Jess & Steph: 2009

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Autumn Drive -Click to add Comment-

Steph and Jess on a drive to see the trees changing colors and such

Steph Shooting :P

Looking for Wolves

Mike and I went looking for one of them howlers, One sighting but no shots fired.

We did however see some other cool things.

Moose

Antelope

Deer

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Well this season of elk hunting - at first it looked as though between the large presence of wolves and the aerial shooting of the wolves had ruined our hunt- after a few days of no fresh sign and much glassing we relocated our camp by about 30 miles or so. We did more scouting and we were able to locate a few elk.

We glassed and saw some elk on a far opening on a mountain, aprox. 2 miles away. We hiked down the valley up the next ridge and on the way spotted a spike and tried to call it in for Rick. The spike saw us and we continued up the ridge at the top I let out a bugle. We heard a few down in the next valley. As we followed the sound of the bugle we bumped a 6X6 coming into our calls silently, saw us moving and he turned and ran. I bugled again and followed the returning bugle. Rick followed the spooked elk, while Scott and I began cow calling and bugling toward the elk in the valley. We came in from a side wind and as we came up the other side of the valley we spotted the bull. Scott took the higher trail and I took position on the lower side. We continued to cow call and try to lure the elk into shooting distance. The elk ran toward Scott and started raking some small pines the thick trees between Scott and the elk did not allow for a shot. Another bugle was coming in from my left down the valley a little farther. We worked on the bull for about 30 mins, which gave me plenty of time to setup in case he came back my way and it also gave me time to range the area. Suddenly he ran up parallel to me at about 55 yards I drew my bow and when he came into my last shooting lane I let one fly and landed a double lung shot. The elk went about 30 yards or so and expired, just the way I like it.

Well 4-5 miles of pack out and many sore muscles later and it was back at camp.