I don’t remember what year it was, 1988 or 89 somewhere there about. I went out to the Pieance basin, near Meeker Colorado during the third season. I had a Buck Tag, and an extra draw Doe License as well. Richard had a Buck license, and Robert had drawn a Doe Tag. All of us also had bought over the counter Bull Elk licenses as well.
We were in Roberts Dodge pick up heading up north of Meeker on Pieance Creek road, and had just passed the sign that announced that this was winter home to the largest migratory deer herd in the world. When suddenly the truck started to swerve…. Well guys, we got a flat. Robert was able to control it well enough that we didn’t end up in the creek at least. We piled out and began the task of tire changing in the snow that had started to fall a short time before. It began to get almost surreal, the early dusk. the snowfall, and gray shapes moving quietly all around us as we worked. There were deer everywhere. Some would stop and look at the crazy humans seemingly without a care. That task finished we headed up the road, and turned west at Ryan’s Gulch road.
We turned off and headed up a dirt road that had been made during the failed shale oil project days, past a windmill that fed a stock pond and rounded the top of the hill where we would again set up our deer camp, as we had been doing for so many years. Our hunting friends from Michigan were already there getting settled in about fifty or so yards away.
I was pounding in a tent peg when there was a sudden yell from their campsite that bordered on a scream. “Bear! Bear! Big G-D DAMN BEAR!” Now, you have to understand that most bears were already in their winter digs and fast asleep, not to mention that bears in this area were pretty rare. As I looked over at the commotion Robert was getting his rifle out and loading it in what might be called Rapid Order Drill… And I saw the bear, it was big, at least for that part of the state, about a four hundred pound animal! It was running for all it was worth to get away from the people that were screaming for all that they were worth. It ran right past us, through the camp that we were in the process of setting up and disappeared over the hill. All this took perhaps five seconds. I think that our collective blood pressures returned to normal about two hours later…
The next morning was opening day, and I had left camp about an hour before dawn. I position myself just below the crest of a hill overlooking a small gulch that I had seen deer and elk pass through several times over the years. I set the model seven hundred to my side, sprayed myself all over with no scent goop, and then rested the rifle across my knees, and waited. The false dawn was in full swing as a small herd of does came through the draw that led to the path that the deer used in the gulch. I checked my wristwatch as I watched them. Ten more minutes to legal shooting time. The deer passed by, apparently unaware of my presence, and went on down the path. I removed the covers from my Burris six power scope, and then wrapped my arm into a relaxed hasty sling. That would allow me to raise the rifle into a sling supported sitting position without very much movement, and I worked the bolt of the rifle, chambering a Federal 140 grain cartridge into the 270, and set the safety. Then I waited. It was legal shooting time now, and I could hear soft hoof beats in the distance. I heard a shot from some distance off, probably a mile away. The hoof beats became louder, the deer were on notice now, and would be wary.
I don’t know which was louder, or more rapid, the hoof beats, or my hearts pounding. But suddenly, over the rise of the saddle came a small herd of young bucks, they slowed as they surveyed the ravine that they were about to enter, but were still moving. The rifle came to my shoulder in a well learned routine, scope to my eye, all in a silent and fluid motion. The cross hairs of the scope found the spot on the deers chest, the rifle cracked, the buck jumped once, and then tried to catch up with his buddies that already had after burners lit up. He made it about three bounds, and fell. It was a clean kill, with no needless suffering. I said a prayer thanking God for that, and for the harvest. Then waited fifteen minutes or so, and went over to my fallen quarry. He had lived about three years, and would be tender. His antlers were well matched and were close to twenty by twenty inches, a very good specimen of the Mule Deer genus.
Later in the week, I also harvested a doe, and a rag-horn Bull Elk. For some reason though, that young buck is what stands out in my memories of the hunt that started with a flat tire, and a hair raising encounter with a huge bear that was more frightened of us than we were of it!
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