of a herd buck, one or two smaller bucks, and the rest does and young'uns.  I figure that the average herd buck was about 14", pretty darn good for an average.  During our 1975 Zweng/Nelson hunt we were begging to even see a 14-incher.

Around noon we dropped from the plateau to what I guess I'll call a bench: halfway down or less to the valley, a mile wide and 2-3 long, with its own topography.  Craig was getting fed up with the worsening road and Ted was ditto with being cramped three-on-a-seat in the pickup (we left the Bronco with its chains still on at camp), so we pulled off the road and went to the top of a ridgelet from which to have a view while we ate lunch.

We saw a buck with two does far away, and through the scopes it looked interesting.  We debated awhile until I got tired of it, still tired of the driving and scoping, and volunteered to stalk over and see if I wanted to shoot it.  Craig and I agreed on arm signals that would tell me where to go, and I headed off.

The topography: one side of the bench was the slope up to the plateau, with a creeklet at its bottom; parallel to that were three long ridges; beyond the third ridge was a fourth, much larger ridge that dropped to the valley on its far side.  This fourth ridge was cut by perpendicular erosions emptying into the gully of the third ridge, so it was almost a set of little ridgelets at right angles to the long three that stretched from the head of the bench down to the foot where the bench melted into the valley.

The area was one of sparse sage of 4-10" height with desert grass and ground- hugging cactus interspersed, with rare clumps of taller bushes. We were parked on the crest of the first ridge, the antelope were on the fourth and farther down the bench.  I headed for the third gully, walking across ridges 2 & 3 and somewhat up the bench so as not to threaten the 'lopes.  I walked down the gully, deeper than expected therefore affording me excellent cover, and turned up the erosion cut that I imagined was just in front of the band's ridgelet.  When I got high enough I turned to look back to the pickup and through my binocs I saw one of the guys wave his arm downbench. I returned to the gully and headed up the cut next down.  I sneaked up that but failed to see my goats.  Come to find out, it was Ted who did the wave and he was not in on our code: he meant to tell me that the band really was on that ridgelet, he was pointing in their direction, not in the direction I needed to travel.  It mattered not because they report that at Ted's movement the 'lopes took off.  They had been standing around there for a good hour, had seen us drive onto our ridge, get out to scope them, meander around the pickup eating and talking, whatever, but let someone stand and stretch an arm and the dumb bunnies feel surprised!!

I still knew none of this and continued up the erosion.  I saw on the ridgetop a doe, and she saw me, and I sat down.  She just stood and watched, at about 150 yards.  Then a buck appeared, farther up the crest and closer to me.  It may not have been extra large but it was a 'Satan', an antelope whose horns, instead of growing up and curving back, grow forward and stay more straight, like a gargoyle's.  We had seen a few examples at the taxidermy shop: I wanted him.  The range was easy and he had not seen me but some of his body was hidden by the crest, he was walking, and, most of all, the blasted wind was blowing like a trumpet section on Speed.  I didn't trust the deflection possibilities (I would fire now if I had it to do again) and let him walk out of sight.  I then ran uphill to try for a better opportunity but that spooked the doe and nothing was in sight when I topped out.  I went to the other side of the fourth ridge and saw, about 600 yards away, Satan with a herd on a finger of the ridge, the space between our two fingers a steep, deep
gully.  They all trotted over the other side and that was that.

If I had it to do again I would intentionally go one ridglet past so as to come on my quarry from above and behind, especially since they would likely have been keeping an eye on the pickup. While I was out there I figured I'd look around so I walked down towards the end of the ridges.  Before I reached it I saw a pickup parked at the bottom, where the 'bench' melted into the main valley, and, nice guy that I am, decided not to disturb other hunters so turned back to begin the trudge uphill and against the wind towards our car.  I angled across the ridges to the first one, closest to the plateau proper, and headed up.

I came across a doe in a cut at about 40 yards distance and went to a kneel, figuring that there must be other animals out of my sight.  Why she didn't see me I'll never know.  I stayed still to wait.  After a few minutes a motorcycle came up the ridge towards me.  I ignored it, ready to fire if a scared buck ran into view.  No buck did come, the doe was alone (or others went down-cut where I couldn't see) and, after she ran away I turned to the cyclist who had stopped at my elbow.  He was a rough-looking thing with a bone-handled knife on one side and a Luger on the other.  He asked if I'd seen his deer hunting buddy, then drove away.

I continued on my way.  I saw Satan up beyond the car and on the third ridge, trotting with a band, and figured I could try for him at another time.  I continued my trudge, uphill against the wind and feeling the effects of my cold, and, now not too many hundreds of yards from the guys, ceased my hunting vigilance.  Of course, now a good-sized buck ran across about 75 yards in my front!!  I was unprepared and it did not seem large enough a trophy at that close range so I did nothing.  Two does followed it -- it turns out to have been the very buck after which I had begun my stalk!

The does ran to the second ridge but soon walked back to the gully between it and the first, so I waited, hoping the buck, which had run farther and looked better at a distance, would come back to them.  I sat still, but in plain sight, for quite a while before walking in the opposite direction until I could hunker down behind a large sage, and I wish I had done that immediately for then the buck might have thought I had left.  As it was, he walked and trotted to the top of the fourth ridge, very far away, and stood there watching for the next hour or so.

I gave up and made it back to the car.  The boys had enjoyed the whole episode, about 2 hours worth I think, and welcomed me back with a cold beer. I got to hear their view of events, about the buck leaving at the wave and... The buck did leave, although the does didn't or at least didn't go far, and ran up along the ridge.  After Craig stepped some yards from the pickup to answer nature's call, and after the motorcycle and pickup interrupted the unbuckling of the pants, he heard a gallop and lo and besquat, the buck ran by at about 30 yards.  His gun was not handy, and the buck really wasn't up to his standard, so the 'lope ran by and went down the ridge, finishing a U- shaped trot as reaction to Ted's wave.  That is how he came to be low on the first ridge where I spooked him on my way back.

We had a good laugh about Craig's toiletry episode, climbed in the car and went around to look over the main valley some more.  We saw many animals of course, but only one good one by a small pond at too far a distance for a good determination.  As the afternoon waned we found a road down to the valley, one that took us by the ranch house that was not far from where we had walked in on the previous Sunday.  We saw an outfitter's tent tucked in some aspens at the base of some hills and wondered what they might be hunting, as such a tent is not needed for antelope hunting and we thought the deer to be too sparse in this area of mainly open valley. I slept on much of the ride back as my cold had a good grip on me.  I planned to sleep in the next morning.  Steak and American fries for dinner.  I put a good gash in my left index finger from careless sawing; Neosporin and band- aids (tm) were my companions for the rest of the trip.  I was more careful with the saw for at least 3 days.

Thurs., Oct. 8

We made our plans last night: with only four days left to the deer season, and having given the roads a day to dry, we wanted to drive to the other side of Savery Creek to investigate the Dirtyman Creek area.  We decided not to waste the early hunting hours playing tourist so Craig chose to look once again for the Hog while Ted wanted to check out the section of Savery that went from behind our camp down to the main road.  I was feeling not so bad, and figured I could stay in during the evening hunt if my cold dragged me down, and didn't want to miss the chance at that part of Savery, so Ted & I planned a cooperative hunt.

Craig and Ted had ended their first afternoon hunt behind the hill near camp, overlooking the Savery arroyo, and had seen deer in the sage, and I had hunted around that hill and had watched several come up to the flats from out of the arroyo, so we all considered it a promising area, though perhaps not one to hold a trophy-caliber animal.

As per our usual routine we likely got up around 6:00, 5:30-7:00 being typical, and, while drinking coffee that Craig perked on his tent stove, made a small fire over which to re-warm what coffee remained in the other pot. After we warmed and woke up, and before Ted's frustration at the, to him, unnecessary waste of time could burst out in a shower of invective, we set off.  Ted chose to hunt with only his .454 Casull on this walk. Ted walked up from camp, along the north side of the three hills, while I went around the other side, to meet at the Savery gulch beyond.  He reports seeing deer every which way, to the tune of about 6 small bucks and 14 does, once he hit the gully that would drop him into the main arroyo.  I saw 13 does and 5 bucks on the back side of the hill.  These were forks and three- pointers, of a size unseen at the Rancho Hondo but small by mulie standards; to a Californian like me they were very fun to see.  5 more bucks trotted by me from out of the arroyo, spooked out by Ted.

Ted got to the bottom of Savery at a point where it made a 90 degree turn. Above where he entered it was about 300 yards across at the top, sloping down to a wide bottom, with pines and aspens and sage on the south bank and sage on the north.  The section he first walked was narrower and steep-sided, covered only in sage.  I  reached the gulch soon after but stayed on the rim, watching the banks for escaping deer and looking ahead along the creek bottom.  This first stretch was perhaps 600 yards in length.  I saw no deer in the creek but several on the rim and on the surrounding flats.  Three does on the bank trotted off along the bank and were pushed along ahead of us for the rest of the hunt.  The poor things never got a breather.

The arroyo took another right turn, to the west, putting me on the high north rim with the much lower south rim being the beginning of flat sage plain. With my good elevation I had an excellent field of view and could see far ahead of Ted: no deer could escape unseen.  I would back away from the rim to get out of sight, and walk a hundred yards or so before sneaking up to the edge, and just sit until Ted matched my position.  I saw few moving away from Ted, only one in the bottom itself.  Most of the 23 more I saw were on my bank or on the flats ahead along the creek direction or behind me on the flats. The creek on this stretch was well covered with brush and open aspen. My rim was cut by small erosion gullies and by two significant gulches that had good aspen cover on their sides.  The aspened banks gave me great expectations but produced only a few does, usually preceded by the three pushed ahead earlier.  Twice that trio came up on top with me and then dropped into one of those gullies, only to find me coming around the bend a few
minutes later.

We left Savery after about 800 yards of that second section and walked up the creek that wound by our camp another 800 yards uphill.  The lower section of it was 250 yards wide and all well covered with aspen.  I cut the corner and perched myself with a great view of all the expected action.  It was not long until a doe with a pair of fawns came out, with an eye on their back trail.  I remained still while they came to within 20 yards of me.  They stopped and stared back at the gulch, not noticing me.  They would walk a few feet, stop & watch for the danger that is Eyre, and repeat.  I just swiveled my head between watching them to looking for monster bucks chased out of the creek and back to them.  The fawns finally got curious about me but didn't know I was a big bad wolf, and the doe was concentrating too hard on the known but unseen threat below to even notice me.  After about ten minutes they reached the flats above me and trotted off.

Meanwhile, the hunt was reaching its climax as Ted was going through the last of the cover: anything drifting ahead of him would soon need to break out or find itself exposed as the creek's wooded gully became a mere rivulet in the sage.  I wasn't disappointed.  A group of seven came out on the opposite bank, their white butts bright in the morning light, and another ten or so, including the hapless threesome, ran up the creek and out across the flats. My total body count for the hunt was 36 does and 10 bucks.

After having crossed unscathed any number of fences on this walk and over the previous three days Ted, simply unlatching a gate, tore his pants on a blankety-blank loose strand of wire.

We all lunched at camp and pulled out the maps needed to launch our attack on the Trans-Savery region.  We drove in the Bronco, still chained.  The route was south on the main road, around its bend to the east, then exit north on the road to Larsen's ranch.  As we were nearing the corner of the ranch that we would have to cross we met on the road a Larsen son on his way out.  We got some pointers on the roads and stuff and also got the impression that his dad and Gene, our outfitter, were not on the best of terms.  The son didn't mind us passing through but we hoped we wouldn't run into his pop.

We crossed the southern part of the ranch, on the sage flats, then turned north and into the hills.  Craig drove while Ted read the maps, and a good job they did.  There were a couple of location disagreements between them but Ted won, and was proved correct.  We got on a road that went east along a fence line, across the toes of the hills, passing through forests of aspens.  We turned up a road and wound our way uphill, passing a number of 8 ft.-high piles of aspen trunks at the side of the road, remnants of a Colorado-based pulp mill logging project that failed because of the costs of transportation. The ridge slopes of this area were the clear-cuts of that operation while the gullies remained forested, beautiful hunting territory with the alternating strips of cover and browse.  The predator in us began to purr.  We drove around awhile, finding Dirtyman Creek and other mapped areas, and also discovered a tree blind that is used by the archers.  We saw a few deer in the trees.  We then successfully searched for a way back to camp that would be more direct and less intrusive than our path over the irritable Larsen's ranch.  Once we found that way, and were assured that the ground was dry enough to use it, we made our plans about hunting the remainder of the day, it being now about 2:00.

Ted and Craig wanted to try out those clear slopes near Dirtyman and I chose, because I did not want to find myself lost on the unfamiliar, forested hillsides and I did not want to be a party of three dividing up a chance at a single buck, to hunt the park I had observed across Savery during the two snowy days.  I was let out on the west side of Savery, agreeing to meet them at dark where the road crossed the creek.

I hiked down the ridge and into the aspens in the gully near where the gully met Savery.  I realized I had a good five hours available so I determined to do all slowly, searching deeply into nooks & crannies.  The aspen groves invited that kind of hunting, being close enough to hide much within view and revealing new gaps with every step, while being open enough to let in plenty of light and wispy enough that I did not feel blocked out as I do in a mature conifer forest that has thick boles, fallen trunks, and curtains of foliage. When I came within sight of the waters of Savery I espied two small bucks and a doe feeding in the brush at creek's edge.  At about 25 yards they were unaware of me but, after a couple of minutes of waiting (I did not want to scare them and thereby spook others as they escaped) the doe got a whiff and looked in my direction, though without seeing me, and nervously led the bucks away in that herky-jerky way they have.

I crossed the stream, found an unused jeep trail that paralleled it, and tiptoed upstream, peering through leafy windows at the overgrown creek bed to my left and straining to see into the dark forest that covered the steep hillside on my right.  After about 40 yards of travel I got a clear view of the gully down which I had hiked to reach Savery and saw a 3-pointer bedded in the shadow of a sage bush on the bank opposite the one I had descended.  By all appearances he never knew I was about, and it was only by luck that I he. I continued sneaking on my way, at one point enjoying three deer crossing the trail ahead about 15 yards distant.  Where Mexican Creek joined Savery from the right I left the path that was all that remained of the old jeep trail and followed deer trails up the hill to my right.

The 'park', a clearing in forest, that I wanted to hunt was huge, most of the hillside.  It was an oval bounded by conifer forest with a fringe of aspens, and had a large island of the same in the middle.  The long sides of the clearing were about 150 yards wide and the top section perhaps 300.  We had seen deer in its near part and deer & elk in the far during our spotting hunts, but nothing had come down from the mountain into the upper area. I climbed through the forest, very thick as those things can be so I was thankful that the deer and elk had made such good trails, spooked a few deer, and came out in the park higher on the hill than I had planned.  As it was yet early to expect activity in the open I dropped back into the edge of the trees and continued up the slope until I found the ridge that dropped into Mexican. I walked out on it, what we call "the knob", and found a spot behind a rock ledge out of the wind that gave me a view of open hillside across Mexican and the mainly treeless ridges to my left on the other side of Savery, the very ridges to the ends of which we had tramped in the snow two days before. I had a great view of lots of deerless territory and got colder as the afternoon wore on.  I phased in the neckerchief, gloves, ear flaps, and finally the silk balaclava.  At about 5:30 I both wanted out of the chilly inactivity and figured, since dark would come at 7:15, that it was time to start in on the park.

I walked back through the snow that was left in the protected areas at this higher elevation, to the edge of the park at the level of the top of the island.  I decided to stay around here for awhile, then walk in the fringe around to the other side of the park, and maybe into the island, before dropping down to meet the boys.  I normally would have stayed at the edge but the arc of the hillside blocked any sight of the island, so I got on my belly and crawled out 50 yards to the last decent-sized cover, a sage and some other, smaller bush.  I sat down facing uphill, not at all a comfortable position, towards the top edge of the park.  From here I could see the 200 yards of left edge, all across the top, the upper part of the island (though I couldn't see the ground there, only above about 4 feet), and 150 yards below me.

I took off my binocs to rest my neck, pulled out my baggie of candy bars and munched while I watched.  At 6:00, out of the pines at the top of the park, a deer walked out and immediately began feeding.  I put my glasses on him, saw that he was a nice buck, and, since he was contentedly eating, focused my binocs on the forest behind in the hopes that I was into a bachelor group that might include a trophy monster.  I thought I saw two deer, perhaps does, still in the dark of the pines and, as I would have to defer identification until they walked into the light, turned my attention back to the buck.  Whoa!!, there were a bunch of points!!  I deep-sixed any ideas of other bucks; I knew I had to pop this sucker!

I set my candy aside, picked up my rifle, and inched forward, with it and my binoculars in hand, into a prone position, putting my barrel on my hat on top of the last bush.  I think I misjudged the distance, considering 300 to be 200, and fired when he gave me a profile.  He began trotting downhill, towards the island (amazing that he didn't whirl back into the safety of the forest), and I sat up and sent three more shots at him, shots of which I was fairly confident.  Not far above the island he went out of my sight - the arc of the hill, etc.  I had seen no sure indication that he was hit; I sure didn't want to lose this guy.  I began to fret over all the possibilities: I simply whiffed and lost out on a magnificent buck, I had a wounded buck running down the far side of the park and off into the forest, or he had crashed into the island and either escaped out the bottom or was curled up in the tangle and snaggle of the aspens.  I had only one hour of light remaining in which to find fresh trail.  I did not want to lose this one.

I stood up then but saw nothing, and refilled my magazine from my belt pouch. I lit the obligatory cigarette to enforce a wait before the search; it's amazing how those butts go: it seems to take forever but one slurps it down much more quickly than usual.  I then used my binocs to scan from a little above the last sighting, through the edge of the island, to the hillside below me, 110 degrees of sweep.  I did that for a couple of minutes then put some orange tape on my roost in case I needed to return to get a bearing, gathered my gear and slowly walked forward.  I paced the distance as I went, stopping every 25 yards to do a complete binoc sweep, 25, 50, 75, 100, ...200.  I was above the island now, in the vicinity where I thought I had last seen the buck; I ceased with the binocs and official pacing and just peered intently. After another 50 yards there he was, stretched out in the sage, dead as could be.  Before I realized how large he was all I could feel was an immense flood of relief, relief that I had indeed hit him, and great relief that I had not lost him into the woods or wherever else my mind could imagine.  Then the trophiness of the thing began to filter in, both the horn and the body size. Don't let anyone tell you that mulies are larger than our Rancho Hondo blacktails, ... require them to tell you.  I couldn't believe the size of the horns, one side resting on a sage and the other sticking in the air, points poking up all over, gnarly bases, big eye guards and such  massive overall. I pulled out the emergency walkie-talkie, pressed the call button and said,"Happy birthday, Bill!"  No one heard me but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I set my gear down to take a few pictures in the daylight which had become alpenglow, then did a little measuring with the tape I was carrying in my fanny-pack: a rough 31" outside, 19" high, with 9 pts. on one side and 13 on the other... oh, my!  (the world later agreed that 3 of those points cannot be counted)

I cleaned him out, slitting the skin only to the sternum and cutting the pipes from inside rather than through the neck so I wouldn't harm anything the taxidermist might need, and found only one bullet hole, well back in his body. The bullet entered about 6" behind the right shoulder and exited high at the rear of the rib cage, just clipping a piece of gut.  No important organ was breached, he must have just bled out (perhaps I got an artery?) I filled out my tag and tied it to the horns, and knotted on some fluorescent tape to both to more easily locate him and to mark him as dead in the eyes of any other hunter who might chance by.  I then began the twilight hike down to the meeting place, an effortless hike to be sure: how do you say, 'floating on air'?

It was full dark when I made it to the road and found the guys waiting, checking out some deer, no horns, in the little clearing where my trail met the road.  I admitted that I had fired, told them I had a 9x13 31" down and Craig asked, "How big is it?"  "How big?!  What more do you need, it's 9x13 and 31" wide!!!", I responded.  I convinced them of a death of some sort, my arms were colored Wild Bill Hacker Red, but I don't think they believed my sizing.

Craig then copped to a success of his own but downplayed it because of his disappointment in the status of his bag as a trophy.  In the back of the Bronco I saw a nice, though not large, 4x5 head.  We congratulated each other, discussed the whereabouts of my prize, climbed in the vehicle and let Ted drive us, with his unerring sense of direction, up the farther side of my park.  I got out and walked ahead to find the thing and waved Ted forward over the sage.  He stopped a few yards away, headlights on, Craig clambered out and had a (good) fit when he realized that my story had been accurate.  Ted was, as usual, nonplussed.

We admired the buck and took more photos, including one of Craig alone, emphasis on 'alone', with my, emphasis on 'my', trophy.  It took all three of us to lift the deer into the back of my Bronco.

We wended our way back to camp thinking up a name to give him, ala my Rancho Hondo "Hercules", and settled on "The Birthday Buck".  Back at camp I collapsed in my chair and the boys, having pity on my virus-wracked self, did the cooking in my stead.  They stretched their talents warming canned ravioli and putting into bowls some prepackaged salad.  I'm joking now, but I really appreciated the respite.  Needless to say, I am glad I didn't rest my cold in camp that afternoon.

I am waiting for a letter from Craig before I tell you about his buck so it can be in his own biased words; that's only fair.


Addendum by Bill, Dec 16m 1998: It's all but official-- today's mail brought a signed missive from an official
scorer with the Boone & Crockett club: I'm in

Book minimum is 230"
The drying time minimum is 60 days, this was measured on day 63.

Back to Wyoming Hunting