2018-Another Great Year Outdoors!!!!

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A big "Thank You" goes out to Brian for another opportunity to post our hunting adventures, for all to share with us as we go along. I truly enjoy peoples hunts, as well as family outings or camping trips too. Hope I can make this an enjoyable read, and you continue to follow along.

I included a bunch of stuff from early Jan and Feb in my 2017 HAC, so we will ignore those and skip on to some early Mexico Mule Deer action my friends had. I was too busy remodeling the house again, so I missed out on this trip. This was kind of thrown together at a last minute, after a Mexico Coues Deer hunt with Predator. I think they managed to get it done in fine fashion.

As we continued into the Spring, it was time for getting applications in. No luck on WY elk but did scrape enough cash together to apply for AZ and WY, followed by UT. With 22 deer points and 20 moose points in the Beehive State, I thought this might be my year. No luck in Mudville tho, so we are back to waiting for a Paunsagunt tag next year. My hunting partner had me put him in in AZ for an early archery elk tag and he drew. Will at least get to tag along and listen to bugling bulls in Sept. in Unit 8 again.

April came and started speeding by, so got in my Kansas application. I was able to draw another couple Whitetail tags there, but no luck on the Mule Deer upgrade. This year I have a hot rod CVA Accura V2 and may be able to reach out and touch some of those big bucks I saw (and missed) last year.

The wife and I have really been enjoying our riding time with the Kawasaki Teryx, but decided we didn't want to pull tandem behind our bumper pull trailer anymore. Started to search for a new toy hauler, and were happy to find a 2018 Adrenaline by Coachman. It is 8.5' wide and about 33' long so everything fits perfect. Now we can really go on expeditions. Moab was to be our first one of the new year.

What a fantastic trip. Put on a few hundred miles on many trails, and just had a blast. With the UTV out of the rig, it is a huge space to entertain in and enjoy. After 10 days of fun in the sun (and dirt), we decided to head down to see friends in Williams AZ and do some camping in the lovely pine forests there.

 

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Got down to AZ and found that it was incredibly dry. They hadn't had rain for months, and many of the tanks and water holes were dry. Hope it gets a lot better during the monsoons, or hunting in Sept will be tough. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, no mosquitos, and we got in a lot more riding. Our friends had gotten a new Polaris Ranger so spent time with them going over to Cottonwood and Jerome the back way across the desert. Zooming along the road, I had a big rattler cross in front of me. Tried to zig but he zagged, and ended up getting flattened. It was the first Mojave Green one I had seen, beautiful in color but looked like it could put a hurting on you!!!

We got a call from my grand-daughter, and she enlisted in the Air Force National Guard. Really wanted her grandma and me to be at her swearing in, so we stored the trailer for a couple weeks and headed to Boise. Sure made this veteran proud to see how excited she was to do this, and the group she is joining is a great bunch of people. She will be the other girl of the bunch!!!

Following that, it was back down to get the trailer and continue on to Lake Havasu for a wedding. Glad it only hit 100 degrees and not the usual highs. Finished it off with a houseboat trip on Lake Shasta in Northern California. Fishing was awesome, and the bass were biting everything. My wife got the biggest one, and the catfish cooperated a little in the evenings also.

Everyone had a ball, and we finally got back to some cooler country here around the house.

Wyoming managed to get their draws completed and I was lucky enough to get another late 128 whitetail tag and two reduced price doe tags in that same unit. I love spending the month of November in Dubois on the winter range. Hope some MM members were lucky and got a mule deer tag this year. Love taking pictures of all the big bucks there. We had some friends up and took them around the area. They kept commenting how green everything was, and how shocking it was to see so much water. Gotta love the Mountain West.

Idaho and Wyoming have gotten approval to list a grizzly hunt in each state, so we took a little trip to see some, and got our applications in while we could. Don't know if there will be a hunt or not, but I will definitely frame the application for my enjoyment. Last hunt in the Lower 48 was 1974 in Montana.

 

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We have an annual get-together on the Madison River each Fourth of July. Half dozen friends and family from several states come over and enjoy camping, fishing, travel in the Park and mountains. The Grizzly Bar (cute play on words) puts on a great fireworks show over the river too.

The timing of the trip is made even better by the fact that it is the trout fly hatch, and the fishing can be amazing. People from all 50 states congregate there and you meet some wonderful ones in the most unusual circumstances. If you hate bugs (big ones) crawling all over you, this is not the place to be. They don't bite, but give you the heebie-jeebies anyway.
Some dynamite browns and rainbows can get careless during this time.

One really cool thing about the area around Hebgen and Quake Lakes is the fact that you can have bighorn sheep and mountain goats come right down to the water while you are fishing! That's way easier than climbing up to their normal level. Here we had a nanny, a yearling, and two kids come down every morning.

Back in 1959, there was a 7.5 earthquake centered right here in the area. Unfortunately, when the entire mountain slid down, it buried about 29 people in a campground and resulted in damming the river to make Quake Lake. Estimates ranged up to ONE HUNDRED MILLION TONS of debris came down.

The forces of Nature finally won, and the river ate it's way thru the earth and created an intense Class-V rapids down into the valley. In all my years of going there, I have never seen anyone attempt running it until now. These crazy guys jumped in with their kayaks and shot the canyon. They are insane!!!

While we were enjoying ourselves, Idaho finally got the draws completed and we found out our results. I got another muzzleloader antelope tag, and an extra white tail doe tag. The wife and I beat incredible odds to also draw TWO late bull elk tags on the desert winter range in November. Hope they gang up in big bachelor groups like they did last year, when I had a cow tag. Unfortunately, Predator did not draw a single tag with me this year, so she will have to tag along as primary hot chocolate drinker and packer!!!

Dealing with a major case of plantar fasciitis in my heel right now, but with care and some treatment should be back to 100% in short order. I needed an excuse for new running shoes and boots anyway.

That pretty much catches us up to current events now. Will start posting in real time as we go along. Can't wait to start getting out and enjoying the wonderful areas we are blessed to have around us. Hope you all are getting out yourselves.

 

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Been really busy delivering NISSAN pickups for my son to various events and locations. Have been in 14 states in the last 3 months, with all the RV travels and deliveries, so have not had a lot of free time. My mind is always on hunting, and especially deer so I keep looking while driving.

Picked up a vehicle in Nashville on Monday, and had to go to Illinois. Driving along on the Interstate and almost wrecked the truck when I saw the biggest deer of my life running across a hay field in broad daylight! It was a no-##### 200" whitetail buck, and even my wife was impressed. She agreed we have never seen one that big alive, or even on TV. Man oh man, I might have to start adding Illinois to my bucket list.

Got another truck in Chicago, and proceeded on to the Denver area. While coming across eastern Colorado in the Limon area, we were paralleling the railroad track. There were occasional bridges but nothing much for cover. I was wondering to myself how they could possibly survive in this area with no cover or trees, and bingo, right in front of me was two big mule deer bucks. They simply laid down under the little bridge trestle in the shade, and were totally content. I guess you just have to be adaptable to everything around you.

Got into the house today and found my Wyoming deer tags in the mailbox. Now it is starting to get real. With tags in hand, I know for sure I wasn't dreaming about going back in November to look at big mules and hunt some whitetails.

 

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Flew into Denver and picked up another truck to take back to Nashville and traded for a brand new 2019 Titan deluxe with a totally new paint job no one has seen before. Nissan is really going out of their way to dress things up. Added 4 more states to the list, did a little visiting with relatives, and returned to Idaho by a different route thru Colorado so we could see Pagosa Springs.

In North Carolina we found this awesome U.S.Navy Memorial to submarine sailors lost in WWII. Proud of the homeowner who cares so much to maintain something like that.

Got to go up on top of GrandFather Mountain in NC. One mile high across a swing bridge over about a 200 foot drop into a canyon!!! Visibility is about 80 miles up there. Saw tons of whitetails all over in those hills and valleys, and lots of Eastern turkeys.

Texas held a couple Public Land draws in the meantime, but no luck for us there. The wife and I got to go up North of us and see what damage the big wildfire did to our late bull hunt in November. OMG, talk about 20 square miles of scorched earth. I hope we get some rain and the grass gets a start on re-growth.

Managed to go camping for 4 days, and ride the Teryx for 105 miles. Super dusty and all the springs and creeks starting to dry up. Saw a lot of skinny and thirsty cows on the USFS grazing allotments. Went all the way up to the top of Big Elk Mtn, above Palisades Reservoir and from 9000 feet, you could see how thick the smoke was. Come on Fall, and cooler weather.

 

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Finally got to be September, and now we can get serious about hunting seasons. I had hoped for another AZ elk tag, but that didn't pan out. My partner, however, drew my Unit 8 archery bull tag so I promised to take him down and show him all the elk my wife and I have located in the past. Loaded up the trailer I sold hime, and we are off on our first adventure of the year.

Arizona was suffering from a drought year, and even when they got rain it was spotty and not nearly enough to totally refill all the tanks. We did find one resident who was quite happy with his accommodations tho!!!

Once everything was set up in camp we were able to go out every morning and evening and find elk. Trying to make a plan is difficult, when you have a lot of possibilities.

Will carry on with the hunt and eventual outcome in the next installment. I trust you will appreciate it.

Unit 8 in Arizona has some of the craziest antelope in the country. Not out in your typical prairie environment, but living up in the heavy ponderosa pines. They just wander around all day long. Did see some javelina's and heard turkeys too.

Once we started locating elk, we started running into lots of other hunters. Public land hunting can be difficult, and the fact that they increased the tag numbers by 30% to 250 bull tags wasn't going to help. We would just have to suffer thru the dummies, be tougher than the other guys, and hope our sweet calling would lure in a love-sick bull.

 

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Back to the trip. We were having a great time scouting and finding many areas with elk, but running into the same problem each day. Active the first and last 30 minutes of the day, but quiet the rest of the time. You couldn't even bump them in bedding areas; they'd just slip away. There were a lot of songbirds migrating and it must have been the bluebird of happiness which rewarded our efforts.

Even tho the monsoons had come and gone, they were spotty and did not fill all the tanks to even half capacity. We checked a lot of them and most were about one-third full. The drought certainly hurt the horn growth, and we saw a lot of stunted top ends, thin mass, and brittle broken points - even early into the hunt. There were still plenty of tracks on the water, but just as many Vibram soled boots also!!!

Sticking with it, we moved around a lot, found it would work better to hunt high on the mountain before the bulls staged to go to water in the dark, and by staying later we could get rid of some hunters who just quit too early. Made a few new wonderful friends while out there, and it certainly paid off in a big way one evening. Thanks.

We stayed up until midnight back at the trailer with the skinning and boning, and were able to pack up quickly in the early morning, and make a speed run all the way home to Idaho with the iced down meet in a lot of coolers. Exactly 250# of prime venison for the upcoming year.

It was an amazing and fun 11 days in the beautiful state of Arizona. Maybe it will be my turn next year (I hope).

With a day off back home, soon thoughts turned to archery elk hunting here. A call this morning said "Not one, but two bulls down. Can you help???" Answer, I'll load the Teryx and be there soon. The weather was 32 yesterday, and 29 this morning. The bulls turned on and my partners had one of the best mornings ever. A pair of 5-points died just minutes apart. Private land made it a bit easier because I could drive really close to the elk, and we cut the normal job in half!!

Could not have asked for a better morning to be out in God's Country. The colors are starting to get spectacular.

 

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When it rains, it pours! While we were down on this AZ elk hunt, the great state of Texas completed one of its Public Drawn Hunts and I was lucky enough to get a rifle whitetail tag on the famed Matador Wildlife Management Area up by Amarillo. It is known for having some big WT bucks, and hopefully we can find some. I included my hunting partner Paul and our good friend and cohort in crime Lisa (PREDATOR here on MM) on the application so there will be three of us down there Nov. 12-16th. Hope we can score on some big ones in the pre-rut period.

With the wife's bull hunt and me having about 10 tags between now and Thanksgiving in a couple states, I figured I better get off my butt and get started on some of them. The first would be this muzzleloader antelope hunt here in Idaho. I love this hunt and try to get it as often as possible. Spent the last three days looking at bucks across the unit, and dodging all the rest of the hunters. Today proved to be a good one for watching and photos and finally found a nice mature buck chasing his herd around, and trying his best to trap a lady friend. When he jumped up on a berm of a dike he just looked majestic, and I decided to try for him. When they shut off the water in those irrigation ditches, they may look dry but that is just on the surface!

Doing my best seal impersonation and slipping and plodding thru the ankle deep black stinky ooze, I managed to close the distance to 212 yards. Crawling up out of the slick sided muck was another chore, but finally I got a rest on top of the ditch and let the muzzy thunder. Center punched the buck and he went right down. The doe couldn't figure out what happened, and even stayed around for pictures when I walked out to him. Not the biggest monster in the unit but nice and mature. One tag filled and nine to go!!!

Preddy is showing up at the homestead tomorrow so maybe some fish and forest grouse are in big trouble over the next few days. You never know where our paths may take us when we get together. With nice weather and an urge to roam, we might just terrorize all of Southeast Idaho. This will work well for scouting for deer season which opens in ten days too.

 

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The strong tail wind on Sunday blew hard enough to get PREDDY here from Utah in record time, and our adventure was off and running. Only had Monday and Tuesday, but we would make the most of it. Managed to drive around in familiar country and see the beautiful aspens changing, a few moose, and a couple elusive grouse (ruffs and blues). They managed to escape unscathed, but will be seed stock for next year. Took a ride to the historic area of Caribou City and also heard some love-sick bull elk up in the pines.

The weather cooperated for a couple of days of good fishing on the South Fork of the Snake. Not too cold or windy, and the Bureau of Reclamation kept the stream flow relatively constant. Lisa had a ball and caught some of her biggest fish to date up here. She even managed a South Fork "SLAM", by catching rainbows, browns, cutthroats, mackinaw, whitefish, and suckers in one day. All on her lucky lure, by the way!!! Who else could catch a sucker in the lips, with a lure??? Only one she had, she told me, and there was no sharing.

Looking forward to a chance to sight in some rifles and more black powder guns over the next few weeks, and get ready for future seasons coming up. Good luck to everyone who is still out here, or getting ready to head out.

 

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Things have settled down just a bit now, and it was time to get back out there and fill some more tags. I have several WT buck tags in ID, WY, KS, and TX. Five extra doe WT tags come with them in the same states, so gonna feed the kids and grandkids on whitetail this year..... Doesn't get much better than that.

Snuck out this morning to a light drizzling rain and headed out to the desert to hunt the tall sagebrush that our local deer call home. Nothing moving in the near dark at 0730 so time to do a little walking and pushing. Shortly into my walkabout, I jumped a small 6-pt. and two does. The buck was running fast, and kicked it up a couple more notches when I missed him twice with the shotgun. The second doe made the mistake of crossing in front of me and I managed to roll her over in the dirt.

Walked out to where the doe had dropped and immediately saw white in the sage. Imagine my surprise when I found she had died on a nice 5-pt. elk shed and lay just 10 feet past it! Had to lay my Dr. Death hat on her for the pic, just to irritate my son for another year. That hat is about 30+ years old, and is the one superstition I have when hunting. My oldest says he gets it when I die!!!

A while back there was a thread on here about the effectiveness of shotgun slugs. I shoot the Hornady 300 grain SST, which is going 2000 fps. They are amazing, and as you can see from the 100 yard exit hole, they do a number on deer. I wouldn't hesitate to hunt elk with them in a short-range season either. With a 4X Leupold scope on my Rem 870, I feel very confident out to 200 yards.

Now to start looking for some of those bucks.

 

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I will go ahead and duplicate most of my other post from the Wyoming thread, and add some other info to help me not have to type the entire thing again. When you're a two finger typist, it takes forever to do these stories! Went out the last couple of days and just couldn't find an Idaho buck worth shooting. Small 4's and 6's were the norm, and I know that I can find better if I wait for a little rutting action.

Went over to Dubois to avoid all the kids on Halloween and to scout a day early, and then hunt the opener. There were no elk in the Refuge, and I never saw a single bison on the trip up thru the Park. One of the really cool changes from last year in Dubois is the fact they are creating a National Museum of Military Vehicles. An avid collector in Dubois has bunches of tanks, trucks, and other stuff he wants to put on display. From the size of his project, it will definitely be worth seeing.

Just returned from the unit this morning and thought I'd post some early info for anyone with a tag there this year. I had the Type-3 WT buck and two extra Type-7 doe tags to fill. No sign of rut yet in either the MD or WT, think it needs 7-10 more days. Coming back thru Teton Park you can see that a little snow is down to the valley floor, but that is all. Most of the valley is bare and brown.

There is only about a third of the normal numbers of MD down low, and very little weather up high to push them down. Saw about 300 mule deer, including 30 bucks total. There are close to 40 sheep down in the hay fields to look at. Got about 3-4" of new snow on Togwatee Pass last night. The best buck I saw would only be about 24" 4x4. There is not a lot of pressure yet from locals in the WyGF lower hayfields. Most everyone is up Horse Creek or Union Pass areas. Saw 8 WT bucks on private land, but no shooters, and a couple baby bucks on public. Here's a goofy little whitetail that was hanging with the mule deer. There was another doing the same thing with the bighorn sheep!

The extra doe tags are done and filled. Just like shooting sporting clays - a left and a right, and done. Only a hundred yard drag to get both to the truck. Pretty fine eating right there! Now I have to get busy cutting them up. Will be heading down to Texas for another deer hunt, and we have the winter range bull elk hunt which is open in Idaho now.

Ran into a fuzzy wuzzy critter while I was coming home this morning, a full grown boar of about 400#. They are certainly impressive up close. Right about 0800 and still overcast from the rain but you get a rough idea. Got to watch him run all the way thru the red willows up on the Togwatee Pass, cross the highway in front of the truck, and continue on up the hill. I wanted to make sure I saw what direction he was headed, before I got out!!

 

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Got a chance to head back over to Unit 128 in Dubois, now that there has been a little more weather come down and temps have dropped into the teens. I have to pack the trailer for our Texas public lands hunt down at Matador WMA, and will have Predator and my other partner along. Hoping we can score on some real trophy size deer while there.

Headed out of Idaho Falls at 0300 and made my way to Jackson with no issues except light snow, but from there on up to Moran Junction it was a steady stream of elk crossing the highway. Probably saw 60-80 head in that 30 mile stretch. The migration is definitely on the move now.

Got into the hunting area at daylight and immediately starting seeing lots of deer. Quite a few more than just a week earlier. More bucks with the herds of does and a lot of posturing and head butting with the bighorn sheep.

I have been on MM for quite a few years, and remember following the "Turtle" threads with interest and amusement for a while. I always thought it was a rumor founded in folklore, but finally tracked it down to the source. It was like discovering the Lost Dutchman mine. Those legendary monsters of the West do exist, and they have been raising them right under our noses all this time. For all you naysayers, here it is!

Hunting during the day for whitetails is normally pretty slow, so you get a lot of opportunities to look at mule deer. Found this lone buck cruising thru the sage brush and he could have cared less about me and the truck. He was on a mission to find girlfriends! He looked like a tank and had a swagger like no one better mess with me; even tho he was only a big forked horn I figured he was probably a 5 or 6 year old buck that was heading downhill......

Stopped in to a couple ranches I have permission on to check the numbers of deer. Here's a couple better bucks that might be found anytime in central Wyoming. All it takes is a place for them to get some age on them. Really hard to achieve this on public land tho.

The deer are pounding the fields and hay stacks in the area, and the ranchers are having to put up panels around their stacks already. I saw several ranches installing high fences to keep all the deer out thru the winter now. This is pretty early for them to have to do that, and they generally welcome all the support they get from people taking a few deer, or just running them out of the area. Once the deer get them torn up and scattered , the cows and horses follow suit and pretty soon its a mess.

I went down to one of the yards, and this prime eating size whitetail buck was actually bedded in the mess that he'd made. Was able to sneak around and get into 80 yards, and look at him. A nice 6 pt. with 13" spread, he was just what I was looking for, and no reason to make a mess by shooting in the body. ... Dressed weight of 140# wasn't bad either. I dropped the crosshairs to the neck and it was all over but the loading.

By the time I got done with the cleaning and headed to town, it was dark and later than I wanted to head home. Spent the night and headed home first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, it had dropped into the low teens overnight, and most of him had frozen solid. I'm sure many of you have worked on frozen deer the next day and know how much fun it is.

Ran into some spotty blizzard conditions in several places on the way home, and the snowplows and sanders were out in force, from Togwatee all the way down to Idaho. Coming down into Alpine thru the canyon I found that the salt truck had come thru earlier and the mountain goats sure appreciated it. Now people can understand that it is not always cars that cause traffic jams. Everyone was super nice and let them enjoy the salt for a while, before we started to ease vehicles by them and they went back up the mountain. Looking at their Nov. coats, you can see why everybody wants to wait as long as possible before taking their trophy billy. The hair length is great in late Fall. The poor lady in the SUV was starting to question her camera choice with a 300mm telephoto, and a couple times looked like the goats were going to walk over to her!!!

 

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After returning from WY, I got the good news that my friend had been successful on her MT bison hunt. That will fill a freezer in a hurry!! She was pretty excited.

I was able to load the travel trailer and we got ready to head down to the northern panhandle area of Texas for our whitetail hunt on the Matador WMA. Picked up Predator on our way thru Salt Lake City and we made it down to Green River the first night, on to Santa Rosa NM the second night, and into Childress to morning of the third day. My son gave me the use of his new Nissan Titan XD diesel to pull the trailer, and we were interested to see the difference in trucks. It cost a bunch to pull the trailer down, but saved us about $2000 in motel rooms, we were able to stay right at the area, and didn't pay for meals in town either. Was pretty nice to have showers after getting bloody with deer too.

Stopped in Walmart for Texas NR hunting licenses and we were set to go the next morning. The hunt was a 5 day hunt scheduled for Nov. 12-16. A bad northern storm blew in and we had rain, snow, 30 mph wind and a low of 14 degrees for the first day. There are a lot of rattlesnakes in that area normally, so we bought snake chaps, but never had to use them. The weather did warm back up to 76 degrees the last day.

Learned the compartment we had picked the first evening, and were ready to hunt in the morning. Lisa had never shot a Texas whitetail before, and she scored on the first legal buck that morning. A very nice 5 point that made the required antler restriction of "outside main beam spread wider than its ears". Like they say, "A bird in the hand"..... I had purchased a game cart from WalMart and it was worth its weight in gold. I walked right to her, and we were back at the truck in minutes. Retrieved all 5 of our deer with it and made the retrieval much easier. If you think she's bundled up like the Pillsbury Doughboy back at the check station, you are correct!

I fully intended to hunt for a trophy deer or go home with out one, so of course I had them walk by within 40 feet while still hunting in the bottoms. I passed a couple legal deer the first day but did not pull the trigger. I also found a big hog that had died and jumped a couple out of their beds. They have a wicked ugly skull!

My other partner hunted with Lisa that afternoon, and they went to the same area she had found her buck in. They found a nice 4.5 year old 8 point the afternoon of the first day and he took that one.

The morning of the second day I tried a new area and did a pretty big walkabout in the draws and cedars away from any roads. Found a really nice buck walking up and down in the bottoms, and he bedded a couple times over a half hour period. I never could get a good look at his spread or count points, but knew he was a nice one. After about 45 minutes he worked his way up into the sunlight a little better and I could see how nice he was. Decided to take him and settled in for a 330 yard shot. He decided to start moving then, so took a couple to actually put him down and finish him, but I was happy. Beautiful 11 point!!!

I called Paul and Lisa for reinforcements, and they showed up with the truck from the other side of our area. The WMA is about 28,000 areas so your hunting blocks run from 1500-3000 acres each. There were only 12 of us hunting the entire thing. I had bought a game cart from WalMart for my Kansas hunt next week in December, and had taken it with us to try. Wow, what an easy retrieval it makes with that. A lot of the country was wide open, and the trek back to the vehicle can be long.

The other two decided they needed meat and our limit also allowed a doe apiece, so they filled those tags also. The cart hauled out 5 deer from 300 to 800 yards and made it a quick retrieve on all of them. Those of you who know me appreciate the fact I always love eating whitetails!!! Here's our three bucks when we were done.

A little bit better view of my deer's antlers today when I got them cleaned up. They are bladed and have all kinds of character.

Sure had a good time down there, and Texas did not disappoint us this time at all. Now I have 10 days to fill a couple bull elk tags here in Idaho, before leaving for another Kansas whitetail hunt in Unit 1 & 2 in NW Kansas. I was able to help a couple other MM members over the phone while on our trip, and was happy to hear that they had a wonderful and successful trip also.

Good luck to all of you who are still out there hunting.

 

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Managed to sneak back over to Dubois last week and see a friend, and spend some time taking pictures also. Managed to get this nice one of a corker ram on the winter range from clear cross the river. I posted in the other forums already so you could see a close-up of a beauty.....

The whitetails sure know when the season closes, and then they lay around getting fat and lazy. Sure are frustrating little buggers!!!

Finally got everything cleaned up and winterized from our trip down to Texas. Sure had a fun time. Now it is time to fill an elk tag on this migration hunt, and then ship out to Kansas for the muzzleloader season in December. We haven't been getting enough snow to move the elk out of Yellowstone until the last couple days, and looks like the Mid-West has been getting pounded. Hope I get there without any Interstate closures.

Managed to get out this morning and spend a few hours in the desert sage brush. Glassed up two nice bulls with the spotting scope and headed out into the flats on foot. Both looked like big bodied mature bulls, so dropped the hammer on the closest one I could get a good shot on. About 8 hours later, after multiple sled trips and grunting a lot, I got the last piece loaded into the truck in the dark around six o'clock. Twelve months of low fat, low cholesterol, free range dinners - does it get any better than that???

Had to get the usual "Doctor Death" hat photo in there for my son. He's off playing with 4x4's in Morocco but I know he would like to be here also. Elk are prettier than camels!!!

Just a short update, so will try to catch up better on return from Kansas. Starting to run out of tags anyway.

 

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Well, finished the elk hunt in the desert and took care of all of the meat. Ready to leave for Kansas so on Dec.1st I took off on a long 780 mile road trip. I drew Unit 1 and 2 again, so I would be hunting familiar ground up in the NW portion of the state. Same WMA's, WIHA's, and the private ground I had gotten permission on last year. As I got into Kansas I stopped at the Visitor's Center for regs and the Kansas Hunting Atlas. They produce a real quality publication with all of the current private land that is enrolled in the Walk In Hunting Area program.

The first place I would start the next morning would be the Sherman WMA. When I got there I found that it had been re-named in honor of Veterans and that made me smile at the thought. The corn and alfalfa fields were the same, and I immediately found deer. I passed up a smaller 6-point and several does the first morning.

Driving around on the various creek and river bottoms was similar to last year, and I ran into lots of turkeys. Here are some gobblers and the largest flocks of hens I found probably had several hundred birds in them.

The Republican River had changed dramatically this year. Last year I could wander thru the tulles and cat tails with no problem. This year it was hundreds of feet wide in places with beavers, and waist deep. That took care of some of my planned hunting areas!!!

I tried for the mule deer upgrade lottery again, and was unsuccessful again. There are some amazing mule deer bucks roaming around in the same areas as the WTs.

I continued to find whitetails in the cut corn fields, in the bottoms, and in the short alfalfa in the mornings and evenings but just couldn't find those mature shooter bucks. I passed up deer after deer, but most were like this guy.

I started to have some vehicle troubles with my truck, and was a little nervous hunting out 40 miles from town. There is little traffic at all, and you might have a long wait for help or a lonely walk home. Needed to bounce the issues off the wife and see what her thoughts were.

Continued to find really nice mule deer in all of the usual coulees and draws. They acted pretty unconcerned and had no fear of vehicles since the rut was over for the year.

I had permission in some of the most beautiful river bottom country and continued to walk up WT does every day. It would be like to jump shoot jackrabbits here at home! Let you get in to about 20 yards, then explode at your feet and scare you to death... The mule deer however, just let you play spot and stalk until you could take pictures with your cell phone!

Finally had enough of the check engine lights and throttle problems and told the wife I would pull the plug, and head home. Saved me about $400 in motel bills and allowed me to beat out the storm that closed I-80 across Wyoming.

The year turned out pretty darn good with a whole bunch of animals in the freezer, lots of memories made and shared with good friends, and plenty to look forward to next year. Still have a bunch of friends heading to Old Mexico for Coues deer and Mule Deer but will save those stories for next year. Hope everyone had a great year themselves.

Merry Christmas and hoping for a wonderful Holiday Season for all.