Welcome to the campfire! Our goal here at the campfire, is too share stories of our own, and other outdoorsmen.
Bridger Park- 2020 was an eventful year for everyone, it changed a lot of lives, and a lot of paradigms. It was also an eventful year, as I was able to get out in the field more then ever. I wasn't able to put the hammer down, but it was still one of the most eventful seasons I've had. I had the opportunity to explore massive amounts of new country.
I started archery deer, in late summer. I spent most of this time hunting high altitude, generally 8,000 feet or more. I had spent a lot of time scouting this terrain in early summer. And I had picked out an 180" class buck early in the scouting season. The typical 4 brute, lived in a drainage at 8,500 feet. He lived in an aspen shoot, with a creek running at the bottom. When it cooled off, he would bask in the sun on the sage hill, and in the warm hours he would bed in the aspen trees. He never ventured more then a mile around the area, because he had every thing he could want around him.
I had patterned him for a good portion of the summer, and had a pretty clear vision on his habits. The first day of hunting season. I spent the day watching him and making sure nothing had changed. Then the second day, i pushed in a little tighter on him. I perched about a third of the way up a hillside, left of his drainage. I was about 300 yards away from where he bedded. It could've been the smoke from my camp a mile away the night before, he could've glimpsed me crest a hill that morning, or it could've just been that sense deer seem to have, where the first day of the season hits, and they disappear. But what ever the case, I never laid eyes on that buck again. I hunted the surrounding are for five hard days, and never so much as a glimpse of another buck. Thus concluded my high country hunt, as my focus shifted to my main passion, rutting elk.
I didn't focus on deer again, until November, when the late season hunt rolled around. I introduced myself to a lot of new terrain with this hunt. I hunted low elevation breaks, and lake bed areas. This was a lot of fun, and I laid eyes on a lot of bucks. Late on my first day, I laid eyes on, what appeared to be, a whitetail, muley hybrid. It was a gorgeous buck, that seemed to have whitetail markings, and a muley crown and antlers. This buck caused me to pass up on a lot of animals, and I focused my efforts around where he was. I tried to hunt the edge of fields he was feeding, and closer to the lake he was frequenting for water. I wasn't able to get into bow range of him, until the last day. He was feeding on a sage hill with a group of does, late in the day, and i knew this was my last chance. I spent three hours, belly down in the snow, chasing him. I would only crawl when he would put his head down, and only a couple feet at a time. After about a 300 yard crawl, I was within 60 yards of him. I perched to a knee, and settled my breath. Every archer knows the feeling, the feeling of pulling back on an animal, and its extra special when you've chased a specific animal. I calmed my breath, centered my pin, and fired. The animal peeked its head up at the sound of the shot. Then I felt a feeling all to familiar to a lot of bowhunters. The feeling of everything seeming right, watching your arrow fly towards an animal, then watching said arrow fly over its back, a clean miss.
I left this season with numb appendages, an injured pride, and a whole lotta memories in new country. And that is what this sport comes down too, its perseverance, and being able to walk away without harvesting an animal, but far from empty handed. But hunts like this, only add fuel to the fire, and I'm ready to be back in the field again.
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