My 2022 season

marley

Very Active Member
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I’m bored at work and just reminiscing on last years season. It was a frustrating one as far as older, bigger bucks and bulls go. I scouted a ton and turned up one decent bull for my muzzy season in CO.

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I saw him and hunted him every single day above timberline with his 51 cows but was never able to seal the deal. I just couldn't ever get close enough to him with all those eyes.

I then scouted a ton for my daughter and son's hunt. No bigger bucks found and each of them only had one day to hunt. Luckily those were different days. We found my daughter's buck first thing in the morning but I wanted to search the other side before deciding on him so we left him thinking he would stay there. After hiking over the top and finding nothing in my other area we both agreed that the last buck would make her day. We snuck back around the hill and he was gone. I thought I had just screwed this up for her. I hiked over the next ridge and spotted him looking right at us at 320 yards. She laid down with my 6.5 SST and smoked him. This was her first deer and you couldn’t have smacked her smile off her face.

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The next weekend was my son's day. He’s newly married and in college so his time was limited as well. We hiked into an area that I hadn’t scouted yet and found three bucks together bedded. None of them were huge but he decided that he’d like to shoot the four point in the group. 300 yards shot and he never got out of his bed.

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As we were hiking out with his buck, my son saw two cow elk bedded 1000 yards away with his bare eyes. My eyes aren’t that good anymore. Neither of us had a tag but my daughter did. I took all the meat out of my pack and stuffed it in my son's and sent him with my keys to drop the meat off in a freezer and grab my daughter from school. This took about four hours. My son grabbed his wife, my daughter's boyfriend, My friend and two more packs while he was at it. Kid’s a genius! I took a nap on the mountain and periodically kept an eye on the two cows. When they arrived, I left my son and his wife back with the spotter as we closed the distance to 437 yards. Ayla smoked her first elk. Again, she was all grin.

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Next up was me. I had a deer tag for the 3rd season for the same area. I didn’t have high hopes as I hadn’t scouted anything that really got me going. I hit a couple new areas and a few of my normal areas and still nothing. On the last day I turned up a decent buck and he was close to a ladies house that had given me permission to drive through her property to access some public. She stated that she would love some meat if I could spare some. I shot this buck at 525 yards. I kind of wish I would’ve let him walk for next year but the lady was super pleased to have the meat for her family.

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No trophy bucks or bulls this year but it will go down as one of the most memorable for me. It’s so much fun watching your kids succeed. My other daughter just left on a mission and it hurts seeing the reality of them leaving the nest.
 
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My hunting these days is centered around my kids too.. I find as much excitement and accomplishment shooting the “ non-trophy” animals with them as I ever would the big ones just by myself. . Nice job, looks like a lot of great memories to me!!
 

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