Ryan's First Deer

 Ryan Bier's first deer, October 2022

Ryan and I have chased big game together for numerous years. He was there to help me pack out two of my elk. Sadly, while hunting together, Ryan has yet to harvest an animal. Ryan has killed two elk, but both times he was solo and I couldn't come help him. He had to call other family or friends to help him pack them out, and both times they were seriously difficult pack-outs (Ryan will never let me forget those). Ryan has also had several chances at deer that for one reason or another haven't worked out. So you could say I owe Ryan at least two elk pack-outs.

The general deer season in Southern Idaho was nearing its end and Ryan still had a tag in his pocket. We decided a last minute trip was in order. Some fresh snow had covered our mountain, making for prime conditions. Our optimism was high as we slowly crawled up the snowy mountain road in 4 wheel drive, arriving at our spot at first light. 

Our morning started out slow, with just a few elk spotted way down the mountain. Elk seem to always appear when you're not looking for them.

We hiked over to a saddle where two ridges came together. I had seen a lot of deer in this area over the years and it's always worth checking out. Here, you could see a lot of country. Ryan and I stopped on an open hillside and started scanning the surrounding countryside. Fifteen minutes went by without an animal, when suddenly Ryan spotted something.

"Oh, right there!" Ryan gasped, staring wide eyed at the hillside immediately to our right. 

I turned and saw him right away, "OH, BIG BUCK!"

Ryan slowly got ready, crouching down as the buck went behind a tree. I pulled my rangefinder out and whispered, "120 yards".

The mature buck had no idea we were there and the wind was in our face. This was perfect! The deer was working his way across an old burn with several openings for a shot. I looked down at Ryan who was now ready. The deer passed behind a clump of two or three trees and stopped. I pulled my bino's out and studied the deer who was now staring in our direction. Thick, dark 4 point frame with a little bit of trash poking out the sides. Probably a deer in the 170 class. This would be one hell of a first deer for Ryan. In my mind this deer was already dead. Just 2 more steps... 

The deer suddenly turned around and took off down the nearly vertical hill. No, no, no! I made several loud deer bleat sounds with my mouth trying to stop the deer without success. Just like that, what felt like a slam dunk had bounced off the rim and smacked us in the face. What went wrong? All we could think of was that he had somehow seen us and got nervous. We walked away sickened and defeated. Chasing this deer was simply not a safe option. That drainage was incredibly steep and with the snow, it just wouldn't be wise.

"I guess that's how they get to be that big," I added, as we trudged back toward the truck in 10 inches of snow. 

"They have one job in life: survive." Ryan said, shaking his head. 

That evening we hunted another area and located a heavy amount of deer sign and a single bull elk at 150 yards. Even though we didn't see any deer, the area was worth another look in the morning. 

We started the morning off by ascending a steep hill to get on the ridge where all the deer sign had been yesterday evening. On our way up, we spotted a couple of does who couldn't care less about our presence. They stayed downhill and downwind of us only 25-40 yards away for quite some time. Animals seem to know when they aren't in danger. 

We made it up to the ridge and began working slowly along the top. Around every new corner we'd stop and scan for deer, glassing country near and far below us. We were approaching the end of our hike when I stopped at a likely spot to scan for deer. A grey colored shape caught my eye in a small gap between the trees. I pulled out my binoculars for closer inspection. I found the object in the binos, still unable to determine what it was. Then, I saw the shape of some antlers at the bottom of my circular binocular view. I lowered the viewing picture down slightly and saw him, the head of a two-point buck. Then the other grey shape moved slightly, revealing another buck; a spike. 2 mule deer bucks were bedded in the snow less than 200 yards away.

 

I made some squirrel sounding chatter toward Ryan who was glassing some other country above me. Ryan looked my way and I put finger antlers on my head signaling I'd found a buck. Ryan crept down to me and I showed him where the deer were. Ryan began to move into position, trying to find the deer in his scope. Ryan would find a good rest on a log but he was too low to see the deer. Ryan continued to move closer to the deer in an attempt to find a good rest for his gun and see the deer at the same time. I was nervous that these bedded deer were going to see or hear him and blow out of there. I was already thinking the worst. The two deer were very comfortable, though, and Ryan was slowly able to sneak within 80 yards of where a big log lay across the hillside, giving him a great rest for his rifle and put the deer in view.

I looked at the bedded deer and then over to Ryan who gave me a thumbs up and signaled me to blow my grunt call. The bedded deer were not giving Ryan a good angle at any vitals and the grunt call might cause one to stand and look our way. I blew the grunt call twice and the larger 2 point picked up his head and turned it broadside. Ryan fired, placing a perfect shot directly behind the head. BOOM!!! The deer died without a single kick of it's legs.  

I walked over to Ryan and we celebrated. We carefully made our way  over to the deer across the steep and slick hillside. He still lay peacefully in his bed. It was perhaps the fastest passing of an animal that I'd ever seen; a goal for any hunter. 

We got to work on quartering, and a couple hours later, our packs were full of clean, mountain protein.

The pack out was steep but relatively short. We heaved our heavy packs into the back of the truck, exhaling sighs of relief and satisfaction.

"Glad I was finally able to help you pack out an animal, Ryan. Now I only owe you 3 more." I chuckled.

"Hold up. This was just one deer. We're talking about 4 elk. A deer is at best, half an elk. So doing the math, you owe me at least 6 more pack outs." Ryan said with a laugh. "We're nowhere near even."

It felt so good to have helped Ryan get his first deer. It wasn't the giant from the day before, but Ryan didn't care. He wasn't a trophy hunter. I did a European mount on the skull for him, giving him a tangible, long-lasting memoir of the hunt. 

Paddling the Mangroves: Florida Keys

 Florida Keys January 2022

After a long hunting season, I thought it wise to take my wife somewhere warm. Florida seemed like an excellent choice! The Keys are as far south and predictably warm as you can get in the US during January. However, as the date grew nearer, we saw that a cold front was predicted to arrive that would drop temperatures the coldest they had seen in a decade. Apparently we'd be bringing the Idaho cold with us!

We found a nice Air B&B centrally located to access the Keys and Miami. It was a large boat docked at a marina, surrounded by grass flats and mangroves, with access to free kayaks. There's no way fishing had any influence on my choice to stay here...

After a fun first day in Miami visiting the zoo, I realized we had one more day of decent weather before the cold snap hit. The next day would be our best opportunity to fish. 

I awoke relatively early and walked the marina. I was pleasantly surprised to find the water clear. My eyes went into fish-finding mode and it didn't take more than a few steps in front of the boat to locate a fish. Hello Mr. Barracuda! A large smile formed on my face. I walked a little further ahead to the back of the cove and found 2 more barracuda, along with a few mangrove snappers, needlefish and mullet.

I walked back to our boat, strung up a fly rod and tied on a clouser minnow. It wasn't hard to convince the 16 inch 'cuda to eat my fly. Soon, I was staring face-to-face with a mouthful of sharp, oversized teeth. Luckily, he hadn't swallowed the fly and it came right out. 

I tossed the small predator back in the water and continued over to where I'd seen the others. The next 'cuda was eager for another meal and devoured my fly. The teeth on these fish truly are impressive, just ask my fly after being eaten by only 2 fish.

The third barracuda didn't eat my fly on the first cast, but eventually decided to play on the fourth cast. The largest of the 3, a 20 inch fish, put up a strong battle before tiring.

Our "fishing day" was off to a great start. After a nice breakfast and a healthy slathering of sunscreen, Katie and I were ready for the kayak. Luckily, there was a tandem kayak, so I'd be able to paddle and control while Katie casted. 

The day was overcast, a favorable condition for ambush predators like snook. We paddled over to the mangrove edge along the main channel that lead into the marina and started casting. Katie was doing an excellent job of placing the fly into the mangrove pockets. I stressed to Katie how important it would be to muscle the fish out of the mangroves when one took. With a heavy rod and a stout leader, there'd be no excuse to have a small snook tangle in the mangroves. 

We'd worked along the edge for a hundred yards or so when Katie laid a perfect cast into a nice dark pocket with some considerable overhang. Katie only made one strip when a large shadow charged her fly, inhaling it. Calm and cool as a cucumber she continued stripping until her line was taut and set the hook. The snook charged back into the mangroves, pulling with all it's might, and Katie pulled back with fury. The fish was winning though, already back into some of the long mangrove tendrils hanging down in the water. No, no, no! I reversed paddled the kayak away from the mangroves the best I could, buying us some space from the dream-shattering vegetation. Luckily, the tendrils didn't extend very deep and the snook slowly came back toward us as Katie heaved on the rod. The fish now charged back toward the kayak and took a dive under the boat. Katie's rod doubled over as the fish dug for the deep grass. Once again though, Katie was ready, and the fish was now tiring. 

This fish was way bigger than any snook I'd ever caught and my excitement was evident. I finally scooped the fish into the net, it's tail nearly hanging out. I told Katie this fish was safe to lip like a bass and she held it up for a great picture.

We guessed the fish was between 25 and 30 inches. We sent it on it's way and continued fishing. I was beyond excited for Katie. By the look on her face, however, Katie was a bit anxious. It seemed all that commotion had stirred up some deep trepidation of what lurked in the ocean depths. Katie's one true phobia is of sharks.

"You going to be ok?" I asked, a bit confused. "Was the snook too big?"

"No, the snook was fine. It's whatever creature might want to eat the snook when it's thrashing on my line." She replied, focusing on her breathing.

"We'll be fine. We're going to go into this bay where the water is shallower."

"Okay..."

We paddled around the corner where it opened up into a large bay fenced in by mangroves with small mangrove islands. No shortage of water to work, hopefully we'd find some fish. Katie continued casting and casting. I fished a bit too but we weren't finding anything but small barracudas chasing our flies.

The owner of the boat we were staying on said there was a neat "tiki hut" back in a mangrove pond in the back of the bay. We paddled around until we found the small channel leading to it. It opened up into a small pond with a covered dock in the middle of it. Schools of mullet could be seen swimming around to and fro. 

We ate a nice lunch on the dock and continued on, working our way back toward home base. We saw more barracudas and mangrove snappers, but nothing was too aggressive. Luckily, the one snook wanted to play, saving the day.

We spent the next couple days traveling down to Key West and over to Flamingo to see the everglades. We saw Key Deer, alligators, manatees and lots of neat birds. The cold snap had hit, bringing nighttime lows in the high 30's and daytime highs in the low 50's with a strong, bone chilling wind; hardly the warm Florida we hoped for. Even the skin-healing humidity was gone.

We awoke the day before we had to leave, knowing if we were to go fishing again, this would have to be our day. It was sunny, but still slightly cool and breezy, with the high reaching the mid 60's. 

We paddled a different direction this time, ending up in a calm, shallow cove. We saw a few small barracudas, but the cold weather made them lethargic. Katie was about to re-cast when a fish appeared out of nowhere and ate her fly. Suspecting it to be a small barracuda, I was very surprised to see a mystery fish come thrashing to the surface.

"What in the world is that fish?" Katie asked.

"Dang, that's weird. Never seen anything like that in my life." I added. "It's mouth is full of small teeth and it's head kinda looks like a lizard's."

We released the fish and continued fishing. Later investigation revealed it's identity; a lizard fish.

The morning sun had the iguanas out in full force. We started noticing them sunning themselves in the branches of the mangroves. It seemed where there was one, there were others. We later found out it was only the brown males we were seeing. Numerous times when we would paddle into the mangroves to remove our fly from the vegetation, there would be a green colored iguana just chilling in amongst the leaves right by our fly. It became a game of who could spot the most iguanas!

 

(This photo has 3, can you spot them?)

The bright skies and the recent cold snap certainly had the fish put off. We worked the mangroves hard, though.    

We spotted several very large, but very spooky barracuda that wanted nothing to do with our flies. We also wandered into a deep water pocket next to the mangroves that had a couple nice tarpon. They too were uninterested. I also teased a sheepshead out of the mangroves to investigate my fly. I eventually convinced a small barracuda to eat.

We returned to the boat with plenty of afternoon left. 

"Do you want to try the canals in Miami for peacock bass?" Katie asked.

"Well, I suppose we could!" I replied, always up for more fishing.

We made the short drive up to Miami and stopped at a canal that had been recommended by a guy in the local fly shop. The walk-bridge that took us to the other side of the canal provided a nice overlook on the canal waters. The water was stained and appeared very deep. Movement caught my eye as a peacock bass who had been sunning himself shot into the depths, disappearing. My optimism was high!

I made cast after cast along the canal without so much as a follow. We walked along the waters edge where giant snail shells crunched under our feet and startled iguanas dove into the water like bullfrogs. We feared the colder temps also had the bass put off. By near dark, we admitted defeat and drove back to our boat home.

The following day we would be flying home; but not before we tried the canals one last time. This time we tried a different canal. This one was also marked by the same deep, dark waters. Once again, the fish did not want to play. I tried different flies and presentations without any luck. 

"I'm sorry you didn't get your peacock bass, honey." Katie said with a frown.

"It's ok. This just means I'm going to have to go to Brazil or Columbia to get one!" I replied with a mischievous smile. 

"Oh, I suppose..."

Even though we brought the Idaho cold with us to Florida, we had a wonderful time. Katie caught a dandy snook and we found a few barracuda. This trip only made us want to travel back to Florida again, but hopefully next time the conditions would be in our favor.

  

Quality Encounters : Archery Elk 2022

 Idaho Archery Elk, September 2022

Archery elk hunting is something I'd been telling myself I needed to do for years. Chasing elk during the rut and interacting with them on a much closer level is what archery is all about. September of 2022 was here before I knew it. My buddies, Bryce and Ryan, would be joining me, and neither of them had harvested an elk with a bow. It would be a bunch of rookies stumbling through the woods. Archery is inherently more difficult, so I was trying to keep my expectations low. My goal was to simply have some quality encounters.

Ryan and I hunted a full day before Bryce could come up. We hunted an area where I set up some trail cameras back in August. Mid-morning, we heard a strange growly noise nearby. It didn't sound very much like an elk, but it was so deep, no human could have made it. We cow called back and it responded; this time with a couple chuckles at the end. It was clearly a real elk with an old, raspy growl. How cool was it to already be communicating with a bull on our first morning? The morning wind was wrong to sneak in closer, so we patiently waited for the thermals to switch before making a move. We'd hear him growl every once in a while, but he eventually shut up. A short while later, three people on horseback appeared out of the bottom of the drainage the elk was in. Well that would explain why the elk shut up. There were more people in the woods than we had hoped and maybe we wouldn't have the luxury of being patient with elk. 

We explored further up the mountain only to run into more people. We located a few good looking benches and saddles lower on the mountain and decided to focus our evening efforts there. As we approach some of those areas, the elk sign increased. We stopped at a promising saddle with a ton of fresh tracks and decide to try a calling technique called the "cow party". This involves simulating a heard of cow elk moving into the area and getting excited about something. You try to sound like as many different cows as possible in hopes a curious elk nearby wants to come check things out. We did our calling and then talked about splitting up and walking different ridges back to the truck. We sat in the area for only a few minutes and then went our separate ways. I had dropped a few hundred feet of elevation when I heard a bugle/growl back from where I came. I texted Ryan to see if he had bugled and he said he didn't. Had our cow party worked to pull the growler bull to us? Since I had already dropped a few hundred feet of elevation, I didn't know Ryan exact location. With the dark quickly approaching, I decided to keep heading back to the truck. It was very dark by the time I made it back to the truck and Ryan arrived shortly after, wrapping up a long but interesting day. We never saw an elk or heard many bugles, but we had communicated and then later called in the growler bull with the cow party. Not a bad first day.

A few photos from the trail cams.

That night, on his way in, Bryce had a "quality encounter" with a moo cow on the road. The black Angus cow standing in the middle of the road in the darkness of night was unavoidable and luckily for Bryce, missed all but the passenger mirror on his truck. It did collide with part of his trailer, however. The impact unfortunately killed the cow and Bryce had to contact the local sheriff who informed him that it was open range and a cow costs a pretty penny. (Luckily they never called to collect.)

Determined to put the traumatic event behind us, we hit the mountain hard the next morning in search of elk. We were slowly working up a gradual ridge when we came to a spot with lots of elk sign. The woods were fairly dark and thick, meaning elk could be anywhere around us.

"Shall we try a cow party?" I whispered to Bryce and Ryan. 

"Sure. We'll all just take a spot where we have some shooting windows and see what happens." Bryce commented.

"Let's wait at least 30 minutes this time." Ryan added with a wry smile.

We began our calling sequence, and I must say, we sounded pretty darn good! Then, from Ryan's side of the ridge, I thought I heard something coming through the woods, breaking a few sticks on it's approach. I couldn't see in front of Ryan, but I could tell something was coming his way. Then I heard a loud crash as a large animal bolted away from us. I tried to call to stop it without any luck. Either Ryan had just shot an elk or it had spooked. I never did see it, but it had come in within 30 yards of us. We walked over to Ryan to see what had happened. 

"Dang spike just came right in. He was standing right in front of me but I was shaking so bad my arrow came right off my string and he saw all the movement. He was only 20 yards in front of me! I could have smoked him if I hadn't had buck fever!" Ryan said, in clear disappointment.

"That's still pretty awesome. The cow party worked again!" I said.

We hunted on, working our way toward some of the country we were in the day before. Later that morning we ended up stumbling onto a couple of bugling bulls. We tried to go after them but got stuck in some brush that was so thick we couldn't really get anywhere without  making so much noise the whole mountain would know. We eventually found a way out of that thicket but lost the elk in the process. 

Ryan had to leave but Bryce and I would be able to stay all week chasing elk. The woods were quiet with very little bugling. One of the days, we tried a completely new area with some old closed roads. We tried a couple cow parties in some likely areas without success. We came around a corner in the road in the early afternoon and saw another likely spot to try calling. 

"Shall we try a cow party Bryce?" I said, almost jokingly. It was our only strategy that had produced any success. So far we'd had nothing respond to our bugles and the elk were simply not talking. The cow party had brought in at least 2 different bulls, so it was all we had. 

"Sure!" Bryce responded. "Let's give it til 3pm."

Bryce got into position looking at a trail coming out of some dark woods while I set up a short distance away looking at another potential area they could come from. We started our cow party. A short time later, I thought I heard something coming toward Bryce. I continued to call, hoping to lure whatever it was into Bryce's bow range. Then I heard the telltale crash of a spooked elk by Bryce. Had he shot an elk? I waited a few minutes and then wandered over to him. 

"Well, what came in? Did you get an elk?" I asked.

Bryce just shook his head. "Big ol' bull came in right on that trail. He came up the trail and then turned uphill right behind that bush. I could see his antlers. All he had to do was take another couple steps forward and he would have been broadside at 20 yards. But he saw me move. I think I was shaking too bad." 

Another elk had come in to the cow party and another elk spooked from movement/nervousness. At least we were having some success. Then we heard a bull bugle in the direction the bull had run off to. Was he taunting us? We decided to sit and let the area relax while formulating our next plan. After close to an hour, we decided we would circle back the direction we had come and try to climb up to a saddle where we suspected the bull had retreated to. Bryce and I set off with a purpose down the old road we had come. We'd only gone a quarter mile when I looked up the road and saw a bull elk standing in the middle of our road. Of course he immediately took off, crashing down the hill, gone forever. That bull had made a huge circle around us, still trying to check us out. We assumed it was the bull that had come in to Bryce. It seemed with archery, even after spooking an elk our chances weren't over. Another lesson learned.

That evening we located another good looking spot for a calling sequence. And yep, you guessed it: The cow party! Sure enough, after a long excited cow chatter, we heard the tell tale sounds of an approaching elk. This time, a spike came into view directly in front of me. He held up at 70 yards and froze for what felt like an eternity. We tried calling some more to convince the elk to come closer. We also tried not calling for a long period to force the elk to approach closer for investigation. It eventually became too dark to continue hunting. Only then did the spike move a muscle and wander off. The cow party had done it yet again. 

The woods were absolutely full of bear sign, including two bear sightings.

Fresh elk rubs also littered the woods, keeping our optimism high. 

One morning we awoke to a light drizzle; maybe this would get the elk talking. We decided to hunt some of the lower, "overlooked" areas again and immediately we were into elk.

We were slowly following a prominent elk trail when I spotted a spike up the hill from us. The wind was swirling this morning and surprisingly, the spike hadn't winded us. Bryce and I got into position on a small table-ridge below the elk, perhaps 100 yards away. We began our cow party and right away, the one spike turned into 3 spikes, all approaching for further investigation. The 3 spikes came down the hill with a purpose and made it to about 70 yards when suddenly we heard something below us approaching. The spikes froze in their tracks and up from our right came another elk. I turned to look and just as I did a nice 6 point bull came trotting up the hill and let out a scream of a bugle! The spikes scattered as the true boss of the forest made an appearance. The bull worked his way from our right to directly in front of us at about 60 yards and froze, scanning for the source of the cow sounds. Bryce was closer to the bull. If I could just pull that elk a little closer to Bryce he'd have a shot... I decided to slowly back away and begin some subtle cow sounds, attempting to pull the elk our way. I slipped behind a tree I was near and slowly stepped to my right to grab hold of a bush to sound like an elk feeding. As I stepped to my right, I looked up to see the elk staring at me between a gap in the trees. The gig was up. The elk turned and trotted back the direction he came from. Crap! Bryce and I met back up and decided we'd simulate through calling, that another bull entered the scenario. I moved down and over to a thicker area where I could bugle and rake on some bushes out of sight and hopefully pull the bull back in from our right. I had almost made it to my chosen spot when I looked between a gap in the forest and the same darn bull was standing there staring at me! The bull had circled down below us and was attempting to come in from another direction. Once again we had been complacent and forgotten that these elk weren't necessarily spooked once they saw you. This time though, the elk ran off further down the hill. The gig was really up now.

Bryce and I moved on and agreed to return to approximately the same area in the evening and try another cow party, hoping that nice bull would come in for another opportunity. An hour before dark we pushed our way into a thickly forested section of woods near the same area. We hoped this thicker area would force the elk to come in close to investigate and hopefully be in range when they appeared.

 

We began our calling sequence and once again it didn't take long before we heard approaching elk. Our thicket was surrounded by huckleberry bushes and we could hear the bushes rubbing against the elks' legs. At one point it sounded like we were surrounded by circling elk, daring one another to enter the thick pocket. One of the elk made a long chuckling sound that sounded more like an ape than an elk as it approached. It repeated the sound again, this time closer. As darkness approached and no elk made an appearance, Bryce decided it was time to get more aggressive. Bryce began simulating another bull had joined and began raking and chuckling and braking sticks. He sounded like one fired up elk. I continued to wait in silence hoping his tactics would pull one of the elk into range. Then I saw them: elk legs! To my left I caught a glimpse of some dark elk legs slowly moving through the woods toward me. They were already within range but the woods were too thick to get a full view of who's legs they belonged to. Then, Bryce let out a full on scream of a bugle. It sounded great to me but perhaps a little too aggressive for the approaching elk. The elk turned around and the legs disappeared. Before we knew it, it was dark, wrapping up another exciting day in the elk woods. 

The last couple of days we tried some of the same areas, as well as some new ones, without any more success. Before we knew it, it was time to head home, finishing up an exciting hunt. Would I have liked to have harvested a bull? Of course! But I was totally satisfied with the number and quality of encounters we'd had for a couple of newby archery elk hunters. Next year we would be more prepared, hopefully turning those close encounters into success.