Deer hunters, deer shooters, morons and such

[Daryl (deceased)]

I just got back from a mule deer hunt a few days ago. The area we hunted was about 4 hours away, so I didn't get a chance to scout ahead of time. That, and the fact that I'd never hunted this area before made it a bit of a quandry in many ways.

I've been in the hunt unit many times for various reasons; I'd just never hunted it before. My hunting buddy had, but pretty limited for deer.

So, we went up a few days early to "check things out", and found that most fellas there weren't seeing many deer. The sign was there, and good grass with more limited water, so I decided for the first day I'd stake out a remote water hold.

Which turned out to be a complete flop. I finally went back to camp just before dark, did some glassing, and spotted 4 deer about 2 miles away. By the time I got near them (1 smallish buck in the group), another hunter was after them so I let him be. He didn't get a shot from what I saw and heard (or, didn't hear).

The next day was a bit..."irritating", to say the least.

I decided to hunt some "pockets", simply because I've learned that deer will oft-times hide in very obvious places. To get there, I hunted a long, shallow canyon that followed along a road for a mile or so, and then turned off into more remote country.

The problem came when "road hunters" saw someone actually "hiking", and must have asumed that I was "stalking" something. I was working my way along, low in the canyon and close to the tree-line, when a truck stopped on the road and suddenly I saw rifles pointed out the window at me. They finally moved down the road a ways to "watch me", and then another truck stopped to point rifles out the window at me.

At that, I crossed the canyon, topped over, and hunted the next drainage over...and found a young hunter down that canyon who also pointed his rifle at me to "see" better through the scope.

By then I was getting a little paranoid, so circled back up towards camp, which was now a couple of miles away. I'd intended to go on down into the more remote areas, but I wasn't much into having rifles pointed at me everywhere I went.

So, as I was getting close to camp, walking down a dirt two-track, the same (#*$%)_$#(()_#()_truck that had first stopped to point rifles at me passed on the main road again, and again the twits stopped and pointed rifles out the window at me. There was a bit of brush there, but I was only about 50 yards from them, and I was getting more than a little ticked. So, not knowing their intentions, I ducked in behind a boulder and did what I felt was necessary to defend myself should they actually shoot at me and somehow miss. Oh, and I yelled some obvious obsenities at them, and warned them that if they wanted that pretty truck to continue without bullet holes, they'd best get on down the road.

It's a worrisome thing to have rifles (likely loaded) pointed at you, and not knowing the person doing it, or their intentions didn't help matters much. The fact that they were also likely drinking didn't make me any more comfortable.

So, I decided then and there that I was going to either find a way to hunt away from complete idiots, or I was going to break camp and go home.

Besides, with that many hunters doing nothing more than driving the roads in hopes of finding a deer to shoot at, I figured we'd need to get back away from any roads to find deer. Anything less wasn't likely to work well...

Continued later...

Daryl