The next day we went on a pretty long hike above Thorn Creek and although we saw some sign we never saw a deer that day . Our next trip out lead us up to a bench in 39 above Anderson Ranch Dam .
Although we didn ' t see any deer we did see a bear . The bear ran into our drainage and then fed down towards us before disappearing from sight . The next weekend we headed further up the Boise Middle Fork and tried to find a place to hunt without other hunters . After a bust on the first two spots I had in mind , we tried the third place . I didn ' t have high hopes but figured we could glass a little and see what we could find . In fact I made one of the typical rookie mistakes . When we parked the truck and headed out I told my daughter that if she wanted to leave her pack in the truck she could , that we wouldn ' t be here too long . That would be her pack with snacks and more importantly the water bladder for both of us . We were part way to a good glassing point when we saw three does above us on the ridge . They knew we were there , but were intent on heading west down the ridge . We moved up and west as quickly as we could when ever the does were out of sight , either behind fingers or when the low hanging clouds would roll in . We worked our way up and along the main ridge as fast as our nine year old legs would allow for a little over a quarter mile .
At this point we came to a main finger a hundred yards off the top that allowed us to see clearly down to the river and along the ridge . We had lost sight of the does a couple of fingers back and were expecting to see them from this vantage point . We sat down and took a break , I had one granola bar in my pack which went to the growling stomach walking behind me . I wish I could get that energized from a granola bar after a couple of minutes . After 15 to 20 minutes and no animals appeared , we decided to head up to the saddle , maybe they had moved to the other side of the ridge .
If not we would head back to the truck . This is the part where the granola bar energy kicked in for one of us . My daughter took off like a hopped up hornet . Which in this case probably saved us ; those three does were about twenty yards up the hill from us and blew out of there at a full run after the hornet went a couple yards down the trail towards the saddle . Unfortunately the hornet was ahead of me on the trail and to take a shot would have meant shooting along side her , not an option . By the time I was able to stop her and get alongside , the deer were just cresting the saddle and I wisely decided to pass on a “ insert favorite / least favorite state name here ” heart shot opportunity . I looked at my daughter and said let ' s go up to that saddle . We ran up to the saddle only to find the three deer out at 190 yards on the back side of the ridge . I asked my daughter what she wanted to do . I felt confident that we could get down the ridge ahead of them . She said let ' s do what ever we need to do to get a deer . We headed down the ridge and tried to get in front of the three does . At the next knoll , I glassed and couldn ' t find any deer ahead of us down the ridge . While talking to my daughter at the knoll I looked over her shoulder and noticed a couple more does coming down the ridge following the path of the original three . She was still intent on catching up to the original three but didn ' t know about the other two headed our way . I could tell she was tiring and mentioned to her I thought we should try for one of the two newcomers . It was at that time that Mother Nature decided to roll in a new set of low hanging clouds , as we headed back to the saddle .
We picked a spot that hid us from view of the does but would allow us to see them as they came to us . There were two paths that they could take . One that would bring them to within 60 yards straight at us and the other would take them past us at about 90 yards downhill . After what seemed like an eternity one of the does appeared out of the clouds at 90 yards below us . I let my daughter know to cover her ears and took the shot . At this point I don ' t know who was more excited . After the shot there was the tell tale " thwop " that comes with a successful hit . The doe tipped over and began to roll down the hill . She stopped in some brush and we headed down to her . Since this was the first
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