I'm glad Tiny came on and gave a report of his hunt. I had been talking to Tiny for weeks prior to the hunt and then as the hunt started he gave me a daily update on how things were going. We even met with Tiny on his way back home so we could see his buck and after that we were pumped! We had two tags ourselves and we planned on arriving on the evening of Nov 10th and hunting to the end (or close to it).
When we arrived to the unit just a couple of hours after talking with Tiny we turned off the highway and drove north up East Fork to a cabin we rented in East Fork right at the bridge. From the highway to the cabin we saw a handful of bucks and felt like we timed our arrival perfectly. We woke up the next morning (Saturday 11/11) and jumped in our SxS and ran up East Fork toward the national forest to get acquainted with the terrain, roads, etc. In that 9 miles up to the national forest we probably saw a dozen trucks and SxS out hunting and a pretty large outfitter camp loaded with horses, trucks, and SxS. All of that traffic threw us for a loop as we weren't expecting so many people. In that drive at first light we saw deer, but nearly as many as we were expecting. We decided to head back to the cabin for the truck and drove to check out some of the OnX spots others have graciously provided of where they killed great bucks or saw them. This took us over to Horse Creek and there too were cars and SxS all over the place. We had one key spot in that area that was provided to us by other hunters and it had a few decent bucks but nothing big. We checked this spot out 5 other times during our hunt and saw bucks each time but nothing big. This spot was interesting because getting in there was not easy and IMO it kept everyone else out.
Each time we drove up and down East Fork at sunrise, sunset, or before/after dark we weren't seeing very many deer. The deer Tiny was seeing in the fields I think either moved further east onto the reservation or headed back up in elevation. Because there weren't many deer in the fields we decided to focus on the higher elevations in the national forest as our drives through that higher elevation areas showed us that there were a lot of deer still up high. We even spent a couple days and a lot of hours glassing the middle areas between the fields and the national forest around Table Mtn and Spring Mtn and we never saw a deer in these areas. The other odd thing is that in all the times we drove the loop up Bear Creek to the upper campground and then back down...we never saw a deer in the fields. I was texting Blank and BIGOMULEY pretty regularly with updates on how things were going and they offered up plenty of ideas and spots. We checked out many of them, but there's a lot of country to look over and we couldn't check it all.
On the evening of day two of our hunt (11/12) I spotted a decent 4 point that was with a group of does, but he wasn't what I was wanting to shoot that early in the hunt with so many days left. When I told my buddy I was going to pass on him, my buddy didn't even blink and said he'd take him. We did a quick stalk and he shot the buck at 110 yards. He's 26 inches wide and has great front and rear forks. We haven't scored him yet, but my buddy is super happy with him. It's his biggest buck to date.
The following days we kept at it checking a few new spots, but we eventually kept going back up to the higher elevations in the national forest to hunt as we felt like that's where our best chances for a decent buck was. The lack of snow and warm temps allowed us to hunt up to 9500 feet elevation. The area my buddy shot his buck had a bunch of different groups of does each with a smaller buck or two and we were hoping a big buck would show up and kick the smaller bucks out. Even though the rut was going pretty strong, we kept seeing the smaller bucks each time and no new bucks showed up. I attribute this to the fact that even at 9,000 feet elevation it was warming up into the mid 40s each day and even though the rut was going, the bucks weren't moving around to check the groups of does. Maybe the rut wasn't 100% and could have been stronger with colder weather, but it was my first time in this unit and wasn't sure.
We kept hunting and on day 4 I passed on a 25 inch wide buck with decent rear forks but crabby front forks, but I still felt we'd find something bigger. In the end we hunted until the morning of the 19th and never saw a buck bigger than my buddy's buck and I ended up eating my tag.
Overall it was a fun hunt and I'd have loved to see the cold and snow to bring the bucks down into the lower elevations for our hunt, but we couldn't control the weather. Most of the does we saw had a fawn and most had two, and they all looked to be in great shape. Next year should be another good year for the unit. Thanks to Tiny, Blank, BIGOLMULEY, RoadlessHunter, LIK2HNT, and all the others that helped and provided info.
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Urge 2 Hunt
