Earlier this month my hunting partner Martin and I went out and hunted some High Country Mule Deer in North Eastern Nevada. Being as my mantra is "Learning what not to do is part of the learning process", I decided to share what I learned from the trip. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Lightweight stuff is nice
Before this trip, I had not done a ton of "I'm going to climb a fucking mountain to go hunting" type hunting. For the area that we were hunting, most of it is Wilderness Area. In Wilderness, there are not many roads, and you cannot operate a vehicle off of an established road. Problem when you are hunting areas like this, is that due to this you have all the lazy road hunters everywhere where the roads are. Being an asshole, and not liking people, the only choice for this area is to climb a mountain.
Needless to say, after hiking up 3,500 feet of mountain each day, all your gear gets heavy. The first day I had quite a bit of extra stuff such as water, extra ammunition, layers etc. All that shit got placed in the rear seat of my truck once we got back. This year I used a Cabela's Prestige 85 Liter pack. So far it has been a good pack, but the main reason I got it was for my Elk Hunt, where I would be making multiple trips to pack out meat. For a high country mule deer hunt, I do not quite need that much backpack. Being a big pack, I found myself loading all sorts of stuff into it, and the pack alone weighs 11 pounds empty. Next year I plan on going with a lighter and smaller Sitka pack, to ease the burden of going uphill.
Needless to say, after hiking up 3,500 feet of mountain each day, all your gear gets heavy. The first day I had quite a bit of extra stuff such as water, extra ammunition, layers etc. All that shit got placed in the rear seat of my truck once we got back. This year I used a Cabela's Prestige 85 Liter pack. So far it has been a good pack, but the main reason I got it was for my Elk Hunt, where I would be making multiple trips to pack out meat. For a high country mule deer hunt, I do not quite need that much backpack. Being a big pack, I found myself loading all sorts of stuff into it, and the pack alone weighs 11 pounds empty. Next year I plan on going with a lighter and smaller Sitka pack, to ease the burden of going uphill.
The author, and fearless leader of RandomGunStuff, taking a break at 9,300 feet.
600 yard shots are close
One thing about hunting in the west, close shots are few and far between. Most of the animals we were glassing, and wanting to take were 600 yards and over. If you plan on hunting out west, practice shooting up to as far as you can. Make sure that your setup is capable to ethically take a long distance shot. Being 7mm Remington Magnum guys, our guns can perform consistently out to further than we can shoot. Yeah, you can always try to get closer, but reaching out never hurt anyone. Other than a deer or two.
The distance to the dark patch of trees below the ridgeline was over 1,000 yards. Needless to say, high country gets far, fast.
Sitka gear rocks
For years and years I have resisted buying camo for hunting. Like a tacti-tard, I bought some multicam stuff so that I would look operator as fuck at the range, but I hadn't invested in hunting attire. This year I went all out since I was in a position to do so, and bought a ton of Sitka Camo. Before the purchase, I had been hesitant to purchase it. I had inspected the 90% pants pretty thoroughly and had failed to find a device that gives you a blowjob for the $269 price tag. Needless to say, I bit the bullet and purchased the 90% pants and jacket, Ascent pants and jacket, Mountain Pants, and Jetstream Lite vest.
I have to say that I am blown away by all of the Sitka Gear I have purchased so far. The pants are very well thought out, and when you wear them it feels like you are having unprotected sex with Taylor Swift, IE Amazing. On top of it, the material while being very comfortable against the skin is incredibly durable. After days of busting through the brush, there were no holes, loose threads, or abrasions to the legs. The Optifade Open Country pattern blends in excellent in Nevada, and looks decent as well. Gotta say, it is worth the price, and I am a customer for life.
I have to say that I am blown away by all of the Sitka Gear I have purchased so far. The pants are very well thought out, and when you wear them it feels like you are having unprotected sex with Taylor Swift, IE Amazing. On top of it, the material while being very comfortable against the skin is incredibly durable. After days of busting through the brush, there were no holes, loose threads, or abrasions to the legs. The Optifade Open Country pattern blends in excellent in Nevada, and looks decent as well. Gotta say, it is worth the price, and I am a customer for life.
This is what a pile of money well spent looks like....
My remington 700 failed me
For years I have been a proponent of the Remington 700. The new ones, just like everything Remington currently puts out, are shit, but the older ones are well made. My dad has used the same one since around 1970, and he has had no problems with it to date. On the evening of the first day, I had a chance to shoot at a buck at 383 yards. With a 7mm Remington Magnum, and my Elko County Strong skills, that is a chip shot. I sat down, loaded my rifle, got my proper holdover, and pulled the trigger. The trigger made an audible click, and moved about half the distance it should have moved. I looked down at the cocking indicator on the rear of the bolt shroud, and saw that it was still cocked, and I had not had a bad primer. I then pushed the safety forward, to make sure it was on fire, and found it to already be on fire. At this point I had my finger off the trigger, and I removed my head from the rifle and looked down, then saw a fireball as the rifle just went off.
This completely shook my confidence in my rifle to my very core. On the hike back to the truck, and after subsequent cleaning, I could not get my rifle to do this again. My trigger is pre X Mark Pro (the good serrated faced trigger), so I am not sure exactly what happened. After this incident I am still leery to use the rifle, which lead to my next finding.
This completely shook my confidence in my rifle to my very core. On the hike back to the truck, and after subsequent cleaning, I could not get my rifle to do this again. My trigger is pre X Mark Pro (the good serrated faced trigger), so I am not sure exactly what happened. After this incident I am still leery to use the rifle, which lead to my next finding.
The Steyr AUG A3 is an acceptable backup rifle*
Well, at least I have one thing I can depend on in life...
After my incident with my Remington 700, it was always in the back of my head that it could fail me again. On our fourth day hunting, we decided to take it easy, as we had been up and down the mountain too much, and our bodies were tired. We decided to hunt some foothills that were a bit easier, when we came across a decent herd of deer. I decided that I really wanted to tag out, and seeing a few bucks in the group, we decided to do a stalk on them. Before we parked the truck, my doubt on my Remington 700 caused me to grab my ever faithful Steyr AUG A3. Since my last update on it, the rifle now sports a Nightforce NXS 1-4 scope, which works fantastic. After about a 30 minute stalk, I got within 200 yards and....well, lets let the pictures say it all.
*Check your local fish and game regulations that list restrictions on firearms and ammunition types before you take my advice. I am five quarters retarded.
*Check your local fish and game regulations that list restrictions on firearms and ammunition types before you take my advice. I am five quarters retarded.
The AUG's harvest
Good glass pays off in droves
For the most part, my partner and I run Vortex glass. The only exception is I have a Zeiss Conquest 2.5-10 on my Remington 700 (since I am classy like that). I use the Vortex Viper HD 10x42 Binoculars, and have found the clarity and light gathering ability to be phenomenal. The clarity allows me to spot deer rather easily, and distinguish bucks worth checking out from the smaller ones before we break out the spotting scope. My hunting partner Martin brought his Vortex Viper 20-60 spotting scope up the mountain, and it performed well for a closer look at bigger bucks. Only downside is the size and weight. For next year I will definitely have the Vortex Razor HD 11-33, since it is only 25 ounces and barely bigger than a 20 ounce soda.
Physical conditioning pays off
For an hour a day, six days a week, for two months prior to the trip, I had been doing the step mill at the gym to get used to constant climbing. That was probably the best thing that I could possibly do to get in shape for the hunt, other than some actual real world hiking. Even though hiking from 6,200 to nearly 10,000 feet every day is a bitch, my preparations had definitely made it much easier than it would have been without.
Rolling your ankle and falling in a cactus fucking sucks
So there I was, sitting on a rock, taking in the awesome scenery that was all around me. It had started to rain lightly, and just looked awesome out, so I decided to take a happy little video. Right after this we decided to continue heading down the mountain. As we were going down, I saw a gigantic clump of cacti, and said to myself "Fuck that would suck to fall into". Since apparently God thinks that I am an asshole, not two seconds later as I stepped on the rock near the cacti clump from hell, my right foot slipped on a rock. I rolled my right ankle, twisted my right knee, and fell to my left, landing right in the aforementioned cacti from hell. I now had a pretty serious ankle injury, and cacti needles from my left hand fingers, down my forearm, along my left lat and oblique, and all the way down my left side of my ass. I was not a happy panda by any means, and had taken the Pain Train to Nopeville.
My first course of action was to use every bad word I know, which took a couple minutes. Once I was done making every sailor that has ever existed proud, we assessed my situation. The needles had penetrated through my Sitka 90% jacket, Jetstream Vest, and Core base layer. All we could really do out in the field was pull the long (over 1") needles out of my body, since the smaller yellow ones broke off when you tried to pull them off. With the large needles pulled out, I went Chuck Norris wearing a vest only, and hobbled down the mountain.
Once back to the truck, and in service, I called my dad to ask him to have rubbing alcohol and tweezers standing by. Two hours later, most of them were out, and I tended to my ankle. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.
My first course of action was to use every bad word I know, which took a couple minutes. Once I was done making every sailor that has ever existed proud, we assessed my situation. The needles had penetrated through my Sitka 90% jacket, Jetstream Vest, and Core base layer. All we could really do out in the field was pull the long (over 1") needles out of my body, since the smaller yellow ones broke off when you tried to pull them off. With the large needles pulled out, I went Chuck Norris wearing a vest only, and hobbled down the mountain.
Once back to the truck, and in service, I called my dad to ask him to have rubbing alcohol and tweezers standing by. Two hours later, most of them were out, and I tended to my ankle. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.
Good boots are a must
With my my experiences on this trip, I will now be upgrading my boots. I have been using Under Armour Valsetz boots. However, they are much more of a flat-lands boot than they are a serious hiking or mountaineering boot. The entire boot is very flexible, and extremely comfortable. That being said, they suck climbing a mountain. The sole of them just flexes entirely too much, and they have no ankle support. I do believe if I had a better pair of boots, I would have at least not rolled my ankle, and my feet wouldn't have been as sore as they were.
It was worth it
This was my first time doing a hardcore hunt like this, and it was well worth it. The things we saw were phenomenal, and there were plenty of good bucks above and away from all the crowd. The funny thing was when we got back down to the roads, we talked to people who had been there multiple days and not seen a single deer.
Since everyone likes pictures, I supposed I will do a picture dump for the rest of this article.
Since everyone likes pictures, I supposed I will do a picture dump for the rest of this article.
