Utah County family still lives the hunting tradition

UINTA MOUNTAINS —

No one's pretending the Utah deer hunt is what it once was. School isn't let out for the hunt anymore. Shopping malls don't hold "hunt widow" sales. Out-of-staters no longer cross the border in droves to help us thin out our deer herd.

But just try and tell Fred and Claudia Chadwick the party's over.

Here they are, all set up in a clearing on the edge of the High Uintas, their three motorhomes circled like covered wagons, a fleet of four-wheelers gassed up on the trailer, enough ammo to take the Alamo, and Dutch oven food so good it makes you wonder about ever going home.

So what if there's no deer?

"We make it a camp out; the deer is a bonus," says Fred.

The Chadwicks are diehard 21st century Utah deer hunters, a link to the days when everybody hunted deer or had to explain why not. Fred's dad hunted, so did Claudia's dad. The deer hunt was a holiday. To give it up would be like giving up Christmas.

So they don't. Every October, they summon the family and head for the hills. They'll stay four days, five days, sometimes six at a time, and then the next weekend, they do it again.

Ten of them are along this year. Beside Fred and Claudia there's their daughter Kelbie and her daughter Oakley, their son Rowdy and his wife, Jilaine, and their son Nate and his wife, Jodi, and their twins, Stetson and Sierra.

"It's a big family affair for us," says Fred, a truck driver when he isn't out menacing deer. "This is one family memory we're not willing to give up."

Both Fred and Claudia can remember 30 and 40 years ago when hunting deer was a far sight easier than it is now. For one thing, they could hunt where they wanted. For years, that meant the mountains in central Utah, much closer to their homes in Utah County and crawling with deer.

Now, they go where their permit tells them to go. For the 2011 general hunt, which ends this weekend, they drew a permit for the northern region, where the human-deer ratio is much more lopsided.

"It's hard pickin' up here, too much private property," says Fred, mentioning something that, in sharp contrast to the deer, has multiplied greatly over the years — no-trespassing signs.