High mountain buck rolls down past trail camera (Pics added)

[Okanagan]

My son shot a buck in sub-alpine that rolled down the mountain right in front of a trail camera his son had set up a few months before.  Grandson R had hiked into the canyon last year and liked the look of it.  The top rim is above timberline and the slopes below are a buck city mix of rock slides, cliff ledges and strips of stunted trees dividing steep meadows.  It has a rock promontory with a view of the basin, all within 400 yards or less. 

R took his Dad up there Friday evening, and they added a mile to the 6 ½ mile approach hike so they could skirt around the basin without going into it and possibly spooking game.  Rough night with minimal tarp in big winds, pretty cold up where a few scrub trees barely survive the 8- 10 months of snow.  Opening morning of deer season the storm and wind driven rain continued till afternoon, then stopped and deer came out.

A legal 3 point buck browsed in view, too hidden behind brush for a clear shot, and after an hour or so lay down.  An hour and a half later he finally stood up behind the same brush, but eventually fed into the open.  My son has been practicing out to 600 yards and felt good about the 380 yard shot, but he missed high on the first shot.  The buck cooperated enough that he killed it with a subsequent shot, shooting a SS Tikka 7mm magnum and I think 150 grain Swift Sirocco bullets.

The buck rolled down the slope, right past a trail camera R had set up months earlier, and the camera took a pic of the rolling deer, below.



By the time they had the buck boned out in packs it was almost dark.  It took an hour for them to cover the first 600 yards to a maintained trail, then on out to their vehicle by 11:00 pm.

On opening morning 15 minutes after first shooting light they heard one shot near a campsite below, where hikers usually stay.  There were two cars at the trailhead when they headed in, three when they came out.  Two watersheds away parking was jammed at two popular trail heads with overflow parking lining the logging roads away from the parking areas.

[Hawks Feather]

Congrats to him for the harvest and thanks to you for taking us on another hunting adventure.  I wonder what the mathematical chance would be on catching a falling deer on a trail camera.

[nastygunz]

Thats dang cool!

[Okanagan]

Yep, crazy fluke odds to have the buck roll in front of the camera. 

The same weekend grandsons Code and his brother Zay hiked well above timberline and camped in the raw rocks beside a tarn. Above timberline, they took a tent rather than our usual tarp.  It snowed on them the first night, plus wind.

They glassed three bucks a mile away and Zay went after them.  Code stayed on the glass and gave him hand signals.  Zay went down and up a couple of times, 400 feet vertical and then a thousand, all in wide open rock ridges and peaks. 

The bucks spooked a bit at 300 yards though Zay could not see them. He got within 200 but thought that the bucks were long gone.  He told me that arm/hand signals at a mile were hard to figure out, even with binos.  The bucks crossed a steep rock slide from Zay, dropped a bit and hid in two small Christmas trees. 

On his hike back Zay covered the same up and down 400 and 1000 foot canyons, plus more of the same all afternoon.  Hunting well down from camp they decided that Zay would hunt his way through a basin and down a canyon toward their vehicle while Code climbed back up, packed up their camp and carried it all out.

No shots, nothing tagged.   Today the two of them set up a tree stand on flat ground 5 miles from home.

[Okanagan]

Pics from recent high country backpack hunts



Code and Zay camped by the pond or tarn in the lower right corner of the photo below. Their tent is showing in the pic.



Olympic range of mountains



Bucks like to feed on the sparse scrub vegetation up high.  With intense sunlight and short growing season I think it has higher nutrition than lower elevation plants.  Not sure but this pic may show the three bucks they were glassing from a mile away. 



It can snow any day of the year up there.  Pic below was opening morning of general deer season, early Oct.

[FinsnFur]

What a trip that would be.
Those pics, that terrain. I envy those boys. Mainly their ability 

[nastygunz]

Thats manly country there!

[bambam]

 beautiful country. Congrats to him on the buck.

[JohnP]

 To be young again.