We awoke before daylight and drove in the dark to a jumping off point a few miles from camp. Trying to find our way to our intended glassing point in the dark proved to be tough though and we ended up 3 finger ridges from our intended point. We lucked out that the previous morning’s fog was gone. We still were able to look over some country and saw some does and fawns. I elected to hike down a ridge where I found my first REAL Blacktail scrape.
At the same time Rich had spotted a real good 4×4 buck with eye guards. “A real wall hanger” he said. He was with about eight does across the draw about 300 yards away. When Rich tried to rattle to coax him in his direction the buck bolted in the opposite direction. Rich was unable to relocate him the rest of the morning.
We met up at noon after I climbed out of the hole I had hiked into. We both were pretty drained, but optimistic since 1) Rich had seen a buck; and 2) I had found a scrape, proof that the rut was on or at least picking up. We spent that evening glassing from the rock we had intended to be at that morning. At five minutes after shooting light, a buck fed out 400 yards away but all we could do was watch as he fed on the small open patch. Two does fed one finger over as well. Besides it being too late, the wind was wrong for a stalk. We hiked out of there back up the hill in the dark with our headlamps on.
