A Year in The Life of a Hunter

LAST EDITED ON Aug-05-10 AT 09:13AM (MST) by Founder (admin)[p][p align=right]Thread Views Counter....[/p]

For me and probably most everyone else here, there really isn't a solid break from one hunting season to the next. As soon as you finish that last outing of the year it seems like your already thinking about and gearing up for what the next year will bring. This season started for me when I was given a 3 year old Bowtech for my birthday. A new bow for me has been a long time coming. I've been hunting with my sweet PSE Nova for 10 years now, and although it's been as trusty as an old dog I've noticed it's really showing signs of slowing down and was in need of a new owner to rekindle it's fire. Thankfully my cousin who is just getting into archery and like me isn't financially fit to go out and purchase a new bow, jumped up and snatched it away from me. So, my PSE found a great new home and will probably find success again this year. And, I can't but help toss a big thanks out to my bother again who saw fit to upgrade his bow and gift me his old one for my birthday. Thank you!

So as you can imagine I'm just as happy as ever. And with it being only February and me with a new bow in hand I've had a great jump start into practicing for the new season. Also with my birthday being in the perfect time of the year I scrounged up enough money to buy myself a new trail cam, the Bushnell trail cam. I'm totally stoked about this camera. Not only is it a great camera, but it's small and compact. Perfect for those long halls into the back country. Stay tuned and I'll prove just how awesome these camera's really are.

With the cold days slowly dwindling away and the Utah draw results slowly drawing nearer, I found myself getting more and more anxious to get up the canyon and do some spotting. But with the snow packed roads still being gated off I was forced to wait it out. Not that I didn't fill the remainder of my time with good-for-me shooting practice, but there's only so many bulls-eys you can pin down in an evening before you're not as excited to hit that little black dot again.

Finally April rolled in and I watched my credit card balance like a hawk, hoping I'd be so fortunate to have some large sum taken out without warning. But... it wasn't to be. I was yet again unsuccessful on my LE elk, bear and moose tags. No matter there's always next year right? But it's not all that bad. I've still got my dedicated hunter tag and I wont be passing up the archery elk tag either. A few hours after my draw results came in, I got news that my sister-in-law Amanda and my uncle Marvin both drew they're LE tags this year. short from drawing the tag myself I couldn't be happier. We in this family hunt as a family, and sometime our greatest hunting moments aren't sitting behind the weapon but rather nearby watching the action unfold in third person and taking every bit of the magic in. This year has the makings of a great year, even before setting foot on that hallowed ground we call our hunting territory.

Join me and my family in our adventures to spot, stalk and draw down on some great animals this year. And keep your fingers crossed for me that I can finally rid myself of that dreaded deer curse that's got a tight grip on me.

The gates are open, the and the animals finally have something more too look at they just a couple stubs on the top of they're heads. We're headed up the canyon to check em out.


Spotting week #1 June 4:
The first trip up the canyon. Are eyes are wide with excitement and our lungs are finally filling with that sweet mountain air. Does it get any better than this? We have our sights on a few historically great canyons to scout and more then anything we're all just glad to be getting rid of this itch that's been pestering us all winter long. The outcome: Plenty of elk, a few small deer and a couple bulls that were growing some potentially perfect brow tines. The highlight of the trip however was on the ride home. We came upon a couple fawn in the road that were so had a really hard time walking themselves off the road. It was dark and our gear was stashed away so all I could get was a couple pics with my phone using a low lights from the 4-wheelers. It's such an amazing thing to see these animals in any situation but nothing has ever woken to the reality of the great outdoors more than this moment of seeing these tiny deer in such a vulnerable state. We sat back and waited for them to move off the road as not to startle them any more, but even then they couldn't make it up the small hill that was off the side of the road. They could have easily been born just a few hours earlier.
[IMG]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r114/foxykaya/Hunting/01/1.jpg




Spotting week #2 June 11:
The plan this evening was to roll in on some great hunting ground and check it out. However, on the way up we literally ran into somebody who had a better idea. Or did he? The poor kid who is the proud owner of that broken car below was having issues with his car, and was distracted going around a blind corner and ended up slamming right into us. Thankfully nobody was hurt and we managed to get things back in order and be on our way. I still feel bad for this boy though, but I guess it probably happens to most of us during that early learning period of our driving years. So, we saw plenty of sign, and a few deer that showed decent potential, but the real goal again today was to find and check up on some bulls. And that we did, they didn't show they're faces till just before dark, but the good news was they did show they're faces. We got a good look at a decent bull that looked to be gaining mass a lot faster than the others. We attempted to take a little video and than laid him down to bed.





Spotting week #3 June 18:
We finally decided on a spot to place the first camera. It was an area we'd came upon the previous year, and knew that in the early season it had some great potential to be that bachelor pad for bulls that we were searching for. Sure enough the water was flowing great, and the few wallows we're already being used. We sat down on the edge of the clearing and proceeded to glass the draw below us. It didn't take long before we started seeing bulls. None that were showing great potential, but we saw enough of them to know that there was bound to be a good one around somewhere. We placed the camera and headed out.


Spotting week #4 June 25:
Checking up on camera #1: At first glance it seemed to be doing pretty well, but we quickly realized we stuck it too close to the trail and weren't getting any good shots of the bulls. We did however see plenty of bulls around in the area and had a few nice ones walk in on us as we were glassing some of the nearby canyons. With a new and improved location for the trail camera and plenty more great sign in the area we excitedly looked forward to what the next few weeks of trail cam pictures would bring.









Spotting week #5 July 2:
It's July and we needed to spend some time away from the big bulls and work on locating those beloved cows and hopefully some more deer. We headed higher into the canyon to drop camera #2 and pray it brings in some of the luck we've seen in the past few years. Sure enough we saw plenty of elk and there was no doubt where we wanted to drop the camera. We quickly stuck it to a tree and ran off to the top of the ridge to do some spotting. We say truck loads of elk, all mommies and they're little babies. There were even a hand full of small bulls that thought they were still mommas boys.













Spotting week #6 July 9:
Finally the day I'd been looking forward to for way too long. We're back to check on camera #1 after a two week wait. Bulls!!! Wow, I was totally surprised, now way did I think there would be that much action in just a couple weeks. We had close to 2000 pictures to sift through. My uncle who drew the LE tag was speechless, and totally ecstatic. We're not by any means huge bull hunters, just want to shoot something to call our own, but hey if they're going to present themselves we're going to try our best. The biggest bull in the pictures was a little light on the front end. We were hoping to see a little more mass there, but nothing to pass on during the archery hunt. With these new incredible pictures we anxiously trounced up to camera #2 to see what it had in store. It was just about what we expected. Elk everywhere. And plenty of them. I picked out my baby spike and drew myself a target on him and dated it for Aug 21st. About the only disappointing topic from this incredible spotting trip was were just not seeing any shooter bucks. Probably that dang curse that's got me by the ankles.










































Spotting week #7 July 16:
Hmm, after a week like last week and seeing so many great animals we couldn't keep ourselves from checking back up on all the cameras again before venturing deeper withing the canyon to set up camera #3. The outcome was a lot of elk, and a few new bulls to drule over. Camera #3 was finally set and located on my all time favorite hunting spot. Not by any means the most accessible place to hunt, but it has a reputation of providing plenty of access to animals. Still no deer. I'm getting the sick feeling that I'm just not going to be able to hunt big bucks where we love to hunt elk.





















Spotting week #8 July 23:
We finally got a picture of that little moose we've been seeing around. We'll give him a few more years to mature before somebody lays the stalk down on him. And yet again a bunch of elk and even some newer ones than we've previously seen. This week brought in two unique bulls that both lay on my uncle's shooter list. One which after counting his little cheater above his right brow tine, is a decent 6x7 and the other which has some fun uniqueness to his right side making him a 6x8. With still a few more weeks of good antler growth these two bulls might turn into something really special, and with any luck will be hanging one the wall before next season.





































Week #9 July 30:
No hunting action this week. Believe it or not we had to miss a week. Family reunion takes precedence over the spotting part of our hunting adventures. But I'm here to tell ya, a little family time goes a long way when it come to asking for time off from the wife. None the less we did spend it in the mountains. Didn't see much wildlife around the lake but we had a fun time playing in the water and trying to catch fish. These two are my trophy kids. My son who's turning 4 in Nov. keeps telling me how excited he is for daddy to shoot a moose. I think I am too. Soon baby soon.










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Week #10 August 6:

Another really good week of spotting. Today's adventure was a little more involved though. So much that we were hard pressed to get off the mountain before the sun rose the next day. Well maybe not that bad, but it was late enough that hiking out from our last trail cam installment of over 1/2 mile in the dark of the night with only the stars to light our way was pretty crazy. We had flashlights, but it's kinda cool to leave them off and just feel your way around the mountain. We knew which direction we needed to go, and there were a couple trails here and there that we caught, but otherwise it was a log here and a tree there that got in our way.

So why were we out so late? Other than the cold hard fact that's the mountains are just dang enjoyable, we got tied up getting a tree stand in the tree, and checking on all 3 camera's. It had been two weeks since we checked them last and we really needed to make sure we swapped out the cards in the camera's. With the luck we've been having lately with all the elk, it was a must to get to them all. Not to mention right at the last moment of what little bit of light we had left we decided to venture off in a different direction to hand camera #4. We knew it'd be on a good trail, and knew that it was a high traffic zone for animals of every kind, the only hard part was finding it in the dark. But, found it we did, and we found a few stinky elk beds right off the trail too, so that was pretty exciting. We hung the camera, snapped a couple night shots to make sure it was pointed in a decent direction and climbed a good 500 feet out of the canyon.

Here are just a few off the fun trail cam pics that camera #3 picked up this week. And some more action shots that were taken. I'll be sitting on camera #3 with my bow on opening day, hoping that the first legal animal that presents itself is one of those yummy spikes, Otherwise I'll probably not have to guts to pass on a cow.
Also here's a good shot of the night sky as we were heading in to check the camera's.

Week #11 August 13

Nothing much to report today. This week is our cool down week. We've put in the time, we've done our research, and we're confident our efforts will pay off. Although we're anxious as ever to be up the canyon, we want to make sure things stay as they are. No reason to muddy the waters just yet. But, this is a good time for us to continue to shoot and prepare us for that moment we've been waiting for all year long.

I've also been familiarizing myself a little with my video camera. I think I have it all ready to roll, this year will be my first attempt in recording my kill. I may not luck out but I'll be ready with the record button just in case. Fingers crossed that I'll be able to share in some of the great experiences with ya'll this coming weekend.

Archery Opener August 21:

If I could sum up opening day in a sentence: A reminder that just when you think you have things figured out, you realize you're still just a pawn in the game.

Let me elaborate a little. The week prior to the big opener, hunting was so thick in the air that it's all I could smell, see, hear and even taste. I guess you could say I was a little excited. It seemed as though each day of this last week lasted longer and longer than the previous one and Thursday even gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to live to see Friday. But, none-the-less I lived and Friday did come. Finally we off to the hills and to set up what would be base camp for the opening day of the hunt.




-a couple pictures of our small camp.


Camp couldn't have felt better, we got set up with plenty of time to shoot our last set of practice arrows before loading the bow with the real money makers, then set out to watch our territory from a distant ridge. We spotted a couple little bucks and small group of elk just before dark. I admit it wasn't what we'd usually see in this area right before nightfall, but even just a few elk is plenty of elk to choose from. Night came and I was dead tired, I thought I'd be sleeping peacefully for sure. But, alas I was mistaken. I couldn't get hunting out of my head. I played and replayed over and over in my head the series of events that were almost guaranteed to happen the following morning. Wake up @ 4:30 > crawl out of pj's > brush teeth > camo up > force down a granola bar > hit the trail @ 5:05 > arrive at camera #4 @ 5:45 > and finally arrive at camera #3 and my hot spot @ 6:00, just in time to settle in knock an arrow and let it fly.

After a long and exhausting night I finally put to play my wonderful plan. Everything went perfectly as planned, I had no trouble finding the camera's in the pitch black. As I snuck over the ridge to my hot spot the air was thick with the smell of elk, I thought to myself "are they already in here? Nah, couldn't be they've never showed up this early on the trail cam before, why would they now?" But, just to be sure I waited till I could see the outline of objects in front of me for about 50 yards. As I saw nothing in my sight I knew I was okay to check the camera and settle down. For the next 20 min I was as anxious as ever, and found myself guessing what time I'll see my first elk of the archery season. Then all the sudden my bother comes on the radio "Did you check the pictures on the camera?" he asked. "Just long enough to see that it was working, why?" I replied. Then he broke the bad news. "There hasn't been any elk on this camera (camera #2) for the past week." I was heart broken. I quickly pulled out my camera and checked the pictures. Sure enough since Monday no elk showed up on the camera except a few that showed up night before. Blast! "What could have happened?", I wondered. Then I put two and two together and realized that the big storm blew through here those same exact days. I'm almost certain that most the elk took refuge elsewhere and were probably still taking it easy. It was more apparent later on that day when I noticed all the newly downed trees the wind must have had it's way with.


-my shooting lane, from an ant's perspective.


-here's my best attempt at combating my boredom.


The rest of the day was painful. I waited patiently for 5 hours, but nothing came in. I then took to the trail to check out some other nearby hot spots to see what sign there might be. Nothing but old tracks. The highlight of my day was the big two-point that I convinced myself would be a great archery buck for the area. Needless to say I took the ethical approach to wait for a shot where he wasn't laying down half hidden and missed the opportunity. I ventured back to my spot and waited out the evening, but still nothing came in. The planned victory lap back the our base camp and home just wasn't to be.

I'm still super excited for the next weekend, and I sure glad I still have my tag so I can continue my hunt. Sure, I would have been a great story to have a kill on opening day, but maybe my luck will change next weekend.

P.S. My uncle Marvin hasn't filled his LE tag yet. He had a few bulls come in, but nothing worthy of shooting yet. We're still waiting out of some of the bigger 6x's we've been seeing. I'll keep ya posted, but in the meantime here's some pictures from the past week.




-good looking 6x, hanging out the week before the opener, still not scraped.


-not the best shot of the devil bull, but it's good to see he's still making his visits.

The weekend went really well, we charged up on the mountain Friday afternoon checked on the trail camera's. Trail camera's 2, 3 & 4 are still as dry as they were the first week of the hunt. I'm starting to think all those elk we were seeing aren't coming back. Things might change when the rut starts in heavy, because there's still some bulls in the area, but it's not worth our time hunting this area right now.

Friday evening we pushed farther around the mountain to try our luck at another hot spot, and it didn't take long to get into the elk. I stalked in on a group of 30-40 elk and had a cow come into 20 yards, but she was facing me the whole time. Finally her calf got excited about ran me over and they all spooked. Luckily they didn't spook hard and I had the opportunity to stalk back in on them again. Unfortunately this time they were on a little higher alert and by the time I got close enough to see them it was too late, I was busted again. By this time the weather was starting to get bad again, and some nasty storms we're closing in fast. For the next hour I was forced into the trees to hide from the lighting and hail.

Morning came and although we'd seen a lot of elk the night before we were a little reluctant to head back to the same spot. A Saturday in this canyon almost guarantees you'll run into a few other hunters. Sure enough we did, and there ended up being a lot more of them then we thought. Ughh! What I would give at this point to have our secret little honey hole back in action. But even though, it didn't take me long to remind myself to be grateful, cause I'm still doing something I love and look forward to the whole year long. We spend the majority of the morning on top of a ridge watching a group of elk feed about a mile away. Knowing it was probably too far down and out of the way to try to hunt them we stuck it out on the ridge and just had fun watching.

Around noon as we were watching these elk get up and start to move again we noticed there was a nice bull among them. Knowing that my uncle was sitting in his tree stand 3-4 miles away and within radio reach we decided to wake him up and get him in on this bull. It might have been a long haul out of there, but it would have been worth it for this bull. He was, at first a really big 6x6, but as he fed out in the openings we noticed that he had 2 inch cheaters on each side. This bull was really nice, and a lot bigger than the bulls we usually see in the area. We spent the next few hours working Marvin into the saddle on top of this bull, hoping that with any luck these elk will feed that direction. From about 3 to 7 there wasn't much action at all, they bedded back down and just out of reach. This bull was hanging onto about 40 cows and calves, and although he showed the other small bulls that were lingering around that he was boss, he just wasn't interested in anything outside his herd. There wasn't much chance of getting in close enough to lob an arrow his direction, but just after the sun went down Marvin eased his was down the mountain to see if he could luck out before it was too late. The elk at this point were out feeding again, but because there were so many he ended up alerting the cows long before he got close enough to the bull.

No kill success stories this weekend, but overall we had a really fun time, and if nothing else we have a great bull to keep our eyes on. Here's to hoping the elk are rutting up by next weekend and my camera's shows a little more potential. I'd love to shoot one out of that hole. Anywhere really, but there's just something about hunting that mountain.


Cool shot of the sky off the top.



Only place we could watch these elk was right out in the sun... HOT! Thank goodness it was partly cloudy throughout the afternoon.




Best shot we could get of this bull at close to 1600 yards away.

3rd and 4th Weekend Archery Hunt and LE CWMU Hunt.

Note: Be sure not to miss Marvin's story in the audio link below. It's cool to listen to it like that first hand.

Well I couldn't get an update out last weekend between all the work and hunting I was trying to squeez into my schedule, I guess I need to figure out how to toss in small and quick updates like the other hunt advenure challengers here. But it's all good cause there wasn't a whole lot of anything interesting to tell about. We had bulls up to our ears and enjoyed every second of being on the mountain. No kills, but plenty of heart pounding moments where we thought we were going to strike gold.

This weekend however was even more crazy. With Friday being the last day of my archery elk tag I planned on taking the whole day off to hit the mountain hard and maybe, with any luck, draw some blood. With all the action lately and finally nailing down a pattern on a new herd of elk I felt pretty good going into the weekend. I've spent so much time helping locate big bulls that I havn't placed myself in any decent location to shoot a cow or spike. However, my plans quickly changed when my brother called me up and said he got permission to take his wife hunting this Friday for her CWMU bull. With the elk screaming almost every day, and the chance to carry a rifle on the mountain it wasn't a hard decision to pass up the last day of my hunt to help out on this hunt. This would also mean that my uncle would be left to himself to try his luck at getting in on a bull.

With young kids we opted to hit the mountain really early friday morning rather then leaving them all with my wife for the whole night. We had about a two hour comute to get on the mountain, and we hit the hunting grounds just as it was getting light enough to see. I hadn't even gotten off my 4-wheeler before I saw a small herd of elk moving over a nearby skyline, and sure enough there was a decent bull in the group. We quickly got in position on the ridge behing us and waited for them to come back in view. Soon after a bull started feeding out of the trees ahead of where these elk were. We knew it was a different bull because the other one was grouped with his cows. However it was still too dark to see how big he was so we just watched as he walked into the trees. Not long after that the group of elk I spotted earlier scrambled out of the tree's. The were in a hurry to get into the next group of trees so we didn't get a good look at the bull, but knew he was probably a shooter for the area, so we decided to follow them into the tree's. He was bugling a lot so it wasn't a problem at all figuring out how far they were ahead of us. We followed them for close to 600 yards until they stopped in a thick wooded area. Sadly we couldn't see very far into the trees and ended up pushing them farther up the canyon before we got close enough. Rather than continuing to push them farther up the canyon we decided to push onto the other ridge and see if we can't spot them across the canyon.

As we reached the other ridge we started tossing out some bugles and cow calls to get them to keep talking, and it worked like a charm. We found that the elk continued farther up the ridge and dropped down farther into the revine between them and us. There was also a bull answering every call just up the ridge from us so we pushed up to get in a little closer, hoping to see a glimpse of him. And yet again as we got close to him he spooked and ran up the canyon a little ways. He wasn't spooked to badly however because he continued to answer every bugle we gave him. We snuck up the ridge another 200 yards and continued to call, this time however we were staying put. There's no way we were being quiet enough to get in close on him. Then all the sudden he poked his head out right in front of us. He was only 50 yards away and standing there looking right at us. Took us a little by supprise because we didn't think after already pushing him once, that we'd be albe to call him in. Amanda however had a little case of bull feaver, she had her sights right on him and even started to squeeze the trigger, but then at the last moment hesitated and he turned and moved back into the tree's. None of us really saw how big he was but knew that if it had 6 points (which I'm sure it did), then it was a shooter. We got a few laughs out of it though. This is Amanda first big game hunt and so it's understandable that she'd be a little hesitant to pull the trigger. But she promised us that she'd never hesitate again.

Here's a tiny audio clip of one of the bull bugling, not the best audio cause it was off my phone, but still way cool to hear. I love sharing things like this with people that don't get the opportunity to hear it themselves.
http://www.wpa-architecture.com/sandbox/chad/Bull.mp3

We took a lunch nap and then started to bugle again in the early afternoon to wake these bulls back up. Both bulls started bugling back almost immediatly. It was very apparant that they didn't was some new bull running around they're mountain steeling cows, by the way they were cutting off our bugles. We located the first bull we chased this morning on the other side of the canyon, almost the same place we last heard him. He was feeding slowly down the canyone with his cows. This time we got a pretty good look at him and saw he was a good little 6 point. Definatly a shooter. I opted to stay on the ridge to keep track of them, while my brother and Amanda took off up the other ridge to get on top of them. They worked they're way into the thick tree's the elk were hangin out in and started to play the waiting game. However, it wasn't working, these elk weren't moving out and the sun was starting to set, so we decided he need to rip a bugle. With them being only a couple hundred yards away we didn't really know if he'd just up and leave or actually come out to see what's going on. It must have pissed that bull off because after a couple bugles back and forth like that, the bull left his cows and marched up to give them a piece of his mind. He walked right out in the open and presented a pereft shot. Amanda placed it perfectly through his front shoulder and almost dropped him in his tracks.

It was great watching a new hunter who's never shot at any type of big game in her life really throw the hammer down and get excited about it like that. We couldn't get her to help us clean the animal but we did get her to sit on the bull for a fun shot. I know it's kinda tacky riding your kill, oh but it needed to happen.

Here's a couple pics on the mountain of Amanda and her first big game animal.





Not long after she dropped the animal we got a call from my Uncle who drove a good distance down the canyone to get us on the phone. Turns out he was having a bit of luck himself and was going to need help getting his bull off the mountain too. I think it's neat that even though we were separated but billions of tree's that they shot they're bull just a couple hours apart. We managed to get Amanda's bull cut quartered and hauled off the montain all in one night. We didn't get in bed till about 3 am but it was plenty of rest to get back up the canyon saturday morning to help my uncle finish cutting up his bull and hauling it off the mountain.

Since I couldn't be in two places at the same time to bring you both the stories, I made sure to get part of his story recoreded into a little 5 min audio file for your listing pleasures. Both bull arean't monsters but for an archery tag and a tag drawn with 4 pts they're two bulls to be very proud of.

Here's the audio clip, and a few pictures of Marvin's bull.
http://www.wpa-architecture.com/sandbox/chad/Marvin.mp3





We also got them toghether for a few shots saturday afternoon to finish off a really fun adventure and story.




Next up hopefully some decent deer hunting action. Luckily I'm not looking for a monster, cause we're not seeing any, but just something to get my little boy excited.