“What time is it?”
”I’ve got 4:15.”
“I’ve got 4:10.”
”What’s the temperature?”
“Seventeen degrees Fahrenheit.” - And so started opening morning of the 2005 California late season deer hunt. My friend, Darryl Coe, of Newhall, California, had asked me to go along with him and one of his longtime friends (and hunting mentor), Jim Riner. Darryl had drawn a tag to hunt mule deer in the California Eastern Sierras.
After we finished our quick oatmeal breakfast and several of Riner’s world-famous chocolate chip cookies (really… the guy can cook!), we piled into Darryl’s rig and headed up from the foothills to the base of the bench. This was our Plan A. We saw several flashlights already ascending the 10,800 foot slope so we implemented Plan B and continued on along the base of the mountains another two to three miles.
Grabbing our Zeiss and Leupold optics, we waited for gray light and then began our search and surveillance of the saddles, benches, and volcanic snow-covered cinder cones. It was within minutes of dim morning light when we spotted thirty to forty deer already on the move. Moments later, Darryl got a brief glimpse of the buck that he would kill hours later. We continued to glass several other possible shooters.
Jim and Darryl discussed the terrain, predominate wind direction, and predicted the wind thermals to be dealt with later as the temperature would hopefully rise. Given Jim’s considerable knowledge of this area (Jim has hunted here off and on since1951); we took his advice and decided it would be prudent to climb up the mountain to the next viewing location. That’s when things started getting exciting. Maybe we are getting old. I’m 54, Darryl’s 55, and Jim is…well old. When we grabbed our gear out of the back of Darryl’s truck, we noticed that we were one pack short. “Darryl, is that the pack with your deer tag in it?” When Darryl replied that, yes, it was the pack with his tag in it, we implemented Plan C.
I took Darryl’s truck and rifle with me (I had a bear tag), and went back to camp to get his pack. Jim and Darryl ascended to a lava rock ridge and would spot from there until I returned. An hour later I was headed up the mountain to meet them when Darryl rounded the side hill and said they had relocated the buck feeding at the snowline and had the spotting scope on him. Being careful not to skyline ourselves, we worked our way around the icy lava rocks to our optic nest. When we got there, Darryl had his 20x45 Leupold scope set up and warned me, “When you look through there, don’t scream.” Looking through the scope, I saw nothing to scream about. All I was looking at were several 3x3 and 4x4 bucks and does feeding - then movement caught my eye. I could now clearly see around four-inches of a massive set of horns over the top of the sage. Apparently the buck had just bedded and that’s what Jim and Darryl had been waiting for. Several minutes later, the buck lifted his head and I was very glad that Darryl had warned me not to scream! Frickin Monster!!
Darryl, Jim and I ranged the buck at ¾-mile away and proceeded to watch him for the next hour and 45 minutes. We were then confident that the buck was not going to move. The Buck was well protected as the rest of his harem and lesser bucks had set up camp around him as he snoozed in his sage bed. It was decided that Darryl should take only his Remington 700 7mm Weatherby Magnum, Jim’s 10x40 Zeiss, and make an assault up the ridge from the left side. Jim and I would stay and keep tabs on the buck and the other deer. We would bring the packs when Darryl made the shot. We reviewed sign language, should Darryl not be able to locate the buck from his new shooting spot, and wished him luck.
Fifteen minutes after Darryl took off, the buck stood up and started to feed. Jim and I were nervous that he might move out of the area before Darryl got to the shooting spot, but he only moved fifty yards and lay back down in a clump of snow and heavy sage.
After almost two and one half-hours of Jim and me vigilantly watching from the freezing cinder cone lava boulders, we started to become very concerned that we had not yet seen Darryl up on the ridge. Believing Darryl may have run into problems, Jim decided to go see what might be the matter. I agreed and put my eye back to the Leupold scope just in time to see what looked like a miniature heat wave fly across the canyon and into the sage bed… then came the report from Darryl’s rifle. I watched the huge set of horns shake and then recede below the brush. “He nailed him Jim!”
For the next ten minutes it was dead quiet on the mountain. I thought I could see the buck’s ears moving slightly through the Leupold scope and we worried that the buck was not down for good. It was then that Jim glassed Darryl on the ridge. Darryl stood up, waved, and began walking up the ridge headed away from the buck. As we were not exactly sure the buck would not move out, Jim decided I should stay and watch the buck and he would go to help Darryl as he felt he was headed in a more difficult direction across the canyon’s face (we later learned that Darryl wanted to gain elevation to keep the field of fire clear should the buck have any life left in him).
After a very difficult, steep and rocky stalk, Darryl had been able to glass just a patch of the buck’s neck and shoulder through the sage. He then lay in the prone position with his rifle across his bunched-up shirt, and, at 350 yards, placed a 160-grain Nosler Partition bullet precisely through a ten-inch opening into the buck’s neck, through the chest, and out the opposite shoulder. I watched as Darryl slowly worked his way up the hillside opposite the buck, pausing and glassing every so often. After about twenty minutes, he turned and began walking directly towards the bedded deer. At 150 yards, the rest of the herd alerted and bolted up the hill past the old buck. Then I screamed and I heard Darryl’s echoing scream…the buck had obviously expired!
Jim was now already thirty minutes up the hill, so I emptied the packs of all but the essentials (hint, take two cameras - not one, empty digital cards, and spare battery!) and headed up the face of the mountain.
About an hour later, I met up with Darryl and Jim. Darryl looked up from his prone resting position, and said, “Pretty big buck huh?” I’ve got to tell you that every time I replay that moment in my mind, I laugh my butt off! What a perfect understatement. Darryl would later measure his buck at 39 7/8-inches wide. It was a 12x10 with double eye-guards and one nine-inch drop tine. It green scores 230 gross B&C. Yeah, pretty big buck Darryl! We took pictures (hint, take loads of pictures!) and then quartered and caped the buck, loaded the Roosevelt packs, and then started down the hill.
We made it back down the mountain about five p.m. It was then that Jim remembered to ask Darryl what had taken him so long to get to the ridge he was supposed to shoot from. Darryl explained that the terrain was very steep on the backside of the ridge and that in some places it was impassable. He had to cross a thick, brushy, icy creek several times. And, most important, he had run into several bedded deer pods and had to go low and slow being careful not to bump them into his buck (Hint - I’ll have to say that of the three of us, Darryl’s camo was the best – it was a perfect match for this terrain. Thank you Desert Shadow).
In closing, it was sure a privilege to be invited on this hunt with these two world-class “blue-collar” hunters. Over the years, I have learned invaluable lessons from my dear friend Jim Riner. Darryl and I both agree that without Jim’s added ability to scout animals, this hunt may not have proved as successful. Not to mention, the guy can really cook!  |
From
the Best of 2005 Issue of Hunting Illustrated Magazine - posted May 31, 2006
