“Camp…Four miles! Up, down, then up long way!” spoke my smiling guide. Just what I had wanted to hear. I had shouldered my 65-pound pack two hours earlier. And, I was starting to feel its weight, heavily! “I’m getting way too experienced for this sort of thing!” I muttered hoping not to be heard.
The way I calculated it, we still had a minimum of three hours before we would reach our camp site, one which would be cold and dry, although most likely wet due to the weather. Until I took the one deer allowed in the area, there would be no warming, soothing camp fire. We intended to do our best to blend in with our surroundings and to set up our backpack tents in a blind canyon where hopefully we would be unnoticed by the resident wild creatures.
Packed food consisted of 12 protein bars, eight freeze-dried “delicacies” as well as six packets of instant coffee and the same number of packets of instant oatmeal. I also carried a plastic flask filled with Rebecca Creek, my adult libation of choice. Stuffed in my pack too, was a small pot in which to heat water, a red Ruger coffee cup and a small alcohol-fueled stove with enough fuel for three days of occasional use. Water would have to come from a small spring, reputedly near where we intended to set up camp.
Onward and upward into the fog! And now, foggy it was. We could scarcely see ten steps ahead, then all melded into a grayish mystery. I hoped our world would clear with the morrow, and season’s opening.
Due to the lack of visibility, our anticipated three-hour camp arrival snail-paced into over four hours. Finally, against the blind canyon’s back wall we set up our two backpack tents. An hour before full dark, a cold northeasterly wind starting blowing. I longed for the warmth of a fire. But there would be none.
The stout breeze blew away the fog. Conditions improved! With precious light remaining I set up my spotting scope and glassed the surrounding slopes. I soon spotted the buck I wanted to pursue come tomorrow’s first light.
We settled in for the night. After crunching two protein bars, I poured three fingers of “safe water” into my coffee cup. No fine snifter or highball glass for me! I savored the first sip and doubted having ever tasted better nectar of the ancients. Leaning against a nearby rock I again raised high the “safe” elixir to honor those with whom I had shared past hunting and to the success of the morrow.
Sleep came quickly, but unfortunately did not last long. I woke up two hours later. Stars shone brightly above. Off in the distance I could hear a lone coyote, likely an old male kicked out of the pack. His song was a mournful wail.
Time passed slowly. A few feet away my guide started snoring. I picked up a pebble and tossed it his way. He rolled over. Silence returned and I dozed off.
The sun was still two hours shy of making its appearance, when I crawled out of my sleeping bag and stood “to get the kinks out”. A short time later I had the alcohol stove boiling water for instant coffee and a packet of instant oatmeal, an excellent start to a day of hunting from a dry camp!
Black morphed to gray and stars started disappearing. I soon spotted the buck I had hoped to take, a unique deer in many ways, a stag or “cactus horn”, a buck for whatever reason had grown antlers but had never shed the velvet, thus grew, slowly as it were, continually. His kind was quite rare for coues whitetail.
My chosen buck was a thousand yards away, feeding on a relatively open slope. With luck we would be able to stalk to within 300 yards, possibly closer.
I stuffed the food wrappers, stove, coffee cup and flask into my back pack, loaded four Hornady American Whitetail 30–06 rounds into my Ruger American Rifle’s magazine, adjusted the parallax on my Trijicon AccuPoint scope to 300 yards then headed into the buck’s direction.
By taking advantage of a narrow canyon we were able to stalk to within 250 yards of the unsuspecting buck. Prior to heading out on the hunt I had sighted in my rifle to point blank range, or hunter’s zero, so my bullet was no more than three inches above or below dead center out to 320 yards. Thus, I did not need to make any adjustment to my reticle out to 300 yards nor do any hold over. I intended to hold dead on the deer’s vital zone and I knew my bullet would strike the deer in the heart and lungs.
I got into a prone shooting position, used my backpack to insure a steady hold, I took several deep breaths, moved the safety to fire, locked the crosshairs on the buck’s vitals, let out all my breath and put steady pressure on the trigger. At the shot the velvet horn pitched high and fell. As he did I chambered another round and immediately got on the downed deer. If he so much as moved, I intended to shoot him again. I watched through the scope a good 20 seconds, but saw no movement. With that, still keeping an eye on the downed buck, I sat up and accepted my guide’s congratulations!
A few minutes later I stood by the coues whitetail’s side. He indeed was a unique buck and an ancient one. His teeth were worn to the gum line and below. He would likely not have made it through the winter and certainly not through the following summer. Being a velvet horn and old, I knew his venison would be not only be delicious but also tender. Back at base camp that night I was proven right on both accounts.
After a delicious meal of pan-fried backstrap, potatoes and onions, I reached into my pack and pulled out my coffee cup, poured four fingers… there’s just something special about whiskey from a coffee cup in hunting camp!