During the summer of 1984 Harry, Bud, Montie and I discussed the fall hunting trip. We had been going to the Salmon River country for the past three years, with little results for the time and money spent. Harry had talked to Vicki Eld about going to the Donnelly area to hunt. She suggested we come up to the ranch, talk to her husband, Joe, to get acquainted. We took a run up there on a Saturday during the summer. Joe was farming but took the time to talk to us. Joe was just getting into archery hunting, learning to call like a cow and shooting a compound bow. We have been archery hunting for quite a few years for deer and elk, so we decided an archery hunt would be fun for the fall hunt. Joe suggested we go to the Gold Fork area to hunt and camp. Elk would be open for either sex during archery season besides the bulls would be bugling and doing their thing. We thanked him for the information and for taking the time to visit with us. We would be back in the fall to hunt. Archery season opens in early September at Donnelly. We wanted to be there as near the opening day as possible. As it turned out, we had to wait a week because of vacation schedules. There was always a lot of planning to be done, to go for a week.
There was a good place to camp on a ridge away from the main road. It was large enough for the trailer house and lean-to, with plenty of parking for the trucks. The road to it was straight uphill for a short distance and was slick from the rain but the four-wheel drive trucks went up it, with no problems. The place would serve us very well for a week of hunting. We had seen a cow elk on the way in from the main road. The trailer house goes with us on every hunt whether it is for one day or a week. We set up the trailer where it would be the most convenient then set-up the lean-to for the cooking area. The lean-to completely enclosed us to keep the wind out and we also put carpet on the ground on the inside to be cleaner. We lined up the ice boxes under the tables and placed gas camp stoves on top of the tables with boxes of pans nearby. The camp was dry and comfortable. Most of the time it rained so hard we could not walk around hunting; therefore, we drove most of the back roads to find out where they all went. We learned quite a bit about the area in a brief time. It became apparent that Joe had sent us to an area of little game to check us out. He wanted to see what kind of hunters we were. He even inspected the camp after we left to See how clean we left it. While running the roads, mapping the area, and marking stumps with red paint, we found where everyone else hunted. Only a few road hunters came through where we were camped. The elk were about five miles to the north. We even found the place where Joe had shot a large bull with his bow a few days earlier. When we confronted him about what was going on, he admitted testing us out.
From then on, Joe gave us the straight scoop on where to hunt. One day I was sitting on a hillside trying to keep dry under a pine tree, when I spotted a buck on the ridge, above me. I put the field glasses on him for a closer look. He was a whitetail buck sporting four-point antlers as near as I could tell from that distance. He was standing on a ridge point like he was showing himself off. I watched him for a long time, but he would not get any closer. There was no chance of sneaking up on him. Suddenly a Whitetail doe appeared in the flat in front of me. She was a small deer for an adult, not much larger than a big dog. I sat still to see what she was going to do. She was completely unaware I was sitting there. She was on a collision course with me as she was feeding on leaves and walking in my direction. I had my compound bow ready to shoot when she was close enough, but the closer she came to me the smaller she really looked. I let her walk past at about twenty yards, she was not worth putting a tag on. In the meantime the buck tired of what he was doing and wandered back into the thick timber out of sight. The rain kept coming down all the time, not too hard, but enough to get wet. I had a raincoat on, but I was still getting wet. Time to go back to camp, where it was dry and warm. On the way to camp, I met a guy working for the Boise Cascade Company drilling holes in trees. He was pulling out core samples to check the age of the trees in a stand of pine trees. The core sample gave him all the information he wanted about the trees. He too was getting wet and was going to quit for the day. He was going in the direction of camp and invited me to ride along. His job was interesting, he knew a lot about the trees in the area. I thanked him for the ride to camp, it saved me about a mile of walking in the rain. We had a wonderful time hunting, camping, eating, playing Pinochle, and enjoying the great outdoors. No one shot an elk or a deer, but everyone had an enjoyable time chasing them around. There were Whitetails running around everywhere in that area, but they were too small to shoot. The elk were hard to find.
After a week, we were much wiser and decided we would be back the next year, but we would find a campsite on our own closer to the fields where the elk hang out. We cleaned the equipment up and dried it out of all the rain to be ready for the next trip. We may even scout out a good camping place during the summer.