Deer Hunting

My friend Steve Hiebert and I headed out of Denver early Friday morning for a combo deer hunt/tax lien search. Steve is interested in picking up the delinquent taxes on some mountain property in hopes of making some money, so we are stopping off in Craig to look through property records at the Moffat county court building. The weather gets bad right off on the way up, and all the mountain passes are slick and snow packed. In Craig the weather is schizophrenic with alternating blowing sleat and sunny skies. We spent about 4 hours looking through tax records and county maps then it's off to our friends Paul and Carols cabin about 30 miles north. Not much snow sticking to the road here but after leaving the pavement, and climbing up into the mountains it begins to pile up. We get stuck briefly on a steep hill, then again in Pauls driveway but finally we are there.

Pauls cabin is situated on 30 acres of land and a friend of his owns another 60 adjoining acres so we have a pretty nice area all to ourselves. Hunting on public land is a bit dangerous these days, and can lead to stray bullets flying by as Steve can personally attest to. He took a small caliber .22 bullet in the leg hunting during his high school years, and several years ago I witnessed someone send a volley of large caliber bullets in his direction. Luckily none of those connected. Anyway we have this property to ourselves and all the surrounding land is also private so we hardly ever see anyone else.

This is really a luxurious way to hunt what with the cabin, and Carol fixing our meals. Carol is gourmet cook, and loves to try new dishes out on us. It's a tough job but someones got to do it.

Opening season we roll out in the morning to 4 more inches of snow, and head out into the dark. The great thing about hunting in the snow is seeing tracks. When you see fresh tracks you know the animals are about, and it's an instant moral booster. I make my way to one of the usual hot spots, and within about 30 minutes an unfortunate doe wandered onto the hillside in front of me at about 80 meters. With her down the messy part begins. I brought a 4 wheeler up for the express purpose of hauling animals out of the woods, but the snow is too deep, and I soon find out I am going to have to do it the old fashioned way. The animal is cut into workable chunks and packed out in one two-person trip.

Unfortunately, we hunt the rest of the weekend and nobody else gets a shot (that's why they call it hunting). So with one successful harvest the big game hunting season comes to a close for this year, and we turn to the task of trying to get out of here.

Leaving the hunt was more trouble then getting in. The snow has piled up a bit more, and Steve pretty much gets stuck in Pauls driveway. We're forced to break out the chains, and chain-up the front wheels to get out to the highway. Once out on the main dirt road the going isn't too difficult, but there is evidence everywhere of people being stuck in the ditch. Just before getting out on the pavement we stop to take the chains off. A passing truck stops and tells us that the day before 11 vehicles were stuck trying to get up the hill we just came up. He apparently helped pull them all out. It's been a snowy early fall.