With my general muzzleloader deer tag in the new Utah deer unit of 4/5/6, I was hoping to make up a little ground from my dismal Archery Hunting for Elk in the Utah Wasatch Limited Entry Unit.

Unfortunately, much of my life since I drew my LE elk have been spent all around that hunt. I didn't take any vacation to spend with my family so I would have as much time as I could possibly get to hunt. With the LE tag I burned up all but a day of my vacation time so I didn't have much time to take off for my muzzleloader deer hunt.

On the opener of the hunt my brother Weston and I hiked in on the Henefer, Echo property working our way around sagebrush draws above green alfalfa fields that were down in the valley. With the extra dry year, we have been having we figured and hoped there would be abundant numbers of deer filtering their way back into the sage to bed after being down in the alfalfa all night... well apparently the deer just bedded on the edges of the fields because we didn't see a single deer all morning long. And we only found one set of deer tracks.

Next up I wanted to go back into the high altitude area I hunted last year. Weston was going to come with me and we were going to pack our gear in to spend the night. On our way up the mountain, my wife called to inform me that my youngest need to have surgery to set his broken arm with pins. Such was my luck this year.

We did hike in and try to find some deer in Red Rock canyon before returning home. I was able to get some cool photos of Weston glassing just as the sun was going down. I was also able to see a doe about a mile away in the binoculars for the only deer I saw for the season. Well, so much for my opportunities to fill my tags this year.

Dallen's rifle elk tag is coming up and hopefully his luck will be better than mine this year.