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The Trip (mondo-long)

Date: Thursday, November 16, 2006 | Category: Life, Love, and Happiness

Pictures will be sometime soon. Eric took pictures with the digital camera, but I'm going to wait to post pictures until we get them all developed.

We went to the same place as last time.

Saturday, 6:05 pm
Left half after noon; got to the mountains at a little after three or so. Set up camp; about four Dad, Beth, and Joe walked for a bit, while Ben, Eric, and I went around the Loop. We got to the rendezvous on time, but Joe, Dad, and Beth were late. They had traipsed around for an hour or so.
When we finished setting up camp, we realized something important: we had forgotten the coffeepot. Guess we'll have to do with "cowboy coffee".

Later Ben ran outside to get our overalls (Dad's and mine) out of the back of his pickup. He had already taken off his shirt for bed. There was 2 or 3 inches of snow. When he came in, he said, "It's not all that cold out."
Dad said sardonically, "Shut the door. You're letting all the not-so-cold in."

Sunday, 11:25 am
This morning Ben had his heart set on traipsing up to a meadow (the meadow near the one I'd been in last time when I shot at that buck) by shooting light, which came at about 7:10, so we got up at 5, had "egga muffins" (sausage patty, egg, and fake cheese on an English muffin; like an Egg McMuffin), and Ben and Joe took off. Eric started walking down the road, and Dad, Beth, and I walked the opposite direction up the road. We walked a fence of a private property, and Dad saw one deer, but it jumped over the fence onto the private property (I KNOW those deer can read!).
We walked (with short breaks) from about 7 to 9:30 am, when we made it back to camp. Just before getting to camp, we saw a whitetail. I was the one who was going to take the first shot (since I hadn't gotten any deer yet; Beth can only get elk; Dad can get a whitetail doe and an elk), so I went on ahead. It was gone, though, so we went back to camp. Since Ben had taken his pickup, Dad fired up the van (our ATV!). Eric came up, and we started around the loop in the direction Ben had gone.
When we got to where the road turned 90º to the left and there was a steeeeeeep hill, we chained up. When we'd finished chaining up, we had a white pickup behind us. We went down the hill, then the pickup did.
We were almost all the way around the loop, and were in the same hollow Joe shot his deer in last year.
"There!" Dad pointed to the hill above the hollow. "Get your gun, Anne. Shoot the big one."
"Which is the big one?"
"The back one."
"Ok." I was in the passenger's seat (and they were on the driver's side), so I got out (leaving the door open, to not startle them), jacked a round in, knelt by the road, and took aim.
I heard Dad saying something. It sounded like "Shoot! Shoot!" But later he said he was saying they were small deer, all of 'em. Well earlier, Dad had told me, "If you get a small one, say it's because you like cute, fuzzy ones."
Anyway. I steadied my rifle (they were looking at us; about 75 yards away) and slowly squeezed (you only squeeze, not pull triggers if you want to be accurate) the trigger.
The funny thing is, when you're hunting and take a shot, you don't notice the kick or the noise, except for a slight ringing in your ears afterwards.
The deer I aimed at (glad it was that one and not another!) humped up funny and ran almost up the hill, then fell and slid halfway back down. The other two just stood there.
"Go get it," Dad said, so I started around the little meadow and up towards where my deer fell. Until I was almost to the middle of the edge of the meadow, the other two deer just stood and watched me walk.
Guided by yelled directions from Dad ("Straight up! Right!"), I found my deer. A perfect heart shot. I was surprised he could have run that far, and Dad was, too, when he saw it, because it was right through the heart, and some bones were broken.
I drug it down the hill to the meadow, then Eric came, gave his opinion, and drug it to the van. So it was small, but a perfect shot! As Ben said later, "You have to be a good shot to hit something that small!"
Dad and Eric loaded in a tarp and put it in the back of the van to take to camp. 
When we got to the bridge, Ben's pickup was parked and he was starting up the road from where we had just come. He told us a guy in a white pickup came by and talked with him. (It was the white pickup that was following us.) When we drove on a little, we saw Joe (who was walking) and got more of the story. The guy had come by and told them two whitetail deer were in the area. He said somebody had taken a shot.
"In a big blue van?" Ben asked.
The guy had said yeah.
"That's my dad," Ben had said, and the guy said "Well that must've been your sister shooting then."
So Ben knew I'd shot.

We got back to camp. Ben picked Joe up and came behind. They unloaded my deer and took a few pictures (Eric had me pose with his gun). Then Eric drug my deer off to the edge of camp, where the hill went steeply down, so I could "dress" it. He stayed to "tell me what to do", and Beth stayed to hold legs.
It took me about ten minutes, but it was a good job. Dad even congratulated me. I was faster than Joe, who took 40 or 50 minutes on his last deer, which was a small one too.
Dad cut out the backstraps (which were very small!) and put them in a Ziploc. Then he and Ben hung the deer in a tree.
Ben, Joe, and Dad left to walk. Beth, Eric, and I are here at camp waiting. Eric's babysitting the fire; Bethy's here in the camper playing solitaire. I'm writing this and babysitting the stove. I'm going to work on my novel now (it's in the same notebook).

5:35 pm
15 minutes past shooting light. Got to camp about 10 minutes ago. When Dad, Ben, and Joe got back to camp at 2:30 they were all tuckered out (except Ben, of course). I napped from one to two while they were gone. We had cup o'noodle water all ready so when they got here we "dished up" cup o'noodles. We saw a big buck on a hill faraway, so Ben took off and came back to camp when we were done with lunch. Joe decided to stay in camp; Ben wanted to go up to his meadow again, and Dad wanted to find the beginning of a road they hiked to earlier. So Dad, Beth, Eric, and I piled in the van and drove around. We found the road (turn left at the private airstrip!), and on the way there were tons and tons of deer, all on private property. We went to the end of the road and parked. And sat.  It was warm and comfy. Dad and Eric took a snooze (Dad laid his seat back, but Eric laid on the second bench). So just Beth and I watched.
We only saw five deer, but they were a maddening hundred yards or so from the private property fence, IN the private property.
Went back to camp; Ben got back a little later. We're having chicken sandwiches for dinner.

Monday, 4:45 am
*yawn* Ben wants to leave by six so he can walk up to his beloved meadow in the dark. lol How fun. Dad and I and Beth are going to the meadow we scoped out yesterday. Dunno where Joe and Eric are going.
Dad's making breakfast.
Wind is blowing somethin' fierce out there. Rocking the camper. No wait...maybe that was just Joe. (No, it really was the wind.) Last night Dad turned up the furnace because night before it got kind of cold.

12:10 pm
Wow. This morning Ben went to his meadow; Eric walked down the road, and the rest of us went our way. Joe stayed near the van (and in it, half the time), and we (Dad, Beth, and I) walked a fence and over a little hill. The wind was blowing soo hard, it felt like we were arctic explorers! It was sooo cold and sooo windy. Beth and I sat for a while and Dad walked a ways. We sat for two hours, then Dad came back and we walked to the van. The wind was even worse. We wondered if the van would actually be on its wheels when we came back, and I decided even if it wasn't, I'd get in anyway! It was, though. Dad clocked the wind speed, and it was 30 mph with gusts of 40-45. It was so hard trying to walk in that, even with the wind at our backs. It must have been pretty funny to see Beth and I stagger around like drunkards! But we finally got to the van. Driving down the road, we saw a herd of buffalo in a pasture. We hurried back to camp to get the camera. Picked Ben and Eric up at camp, went back. Took pictures; showed Ben where we had been.
Went around the loop; saw one. Ben went out to follow it but it went too far away.
Came back to camp; had lunch.

6:30 pm
Just got back to camp; Dad's making pancakes for dinner.
Joe and Eric stayed relatively near camp; the rest of us went in the mountains. Ben, Beth, and Dad went up to Ben's meadow; I stayed behind a little bit to watch a different spot. Ben, when he came back to me, said my little spot looked like Big Bird's nest: a ring of brush with a little spot to sit in the middle. Saw a grouse and two tiny birds; that was it.
Ben saw a herd of does (at least he was pretty sure they were does, and Dad confirmed it) about 20 feet from him, but he wasn't sure they were whitetails (can't shoot muley does here). So he didn't shoot.
Came back to camp.

Tuesday, 5:15 am
*yawn* Alarm was trying to get us up at 4, but we didn't get up until 4:30. The furnace went off in the night...we ran out of propane in one of the tanks. Dad put another take of propane on (or hooked it up), then restarted the furnace and fridge. He's making breakfast now; leftover egga muffins and chicken sandwiches.
Ben wants to go to his meadow again since there's no wind (or less, at least).
Dunno what the rest of us are doing.

10:10 am
Everybody went their separate way this morning. Close to 9 we heard a shot, then it snowed really hard. It snowed hard for 20 minutes, then let up some. I holed up and waited for the snow to let up. It was like being in a snow globe. Snow piled up on my suit, and I shook it off, but it piled right back up again.
Around 9:40 I started walking back to camp. Ben had picked Dad and Beth up, so they got here a little before me.

11:45 am
Anyway. Keep getting distracted .Everybody but Ben and I left in the van to road hunt. In a few minutes, Ben and I will go, too.
So, Beth and Dad got to the camper, I walked up, and Ben drove off to pick Joe and Eric up (they were in "Eric's Spot", down near the bridge), because Eric got a deer. Ben had been by there earlier, before he picked Dad and Beth up. He hinted to Dad it was a little deer.
So anyway. Dad, Beth, and I stood around for a while. My boots have bad tread that snow clings to, so every step I took collected about half an inch of snow. We laughed about it, and I collected more. It was taller than Beth, so Dad took a picture (normally she's about two inches taller than me; I was now three inches taller than her!). I clumped around more, and got almost as tall as Dad, which was a new experience! We wanted to wait for Ben to come back, and Dad would say, "Ben, you know drinking coffee makes you short...stand next to Anne and see if you've shrunk!" But he didn't come in time, and the 6" of snow on my boots finally came off.
So we went in the camper, and Dad heated water for coffee and cocoa. Cowboy coffee (with a splash of cold water to settle the grounds, Louis L'Amour style) was actually pretty good! I had a chicken sandwich for a snack, and Dad had a leftover egga muffin.
I turned my radio on. Joe said Eric got one, "a little bigger than your deer," he told me. We were thinking he'd gotten a small one. Joe said they found a bone-saw in the van, and sawed the breastbone (to get to the windpipe easier). we were like, "you need a bone-saw for a little deer?!?!?"
The cocoa and coffee were all made; we were on our way out the door to take them their hot drinks, when they pulled up.
In the back of the pickup was a beautiful buck, over three times the size of my little deer. We heartily congratulated Eric; took pictures; drank our drinks, and since Eric's hands were freezing, he went inside (and I did, too, to keep him company) while the other boys and Dad hung the buck in the tree mine was hung in.
"It's been a profitable day," Eric told me, warming his hands in front of the furnace. "I had a nice nap..." (Joe said he could hear Eric snoring from 200 yards away!) "got a nice buck..."
Dad took a picture of us by our deer. Stood around and talked, then they left.
Ben's waiting for me in the pickup.

2:30 pm
Ben and I went to the "arctic circle" (where Dad, Beth, and I were yesterday when it was really windy) while the rest went around the loop in the van. When Ben and I came back, we went around the loop in the opposite direction Dad went. Met him; talked; made another circuit and met at camp. We beat, but we had a head start and they sat for exactly five minutes!
They all left to go to Ben's meadow; Joe and I are going to our stands in an hour.
Joe wants to nap first.
I like hunting with Joe.

6:10 pm
At 3:30 Joe and I went out to a nearby meadow. I had an awesome spot under a tree; very comfy. I would have slept if it had been a little warmer!
Sat until shooting light ended, around 5:05. Came back to camp; played a couple rounds of Go-Hunting (Go-Fish in normal parlance). I won. Tidied up a bit; are making dinner (hot dogs...Joe's frying them in the skillets). Oh...they're done. Back to either my novel (yes, I have been working on it in my spare time!) or Go-Hunting.

7:05 pm
Dad, Ben, Eric, and Beth are finally back. Ben got a doe finally! We heard a shot and I was hoping Ben had got one, since he's done the most traipsing around over tarnation with nothing to show for it.

Wednesday, 5:15 am
Yay, our last day! Everybody's getting a little homesick. We miss our beds, especially me. Beth thrashes in her sleep!
Originally we were going to go home last night, but Ben has today off, too. Dad has until Sunday off.
Dad's frying sausage patties for breakfast.
I'm getting a cold. Ugh.

6:35 am
I get the nicest stand. Or the second-nicest. I'm sitting here in Ben's pickup, waiting for shooting light (half an hour before sunrise). Ben's going where Joe and I went last night. Joe's going to Eric's Spot. Eric's gonna stay in camp, since he only has an elk tag left and nobody's seen elk sign. Dad and Beth are going to road hunt, I think, so I imagine I'll see them a few times.

Noon
Well, my stand was out of the wind, but kind of cold (I had to turn the pickup off; Ben didn't want me wasting his gas). Saw nothing but cars pass, including Dad and Beth, who did road hunt.
Nobody got anything yet.
Came back to camp around 10; talked about if we should go home tonight or tomorrow night. We decided yes, we would go home tonight. The only one who really really wanted to stay was Ben anyway. We kind of miss our beds and family and stuff.
After our talk we did a road-hunt loop. Saw a "meow-kitty" (as in housecat) tracks, and cougar tracks, but no deer. Well, except in a Private Property meadow. Dad took pictures, then honked. They all ran towards the fence, so we dropped Joe off to walk up Red Lodge Creek Trail. Ben's getting Joe. Dad's frying up all the backstraps (we're gonna see once and for all which are the best, little deer or big!) for lunch (with oven toast).

1:55 pm
Dad, Ben, and Joe just left for Ben's meadow.
Just before Ben came back from getting Joe, he shot a little one, so he has no more deer tags, just elk. Same with Beth and Eric. So Ben is now chauffeur. Joe and I have A tags (muley buck, whitetail either sex), and Dad has a B tag (whitetail antlerless; they both have elk tags besides). In a while I'm going to go walk around near camp.
The deer backstraps were good but not very filling. lol Nobody could decide on which was the best, either. I liked the buck and the little deer best; some liked Ben's doe best, some liked Eric's buck best. They were all good!

7:30 pm
At Taco Time fueling in Red Lodge. Ate dinner; on our way home.

***

Now for the rest of the story!
I was going to walk around the meadow near camp, looking down into the creek, but instead I decided to walk down the road to Eric's Spot instead. He told me there was a stump cut in two levels, and to the right a little dip to sit in. Passing by, I didn't see it, so I walked up the road to the hollow where I'd gotten my deer on Sunday. Saw nothing; came back down. (Oh, I did see raccoon tracks, but that was it.) Climbed the hill behind Eric's Spot; still couldn't find his spot. I did find a two-level stump, but it wasn't the right one because there wasn't a dip next to it. Sat there for a while to catch my breath. Over the hill behind me, I heard a funny noise.
That's a funny noise, I thought. I heard it again. There's a funny noise again. But I was too tired at the moment to go look.
I decided to walk down the hill, and see if I could find Eric's spot. If I couldn't, I'd just go back and walk the meadows near camp. But I did find it. The dip was real handy; you just plunked your rear in it, and your feet were propped up and so was your back. Real comfy. No wonder Eric always fell asleep! (We joked about his snoring as a deer call!)
I sat there, laid back, with my backpack next to me and my rifle on top of it. I really wasn't in a shooting position, but I was comfortable!
I heard a funny noise off to the right.
That's a funny noise, I thought, but just sat there still. Then I saw movement to the right. A buck, picking his way, angling up to the hill in front of me. I didn't count his antler points; I just saw it was a buck. I started scooting into shooting position. He would stop, look in my general direction (he couldn't see me; he never did!), then flick his ear like "what EVER!" and keep moseying along. I'd scoot a little more, he'd stop, etc. Finally I was in a good position. He was just ambling along real slow, so I yelled "Hey!" to make him stop. He did, and I aimed. Then I noticed a tiny tree in front of my scope. Whoops. He flicked his ear and kept walking; I scooted to the left a little and "Hey"'ed again. He stopped, and I aimed.
Now, something funny happens when I aim at bucks; maybe it's the proverbial "buck fever". I was steady, then as I was squeezing the trigger my left arm kept jiggling a little more, and a little more, and I was afraid I'd miss! But I shot, and bam, he hit the ground. I cheered. Yes I did. I do that when I'm by myself and excited. I ran up to him (it was a 2-point buck), and I hadn't missed. Well, I HAD missed where I was aiming, but I hit him in the spine and killed him instantly. That kind of miss I like!
I drug him down the hill about 20 feet, tagged him, and was deciding what to do. I'd never done a buck before, just does (which are easier to eviscerate, let me tell you!). And I needed a bone-saw for his breastbone. So I decided I'd just have to leave him, and go get Eric to give me advice and bring the bone-saw. I was just about to head down the road when Eric paged me on my radio. I'd been paging him for the last 15 minutes, but he'd just then heard it. I explained; he and Beth came down.
Took about 40 minutes to eviscerate it, since it was my first buck and I was very very careful. He had lots and lots of fat!
So finally got done; started dragging it up the road. It was really heavy, and we were about two-thirds of the way to camp, when we stopped because we heard somebody on the road. Turned out to be Dad, Ben, and Joe. Loaded the buck in the pickup; went back to camp. Dad took a picture (the LAST picture on the box camera!), then broke camp.
Went to Taco Time in Red Lodge to eat dinner. Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy it too much because of my cold. :( But what I could taste was really good!

Got home around 9:00 or 9:30. Unloaded the deer into the garage; came inside and told all our stories.

Had a good sleep!


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Anne-the-cat
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