# 17 - The Biggest Buck on Anthro Mountain

The year we moved to Himni, Curt Roush was our Scout Master. Curt was a Forest Ranger and had a handle on all things outdoors. My dad was his Assistant Scout Master. Dad had mastered a lot of stuff in his life, but camping wasn't one of them. He'd taken us a couple of times. Both times we got home about four in the morning with a trunk full of wet sleeping bags. For Dad, camping and disaster were synonyms.

Dad and Curt hit it off and Curt invited Dad, Todd and myself to join he and his son Pete on a hunting trip that Fall. "We need the meat," he whined to my Mom, as he feebly tried to justify the used 30-30 he bought from the paun shop in Roosevelt. "We could have bought a half a beef for what you paid for that gun!" she complained.

The Forest Service had a wall tent pitched on a platform up on Anthro Mountain above Duchesne. We drove up after school on Friday night. It was dark by the time we made it to the campsite. The tent had a sheep herder stove in it and was warm and cozy. This was camping! Todd and I had were having the time of our lives!

Antro Mountain is a large flat top. It is a remnant of the ancient Colorado Plateau before it was carved up by massive erosion. The top is mostly sage brush. Cutting from the rim of the mountian, in every direction, are draws of various sizes. These are filled with Quaking Aspen and a sprinkling of pine and spruce. It's hard to realize that the mountain is over 9000' in elevation, until you look off the South Rim into Nine Mile Canyon. What an awe inspiring sight that is. The best draws to hunt are on the North because the South is too precipitous.

Early, before sunup, Curt had us up and fed. Steak and eggs and hot cocoa! Dad would have made oatmeal at best. We rumbled down a two track for a couple of miles and Curt got us kids out. "I want you three boys to head off here into this deep draw. It's pretty steep so, be careful. When you get to the bottom spread out a bit and head up the canyon toward the sun. Me and Winston here, we'll go back a ways and get situated so we can pick off the deer when you scare 'em out on top."

We were up for the call of duty.

"Oh, and make lots of noise!" Curt called as the crammed the green Dodge pickup into gear. "We'll see ya in an hour or so."

We made it to the bottom alright and headed up the draw. Shouting and knocking sticks on the quakie trunks, we made quite a racket. We didn't see any deer though, and were pretty sure we were wasting our time, when we heard a couple of shots up ahead, then another. We hurried toward the sound of the last shot and breathlessly coming out on top, found Curt gutting out a nice little three point. We looked around for Dad and couldn't see him. Curt pointed him out to us. He was another quarter mile up toward the head of the draw. When Todd and I reached him, we found he was cleaning a dandy four point with a nice spread. We weren't old enough for our necks to be swelling with testosterone, but we did get a pretty good adrenoline high.

We got the deer both loaded up and headed back to camp to clean up and grab our gear. As we came around the bend we saw the biggest buck of the day. He was standing not 30 yards from the tent! Curt just smiled and said, "Maybe next year boys."

Next year came before you know it. Curt had been pretty quiet, but Dad had made a huge deal of last year's success. He'd invited Coach Morton to join us. Principal Steckler got wind of it too, and begged and pleaded until they invited him as well. Bringing him along kind of threw a wet blanket on our prospects for any fun. He was such an annoying man. When we got to camp and had our sleeping bags rolled out on the cots, we couldn't get him to shut up and go to sleep. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve. When he did settle down, he snored like a jack hammer. I was never so happy to hear bacon frying in my whole life. It meant I could get up from a near sleepless night. From the looks of the rest of the guys, I handn't been the only miserable camper. Mr. Steckler, on the other hand, was wound up like a fiddle string and back to his wide eyed chatter.

Curt Roush had seen Old Gnarly (that's what we called the big buck) a couple of days earlier a two draws to the west, over by Sowers Canyon. We headed over there with the same plan that had worked so well last year. Pete, Todd and I were pushing the draw in short order. It seemed like we'd hardly got started when we heard four, five...six shots. We scrambled up to the rim where we found Dad and Curt. They were hustling toward where they last saw Old Gnarly go out of sight. As we approached the spot we could see Mr. Steckler's head over the top of a large sagebrush. He was kind of looking strange. When we rounded the bush we found him with his coveralls down around his ankles, whiping himself off with one of his socks. It seems that just about the time Old Gnarly had emerged Mr. Steckler had had to make a call of nature. Dodging bullets, the buck had jumped over the very sage brush he was hiding behind and knocked Mr. Steckler down in his own pile. It took both socks and a half a roll of toilet paper Curt got from the truck, to get him cleaned up. Mr. Steckler never spoke another word the whole trip.

Curt and Pete moved away that next year. We were too proud of Old Gnarly to ever want him dead, so we went hunting somewhere else. We were too embarrassed for Mr. Steckler to ever tell anyone. As far as I know he never went hunting again. And, Winston Parker, my dad, somehow didn't seem like such a lousy outdoors man after all.