California Zone X3A Hunt

**scott** · 10-30-2002, 10:07 AM

My good friend and I were lucky enough to have been drawn for X3A. We only had time to hunt the last 5 days of the season. After one day of hiking 10 miles around the Graven Ridge / Bayley Resevoir area of Modoc County, we were pretty discouraged by the sign that we saw - old droppings and few tracks. We thought that we were in a good spot - lots of water and alfalfa fields on the other side of the ridge. So we decided to try the area around Delta Lake - about 1.5 miles southeast of Bayley Res. The next morning we got started around 6:30 - a beautiful twilight morning, clear sky with lots of stars and the sounds of Canada geese. As we got our gear out of the truck, we spotted 'something' on the Delta Lake shoreline about 500 yards away. As the light of day became brighter, we could see that those somethings were actually four mule deer doe grazing and drinking. We put the stalk on them and found two legal bucks in a herd of 10+ deer. Since we only had a few days to hunt, we took our shots. By the grace of God, we bagged both bucks - a forkie and a 3X3. They weren't big rack-wise - but they were beautiful, healthy, big-bodied Rocky Mountain Mule Deer. Besides, the meat from a forkie tastes better! It was an awesome hunt. During the next couple of days we saw hundreds of deer and antelope in the Alturas / Likely area. I will never forget my first "successful" deer hunt - thank you California DFG!

**Hogskin** · 10-30-2002, 10:09 AM

Way to go, Scott! Did you get any pictures you can share?

Regards,
Paul

**shovelerslayer** · 10-30-2002, 11:35 AM

Congrats!!! Hope you got good pictures. That area around Likely is just beautiful to me. Of course I like the sight of Mulies and Antelope in the high desrt...