By: Bears Butt

The first weekend of the Dream Hunt was “almost” perfect.  We got to the camp site earlier than expected on Friday morning and just barely beat another hunter and his crew to the camp site we like most.  They had stopped in Evanston to pick up some high point beverages and that is how we got ahead of them.  They had passed us coming up the canyon on the freeway.

The camp set up went quickly, as most of us knew the ropes of putting up the dining fly.  So we were eating lunch right at noon and drinking cool beverages with lunch.  A better start could not have been had.

Since this was mostly a reconnoiter weekend, we loaded up some gear and went for a little drive to see what kind of critters we could find in the mountains.  Now, just because I’m letting you know some of the weekend events I am also not at liberty to tell you EVERYTHING about what we found, but I will let you know this…we saw some beautiful animals and were quite excited to get the hunt underway the next day.  Dreams of filling tags were definitely in the wind.

My camera does not take the best of pictures, especially out at 10 power and me trying to hold it steady, but this shows you one of the bucks we saw on Friday.  We also saw where the other guys put their camp, which was WAYYY UP near the top of the mountain.  And when we went past, there just happened to be a visitor above their camp.

The buck was looking down into their camp when we stopped on the road and by the time I got the camera ready it had moved to the left.  I took this picture to show you just how close it was to their camp and it was a pretty decent buck.

Not a buck we would take in the morning, but still a nice buck.

Before the sun set we found a pretty nice little buck and we analyzed it with great vigor.  Each one of us pulling on the sides of the anters we liked best and stretching it out wider and wider with each different position it posed itself in.  When it was all settled, the boys with the tags were pretty much filled with delight, not to say they hadn’t had their fill of bubbly as well.

What is your best guess as to its width, height and number of points?

And so with the coming of the evening the thrill of being in the Crawford Mountains one more time, we cheered and cheered and then settled in for the night.

Believe it or not, we ate supper and were in bed before 8 p.m.!

The morning brought the usual thrill of an opener in the Crawfords.  A quick check of the low of the night only showed about 35 degrees.  Not cold at all and it will only get warmer as the day progresses.  Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.   Tracker questioned whether we should chain up before leaving camp and we decided not to and off we went.

As usual, we began seeing bucks just out of camp but nothing big enough to shoot.

Seeing as how I was the driver, I could only shoot at bucks with my camera when the situation allowed and a ton of bucks went passed that I did not get to take pictures of.  The ones I did were usually fleeting and moving.  Bear with me with these pictures as most are blurry.

If you ever hunt the Crawfords much, you will see a lot of high antlered 3X3 bucks and we saw plenty of them this weekend.

Some are small 4X4’s as well like this guy.

To some hunters this guy would be in the truck already, but not for the two guys with the tags on this weekend.  Hold out for something bigger guys.  There are still two full weeks ahead.

Back in camp for a quick lunch we had some little feathered visitors.  Birds that I have yet to find the name of and for sure I have never seen the likes of them before.  They flitted about for quite some time.  Very interesting little birds for sure.

(A bit of research makes me think these are “Grey Crowned Rosey Finches”.  If you know otherwise, please make a comment below…Thanks!)

As the day progressed we found the mud to be a real problem getting around and we ended up chaining the front end up, but not before some nasty mud found itself on top of the hood.  Sorry Bones, would you rather it be a buck head?

As the rest of the day went on it became apparent that the need to have chains on all four tires was imperative if we wanted to go where we wanted to go.  It also became apparent that everyone was going to be wearing a lot of mud and the truck and trailers were going to be carrying the extra stuff as well.  I hate mud!

It rained some more during the night and again the temperature did not reach the freezing mark.  We had made plans to be in a certain place at a certain time on the second day and we prepared early for the trip to “Hidden Valley”.

As we progressed in the darkness, Baby Boy was able to pick up on the weather forecast for the day and he found that we were under a winter weather watch with rain/snow etc. possible for the next 24 hours.  You could not tell it from the sunrise.

Nor were the animals acting any different than the day before.

We made our way slowly through the muck and finally arrived at our destination “Hidden Valley”.  It was the first time I had been there since the year of Fat Duck and Gatlin, and on Bo’s dream Hunt we were very close but not quite there when he filled his tag.  It was nice to see it again and we saw a ton of deer all settled in.  I’m not sure how many bucks we saw mixed in with the all the does, but it was close to 10.  While there we decided a break to have some Kippers, Smoked Oysters, Vienna Sausages and Pork Hocks was in order.

Since it was the day we were going to be heading home, no beer was on the menu.  Next week however……

And so as we came to the close of the reconnoiter weekend, we leave the muddy Crawfords and Randolph until next Friday.

May the bucks continue to rut in their ways and pass on the genes of their ancestors in order to fulfill the big buck dreams of future hunters.

As we were packing to come home, making sure we were leaving things that we would need next week, and taking home what we had to take home to either clean up, preserve or whatever, Tracker looked upon the ridge above camp and this was the scene.

On a side note.  We are always on the lookout for other peoples trash and so this trip was no different.  We had lots of trash in the bag in the back of the rig, but this might be the ultimate trash pickup of them all.  Tracker trying to get a balloon out of a cedar.

And for reasons only the Willow Creekers would know, you will see this again.

We will be back!

Bears Butt

Nov. 19, 2012