hey folks! 3 of us are planning to fly up to Sacramento from La-La land of the leftists to find us some horned mammals on 10/10-13. We' re hoping to get into a buck or two, not after trophies just some good hunting opportunities. Can any of you point us in a good direction? We' ll probably stick up in the D3 area, but we' ll rent a 4x4 and we' re willing to travel! No honey holes, just BLM, Nat. Forest, or hunter-friendly ranchers that' re open to some ethical hunters looking to fill the freezer. Any help' s much appreciated!
Biffstir

Not a bad choice in zone. Currently B- zone leading the kills w/ 20,550 and D-3 - D-5 is in second w/ 10,124 kills. Go up toward 49 and take the old route 12, there is a lot of logging/fire roads to hunt, You may want to consider hunting the El Dorado National Forest, near the Ice House region. I' ve been successful there on several occasions. Good luck!! Let us know how it went.

Ranier

Right on! Thanks for the advice and info. I actually used to go gold mining near the Malicoff Diggins at the North end of the 49. I think we would end up on the middle fork of the Yuba, fishing for baseball bat trout, shooting pistols and rifles, digging up tools from old mining campsites, and panning/dredging for gold. Ahhhh, those were the days!

You mentioned old route 12~do you mean near highway 4? and Ice house: is that the Carson-Iceburg Wilderness, between Yosemite and Tahoe? My uncle owns a cabin in Bear Valley off of highway 4. I bet we could use that as our base and hunt the Iceberg area...

Appreciate the help. I grew up in Sonoma and my folks have land in Lake County so this Sierra hunting stuff is new to me!
David

I live about 30 min. from the D3 zone and felled timber in the weber lake yuba pass area for 20 years it is a good spot you just have to cover some ground and hope it storms. right know the weather is still hot(80 to 90) in the day. if you need some ideas about this area E mail me and we can go from there.

Ice house is in the El Dorado National forest. I, myself take Hwy 50 East up past placerville about 40 miles then take Ice house Rd. But I believe you can take the back roads in going past the Rubicon. I' ll let ceder take over since s/he lives near the zone. I also concure with ceder, it' s been hot lately, although the past couple of days it has been cooling down a spell.

Ranier

We logged the north east end of Ice House lake in 1983 I dont remember the roads but I do remember seeing alot of deer and bears. have fun and let us know how you did.

Hey, thanks to both of you. Was able to check up on Ice House Road today, did a search and found a link to a motorcycle site that depicts the road and surrounding environment better than I could' ve asked! Check out the site for yourselves:
http://www.pashnit.com/roads/cal/IceHouseRoad.htm
I' ve sent the info to my 2 buddies, I' ll keep you posted on our plans!

try here Ca. deer forum

hey strutter, thanks for the recommendation. I' d forgotten about Jesse' s page. Looks like some of those folks were up near Bear Valley in D5, does that sound right?

Hey all...
Well, we ended up headin up to Kyburz on the 50, stayed at the Kyburz Inn, easy access to the Ice House Road region discussed prior. If you get up that way, Patty at the Inn is nice, rates are great ($50/night +/-), beer & wine only at the lodge next door was a bummer, but pool tables, open faced meatball sandwich, and some video games entertained us in the evening. St. Pauli Inn had some good dinner grub, as well.

We headed up to the Ice House lake area for an evening scout/hunt on Friday night. We went to the end of the paved/gravel road off of Cheese club(?) road, near the Van Kleck bunkhouse. We split up and headed east, northeast towards the landing strip, and north. I passed another guy coming from the east, said he' d seen a ton of tracks but little/no spore in a rock garden south of the landing strip, o/wise, no deer at all! None of us saw anything, although the terrain was great, tons of water and great meadows/resting areas.

We hit the same area again saturday morning, and though we heard 2 shots, saw only two does on the drive up. Two of us went north/n.east, the third went due north and made a big loop. Again, tracks but very little sign. we heard dogs being run to the east of us, perhaps some guys running for bear? Again, great terrain, feed, meadows, cover, water...just no racks!

We had a mediocre breakfast at the Ice House Lodge/bar on the way back to Kyburz...but hey, a cold beer is a cold beer!

We then went up into the hills on the south side of the 50, trying to find Cody Meadows, south of Cody Lake. We' re frankly not certain that the meadow we eventually found was the right one, as our topo map wasn' t up to date with the numerous logging roads and half-assed roads in the region. We scouted what we could, talked to some other hunters who hadn' t seen a thing, then headed back to Kyburz for grub, cold drinks, and sleep!

Sunday we were up at 8,000' and spread out before daybreak. I dropped down the backside of some STEEP sloped hillside/granite gardens. BIG tracks, lots of ' em, plenty of beds, and finally some spore! I got down a couple hundred feet and settled in facing east, looking south towards the 88 (although we were one range north of it). Something caught my eye from below right, a doe and two yearlings. The doe stopped and turned her head back for almost 5 minutes...so i waited....and watched....coaxing pappa buck out mentally....but no such luck I watched as mom and her kids fed, even got a little excited as two guys came up the canyon to within 1/2 mile of them below me, hoping that the noise of them TALKING and their ATV (hello????? ever heard of hiking and shutting UP???) would push some bucks out. Though I head some movement, I saw nothing, and once I' d lost sight of the doe/yearlings, decided to pull out. I did see some band-tailed pigeons, for what THAT was worth...

So that was that. We heard maybe 8 shots all weekend, saw no bucks alive or dead, and saw a sum total of 5 deer. We killed a 1.75 of JD and a grey squirrel that was foolish enough to test his speed against the Firestones on our Explorer...which suffered a busted running board and a bent bracket on the other due to my poor off-road skills Hey, it was a rental!

Keep me posted if any of you have any luck up in that area. It sure seemed like there should' ve been some MONSTERS there with all the good cover, food, and water....oh, well, that just leaves more for next season, right?

On to ducks, quail, goose, pheasant, and second dove!
dave