Fall Hunting Season

Every fall since I can remember my family goes hunting for elk and deer. In fact, some of my fondest memories are of hunting up on Castle Mountain with my dad, brothers, and closest friends. When I was in grade school and high school, I would take a full week off and go up hunting in the backcountry near Garden Valley, Idaho.

My hunting experience on Castle Mountain included us taking our sheep-herders tent, (which doesn't have a bottom, but does have sides and a wall and a stove with a chimney) we would also bring our motorcycles to drive around the hills. Often times it would snow 2"-5" of snow during the week. I also remember that everyone had their specific spot that they would hunt and noone else would go...I am not sure why that is just what happened. The Bob Borg family went to "The Face" while the Marc Haws family went to "No Tell'em Creek" and the Don Woodbury family went to "Bumper Bowl."

Now these names were not the actual names of the places. They are names that were assigned through several years of hunting by each individual family. Bumper Bowl was named because for some odd reason there was an automobile bumper halfway down the mountain in the strangest place. I have no idea why or how it got there, nor could I come up with any reason why anyone would bring it there. There was definitely no way, in my mind anyone could drive a car to this location, so I just assumed it must have gotten dropped there by a helicopter. (Remember I was 12 or so when I had this idea)

Yesterday I returned home from the yearly hunt. This year I went with my Dad, Grandpa Hunter, and Wayne Hunter. This was my first year shooting black powder with a muzzleloader and it was definitely more difficult. The muzzleloader hunt is later in the year, which means it is a lot colder. Saturday I was hunting in 24" of snow or more part of the day. While I was walking in the snow sopping wet I was trying to remember why I like hunting so much. I was freezing cold and 4 hours away from camp and it was getting dark.

I tell my wife that the reason I MUST go hunting is "so that I can provide for the family." It seems like a pretty good line, but she doesn't buy it. I guess I don't really buy it either so I am searching for a better one. I was gonna try another one next year, "I need to go hunting because it is a family tradition" or because "my grandpa is getting old and I don't know how many years I will be able to spend time with him out hunting." The truth is that he is in pretty good health though and I kind of feel guilty for saying that. I am pretty sure that he will never read this though...or hope that he doesn't. (grandpa, if you do read this I am sure that someone else had to show you so don't be mad.)

Well, I will spare that details but say that I was successful this year. I didn't have time to cut up the elk and wrap it so I had to take it to a butcher. I will attach a couple of pictures from the trip.

This is taken from the top of 8 Mile Creek Ridge

This is the legendary Grandpa Lavell Hunter

This year this was our kitchen, bedroom, and living room

The morning of the day we saw over 40 elk

The camp cook Don Woodbury frying up some hash browns and eggs

Grandpa Lavell Hunter and Kyle Woodbury