A Steep Ass Hunt

A Steep Ass Hunt


The Salmon River country (Idaho) is the steepest terrain I know of. The bottoms of the south facing otherwise open slopes are covered with ferns – because the sunlight never hits there. The creek bottoms are dark and mossy. But above the bottoms are steep, open hillsides – with broken rock outcroppings, brush, and occasional ponderosa pine. It’s so steep, in fact, that one might think the best way up would be to climb a big ponderosa, to the top, and then step off to the ground at the side. THE MULE DEER LOVE IT.

I normally feel comfortable hunting alone, but not there, so I called up Terry, a fellow serious hunter, to see if he’d join me trying to fill a tag. We drove in by darkness and with the first hint of light started climbing. In such terrain the deer are at enormous advantage to be above you – so the idea is to climb and at least get across from them. Eight hundred feet up – from our first vista – we spotted a half dozen deer, several does, a small buck - then a keeper 4 x 4.

Though the terrain is `open’, the deer disappear as fast as they appear in various folds and ravines. The keeper disappeared.

We climbed around after him. But the ever-changing morning breezes delivered our by-then-locker-room scent to them – before we could get set up. The group collected and was climbing out.

Terry gave me range. I had zeroed the rifle just a week earlier and was feeling really good about where it was shooting. But that was on a flat shooting range, with sandbags. I was now shooting what seemed like straight up, and on anything but a bench-rest. My shots pulled right, and the bucks disappeared over a ridge another eight hundred vertical feet above us.

After climbing and climbing and climbing, consuming an hour, bottle of water each, a lot of air, and some energy bars, we were finally `above’ them. I had a hunch where they would be, but as we crossed the ridge, my hopes fell. We were looking down on innumerable small, steep ravines and rock outcroppings. And if the rocks and ravines weren’t enough to hide deer, somehow tall brush was able to cling to and spring out of the rocks. The deer would be in some tight little ravine, or cleft below the rocks. Approach from above would be betrayed by falling rocks, from below by their vista, and from the sides by our scent and clamor. I sat down defeated, while Terry glassed hillsides we would never reach.

Then I saw it. A rock, but not with a sharp, hard outline … it was furry. And the rock had a tail. And then a head, and antlers. It was the smaller of the two bucks. Somehow my hunch was right, and I had brought us right on top of them. He was one hundred yards, straight below me. I readied for the keeper. I would have at most one shot – if even part of him appeared through a slot of brush and rocks. Whereas before I had been shooting at him at a distance almost straight up – now I was steadying my rifle and pointing almost straight down – all the while trying to keep myself from following gravity over the edge. Then a glimpse of rump patch, and about half of him, with a glimpse of antler – the keeper. I was tempted to aim left, and I think I did, maybe an inch just in case, but now there was a lot more fur around the cross-hairs.

The 180-grain slug found home. The buck ran straight down hill about fifty yards, collapsed, and then rolled another one hundred, hanging up in a pile. Yeah! I shouted at God’s bounty in our lives.

And then there was a third flash of rump patch. The two bucks had joined up with a third - a beautiful buck with a couple more points (than the one I'd been chasing).. We got a momentary look at him while he paused rounding an outcropping on his escape. He would live to breed and perhaps present himself another day.

Just before I got down to my buck – I realized that I had left my binos up where I had shot – now 250 yards straight up. For any other pair of binos – I would have waived them goodbye – but, though not expensive, they are my favorite. Gulp. While Terry worked on the deer I climbed back up and got them. Argh. But at least I wasn’t carrying pack and rifle.

The road was some thirteen hundred vertical feet below. Gravity, with a nudge now and then, helped us get the deer about a third the way down the mountain (after removing the head, so we wouldn’t break antlers). We then boned him and carried him out.

Locals and outsiders alike hunt the roads there, occasionally picking up a mule deer that has wandered low, or a whitetail that lives regularly in the dark foreboding bottom, but few people climb for the muley bucks. That’s why they’re there. I’m sore and in pain as I write this. It’s a steep @$$ hunt.

Author's note: I'm not sure why we didn't strive for better pics of my buck - I think it's because the terrain - at almost no time were we not in a place where keeping from falling was a concern - we were in a continual state of low-grade panic.