During the fa11 of 1958, Dale, his son, Don, and I planned a day trip to Grimes Creek for deer. There were some feeder creeks running into Grimes Creek below Centerville with names such as Paul’s Gulch, Blue Gulch and Whiskey Creek. We have hunted this area before and were familiar with the terrain. The mountains are steep with lots of pine trees and brush pockets. Deer live in these mountains, summer and fall, but when the deep snows comes in, they move to the foothills around Boise. This year was a good year for the deer so we were confident we would be able to find one somewhere. The season was open for either sex deer, this would help our chances of getting something. We prefer a nice fat doe over a tough old buck, anytime. Getting another set of antlers was not Our goal this year. We left home early on a Saturday morning. The trip to where we would hunt would take about an hour of travel time.
The truck was parked at a large flat area just off the main road near Blue Gulch. With some sandwiches and water in our back packs and our rifles in hand, up the hill we went. There seemed to be lots of tracks everywhere with most of them being made during the night. We felt it was only a matter of time before we ran into something. The mountains up there seemed to be topless. We think we are at the top as we reach the ridge only to look up at a higher ridge above us.
After climbing for several hours, going over ridge after ridge, the mountain seemed to be getting steeper all the time. Don was with me, while Dale was a few hundred yards away doing his own thing. Suddenly I spotted some deer sneaking through a patch of trees. I could see about four does and they were going uphill pretty fast. I kneeled down for a solid rest but still missed the first couple of shots. Just as they reached the top of the last ridge I took careful aim at the last one going over the edge. She kicked a leg out sideways but did not give any other signs of being hit. With Don in tow, We Climbed on up to where we had last seen the deer. I was taught at an early age to make sure the deer was either missed clean or had a fatal wound. before going on hunting. As we neared the place where we last saw the doe, I spotted a blotch of blood on the ground and the bushes. Maybe I had hit her pretty hard after all. I started following the blood trail over the ridge and to my surprise here was a doe laying on the hillside dead as could be. The bullet had hit her from back to front as she went out of sight. This was a g○○d lesson for Don, since he was just starting out on his hunting career. Always be sure the animal was not hit before going on hunting. Dale came up to us before we were through cleaning her out. With his help, the job only took a few minutes. Dressing a deer is a very simple job with or without extra help.
The day was still young with plenty of time to hunt some more. Even though we were quite far from the truck, we left the deer in a cooI place so we could hunt more without climbing back up the hill. We found a clearing where we could watch a large area around us. Each of us found a good place for viewing and sat down to watch for maybe a deer trying to sneak past us.
Since it was close to lunch time, we decided to eat our sandwiches and have a drink of water to wash them down. We had just finished eating, when all at once a yearling buck appeared from the brush, not far from us. He must have been spooked because he was running low to the ground like a scared dog not doing the normal bounding. Don tried to hit him, but no way could he catch up to him. I was so surprised at his speed , we figured that was the reason for the miss. We got together to have a good laugh about the way the deer was running, when suddenly here he came back past us again, running the same way but in the other direction. This time none of us even tried to shoot at him. We could not have hit him anyway as fast as he was running. We got a big kick out of watching him run, he never showed up again.
We sat around for an hour or so more then decided it was time to get the one deer we had off the mountain to the truck. We could work around the hill in such a way that we would be going down most of the time. We tied a rope to her head and with each of us taking turns pulling. We were not long in getting her to the truck. She was tossed into the back of the truck, and away we went for home. We would need time to skin and bag her up to keep her clean and to keep the flies from her. We decided to let her hang there a few days, since Dale’s garage was secure and as cool as any place else we could think of. In a few days, we cut her in half to split up the meat. I took my half home to cut her into steaks and stuff like that, Dale processed his half himself for the freezer. We had a good hunt and a good time, and we would be ready to go again soon.