The deer season in area 39 was open now and would be for another couple of weekend. This would be a good excuse for Dale Moore and I to head out somewhere on Saturday to look for a deer. We had not tried the area at the top of the Boise Front. This country is referred to as the Mile High area. The name comes from the fact that the altitude of some summer cabins is right at a mile high. The hills around there are covered with pine and fir trees, with lots of chaparral brush patches. Also scattered around are some 1arge groves of aspen trees. The aspens and chaparral start turning to their fall splendor of colors in early October. This adds to the problems of finding a deer hiding in a multi-colored forest.
We loaded into Dale’s Jeep pickup early Saturday morning with his son Don coming along to help should we happen onto a deer or two. Don was old enough to hunt and he was always welcome to go along. I knew Dale was not feeling up to par this fall so the extra guy along would come in handy. It took us about two hours to drive to the top of the mountain from town. The shortest route was up the Eighth Street road to the turn at the junction at the top of Aldape Summit and the road over to the Bogus Basin Ski area. We wanted to hunt off the main ridge, but not to far off the top because the way back was al1 up hill. We found a good looking area that seemed like a prime place to find a deer.
Dale and Don stayed near the ridge top, while I wandered down a Smal ridge where I could look down into a brushy valley. As I Crept to the edge and peeked over, I could see a herd of deer feeding on the Willow leaves in the bottom land. I could see they were mostly does with a couple of two point bucks wandering around the outside of the herd. l was using my .30-30 Model 94, which has a limited range. The deer were several hundred yards away, when I first spotted them. After shooting four or five times, I finally hit a doe in the front leg. She took off in a hurry taking the rest of the herd with her. One of the bucks ran my way, but I could not hit him.
By this time, I had emptied my rifle, all for naught, I always carry a handful of extra shells in a pocket, just for that reason. I reloaded in a hurry in case another deer happened by. I had just started back up the hill towards Dale and Don when I heard a shot from their direction. I hurried up to them hoping maybe they had shot something. One of the two-point bucks I had seen down in the valley was trying to Sneak out above me. Dale spotted him just before he reached the timber’s edge. Dale shot him through the heart and he never moved after hitting the ground. They were looking him over when I finally made it up to where the deer lay on the ground.
I had been hurrying, and was out of breath completely, that hill was really steep. Dale and Don had ran over to him also and the two were huffing and puffing. Nothing else to do but all of us sat down for a break. We knew he would not spoil that fast anyway. When we were rested up, we dressed him out then looked around to get our bearings on where the truck was parked. All we would need to do was to go over the main ridge for about two blocks to reach the main road. We could drag him that far with ease. He was not too large for a two-point, which would help a lot. We took plenty of time to get him to the top. Don and I did most of the pulling so Dale would not hurt himself, since he was not feeling well. He was having problems with his heart and breathing. We managed very well and was soon at the truck.
After loading him in the back of the truck, we noticed the morning had turned into afternoon. Lunch time was already past, without us stopping for a sandwich. We broke out the lunch boxes and cans of soda pop. We had not realized how fast the morning had gone. With hunger satisfied we discussed what we should do the rest of the day. Upon my suggestion, we decided to head for home with the one deer. Dale was not up to taking another hill climb and if he really got into trouble, he was too big to pack very far. We would need time to skin and sack the buck, so he could hang a few days to cool out, before cutting him into steaks. We watched for another deer as we were driving home, but nothing turned up. We did not mind too much. We had a good day anyway with a fine deer for the table.