Elkeater
AH enthusiast
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2023
- Messages
- 419
- Reaction score
- 1,386
- Location
- Arizona, USA
- Media
- 36
- Articles
- 1
- Hunted
- USA and RSA
I live in Arizona. My brother lives in Idaho. This makes for a rather good arrangement for hunting and vacation as our weather is flip flopped and we both have access to different hunting options. Well we headed to Idaho this year for thanksgiving. In preparation for this I picked up an any whitetail deer tag. Obviously by thanksgiving rifle season is over so I used the muzzleloader to comply with the “short range” season requirements. My brother being a resident also had a my whitetail tag and a bonus doe tag that he could use the rifle for. Now being thanksgiving week we had family obligations so we really only had two days to hunt. Thankfully our wives were understanding of our need for some quality brother time.
Day one found us leaving the house about 630 am. We drove 45 minutes north with my dad following us in a separate truck. Dad was gonna just hag out at camp and tend the wood stove. To be honest we didn’t pack much food. Some apples, some potatoes, bread, eggs, and onions and cheese. And of course a bottle of bourbon for those chilly nights around the wood stove. We figured that fetching a doe with the rifle for camp meat wouldn’t take long.
We left dad on the side of the salmon river with the wall tent, wood stove, and groceries around 830am and headed up the mountain road out of the camp site. After cruising down about 3 miles of road we stopped to do a little glassing off a closed logging road. Not seeing anything we jumped back in the truck and headed back down the switchbacks. We hadn’t gone 100 yards before we saw three whitetail does standing about 150 yards below us. My brother hopped out with his .260 Remington and climbed down the steep Cut bank off the road so that he would be the legal distance off the road. The deer kept bunching up and never offered a shot before someone on a side by side drove past and spooked them. We hopped back in the truck and drove another 50 yards before spotting two does feeding on the hillside on the other side of the drainage. We drive down the road and stopped immediately below them. One 140gr eldm later and we had camp meat. We got back to camp before 11am. We figured tenderloins fried in butter, bourbon and onions we be just the ticket on a cold cloudy day. Lucky for us dad had the wall tent up and the wood stove going by the time we got back with a deer.
We kicked back and enjoyed the morning’s success and relaxed by the stove for a couple hours before heading back out. It was cold, spitting snow, and windy. We drove the same road checked a couple drainages. Bumped a nice buck out of his bed after parking the truck and walking about 50’. All in all an enjoyable evening hunt with an opportunity at a doe right at last light that I ultimately decided to pass on as we were very close to a small piece of private land and I didn’t want to upset the owners and their pack of hounds. Just didn’t seem like the right thing to do even if it was a totally legal deer to kill.
The next morning we got up and had coffee. We drove about 5 minutes up the road and stalked up a drainage. We saw a couple does in some inconvenient spots. We also glassed several mule deer, elk and sheep. We had set the standard for the morning at any buck or a doe that was easy to retrieve. Well about 1000am we glassed up a doe 700 yards away bedded about 100 yards above a logging road that we could drive to. We dropped off the ridge we were on and made our way over to her. I dropped my pack 50 yards short of the stump I had marked as my shooting location. I eased in the last 50 yards and set up on the stump. 110 yards to the deer. One 245gr power belt bullet destroyed both lungs. She died about 70 yards from where we could park the truck. We got back to camp before noon.
We got her quartered and ready for the trip home before kicking back by the wood stove.
We spent the evening looking for a buck for my brother to no avail but we had a great time and it was great to hunt together.
Now that I’m home I decided to try my hand at biltong. I ate a ton of it in RSA last year and really enjoyed it. Being from Arizona it seemed to me that our climate is very similar to RSA. I figured I could probably make biltong the old fashioned way with our temps and low humidity. I took the rounds out the deer and cut them into the appropriate sized pieces before salting, then marinating in red wine vinegar, honey, and Worcestershire sauce and finally rolling in coriander, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and fennel seed before hanging the pieces up in my garage to dry. It took 8 days before the pieces lost 50% of their weight. I took it down and sliced some today. I have to say it turned out well and I’m now stocked with whitetail biltong. Wish it was kudu but those seem in short supply around here.
Day one found us leaving the house about 630 am. We drove 45 minutes north with my dad following us in a separate truck. Dad was gonna just hag out at camp and tend the wood stove. To be honest we didn’t pack much food. Some apples, some potatoes, bread, eggs, and onions and cheese. And of course a bottle of bourbon for those chilly nights around the wood stove. We figured that fetching a doe with the rifle for camp meat wouldn’t take long.
We left dad on the side of the salmon river with the wall tent, wood stove, and groceries around 830am and headed up the mountain road out of the camp site. After cruising down about 3 miles of road we stopped to do a little glassing off a closed logging road. Not seeing anything we jumped back in the truck and headed back down the switchbacks. We hadn’t gone 100 yards before we saw three whitetail does standing about 150 yards below us. My brother hopped out with his .260 Remington and climbed down the steep Cut bank off the road so that he would be the legal distance off the road. The deer kept bunching up and never offered a shot before someone on a side by side drove past and spooked them. We hopped back in the truck and drove another 50 yards before spotting two does feeding on the hillside on the other side of the drainage. We drive down the road and stopped immediately below them. One 140gr eldm later and we had camp meat. We got back to camp before 11am. We figured tenderloins fried in butter, bourbon and onions we be just the ticket on a cold cloudy day. Lucky for us dad had the wall tent up and the wood stove going by the time we got back with a deer.
We kicked back and enjoyed the morning’s success and relaxed by the stove for a couple hours before heading back out. It was cold, spitting snow, and windy. We drove the same road checked a couple drainages. Bumped a nice buck out of his bed after parking the truck and walking about 50’. All in all an enjoyable evening hunt with an opportunity at a doe right at last light that I ultimately decided to pass on as we were very close to a small piece of private land and I didn’t want to upset the owners and their pack of hounds. Just didn’t seem like the right thing to do even if it was a totally legal deer to kill.
The next morning we got up and had coffee. We drove about 5 minutes up the road and stalked up a drainage. We saw a couple does in some inconvenient spots. We also glassed several mule deer, elk and sheep. We had set the standard for the morning at any buck or a doe that was easy to retrieve. Well about 1000am we glassed up a doe 700 yards away bedded about 100 yards above a logging road that we could drive to. We dropped off the ridge we were on and made our way over to her. I dropped my pack 50 yards short of the stump I had marked as my shooting location. I eased in the last 50 yards and set up on the stump. 110 yards to the deer. One 245gr power belt bullet destroyed both lungs. She died about 70 yards from where we could park the truck. We got back to camp before noon.
We got her quartered and ready for the trip home before kicking back by the wood stove.
We spent the evening looking for a buck for my brother to no avail but we had a great time and it was great to hunt together.
Now that I’m home I decided to try my hand at biltong. I ate a ton of it in RSA last year and really enjoyed it. Being from Arizona it seemed to me that our climate is very similar to RSA. I figured I could probably make biltong the old fashioned way with our temps and low humidity. I took the rounds out the deer and cut them into the appropriate sized pieces before salting, then marinating in red wine vinegar, honey, and Worcestershire sauce and finally rolling in coriander, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and fennel seed before hanging the pieces up in my garage to dry. It took 8 days before the pieces lost 50% of their weight. I took it down and sliced some today. I have to say it turned out well and I’m now stocked with whitetail biltong. Wish it was kudu but those seem in short supply around here.
