wow what a awsome year it started out with an ok shed season i got lots of time to scout but by the time they started to shed i had training in colorado a pregnant wife and just couldnt get the time to go. The only time i made it out with time to go for a good hike the hills had been hit pretty hard and as i was riding into one of my favorite spots i looked off the side of the road and i could see a horn so i parked the bike and started over to it and there was the other one not 5 ft from the road so im 20 min into my day and i have already picked up a 180 in set. so i thought well this area couldnt have been hit to hard so i pulled the bike off the road and started hiking about 4 miles later still not another horn so back to the bike i went. i continued into the area i usually hit and started the hike in there and to my surprise all i found was atv tracks and boot tracks i was to late. This trip was in mid april.
well my wifes due date was first of may and finally mid may my first daughter was born we named her Kenna Dee Albrecht man what a life changing experience and i would not trade it for anything. cant wait for her to get old enough to join me on some of my outings here is a picture of her at about a month or 2 old
fast forward a few months to august and i had already booked an elk hunt for september with Rod Petersen with his premium fishlake permit after a few weeks of scouting i had found a few good bulls for rod and as the hunt got closer i was contacted by Don Weston he had the sportsmans buffalo tag and was also ready to hunt well this was like 4 days before rods elk hunt with me would start. we made arangements that if we killed rods bull early in the hunt we would meet up and go hunt buffalo.
Well Rod arrived thursday before the early rifle hunt started with his bow incase the oppurtunity came up that we could hunt a bull before the rifle hunters showed up. that evening we didnt really find anything good that afternoon. Friday we found a bull the BigJohn had hunting with his son on the archery hunt and his daughter had named him willey wonka because of his dark antlers and really we probably could have went in and killed this bull with a bow but decided we had better play it safe and not bump him so instead we watched him come all the way from the top of the ridge all the way in plain sight but still manage to be hidden from the rest of the crowd when they passed by man were we lucky. well saturday morning we awoke to a black out it was raining and raining and just would not let up. everything was fogged in to where we could only see a few yards in front of us so we elected to stay at the truck and wait for it to clear rather then go in and possably spook the bull. the whole time that we sat in the truck and listend to it raining was just torture. About noon the fog started to lift and the loud bugles of big bulls started to ring out as we went from one bugle to the next we finally found our bull and he was heading over the top of the mountain with his 6 cows so we had to pull back. later that afternoon we headed back to the area we last saw the bull we started the hike and a couple hundred yards from the truck we spotted the elk starting to feed on the side hill so we got to where we thought would be a good spot to set up and wait and start our calling. after we were set up i hit the bugle once just to see what would call back and it was like the whole hill lit up. we had my dad back on the road aways away so he would have enough elevation to see what was coming our way and all of a sudden he says over the radio whatever you just did pulled the bull out of the trees. well i hit the bugle one more time and then starte cow calling and he says again here he comes but we already new it by what we could hear but would we have enough time.
well we didnt get enough time the night before as light faded quick i managed to get the bull to come from over 1000 yds to within 500 but no shot and like i said not enought light
The next morning brought us back to the same spot and the bull that i had sucked off of the hill the night before was low on the hill. as we were walking in the fog moved and and now we were just going off of bugles so as we walked in i was chirping and cow calling and just listening to the bulls sound off. As we were slipping over the little knob we had sat on the night before to get set up for a hopeful shot i looked over the west at about 300 yards and in the shadows i could see the outline of an animal as it got a little lighter i through up my binos and there he was a bull that we need to kill i told rod to get set up and as soon as we were legal to shoot to hammer him. after what seemed like 1/2 an hour was probably only 5 min but finally we had enough light and the shot rang out of rods 300 weatherby the shot was perfect and the bull was down. after we got to the bull we had then realized it was the bull we had been after it was willy he has 65 inches of mas and about 5 inches broke off of his cheaters rods bull taped out and exactly 354 or 358 i cant remember but it is a good bull
Well to continue on to dons buffalo hunt. we killed rods bull on sunday and i still needed to break camp and make it to the henrys so i made it back to town and called don and told him if he could to meet me down there tuesday and we would go kill his bull. so after getting camp broke down and moved i met up with don tuesday after noon and started to look we made it up the hill to one of my favorite glassing spots and although we did not see any buffalo it was still a good ride and it was good to get to know don a little better.
Wednesday morning we awoke and had plenty of time to get things ready and head out throught the desert we made it to where i had seen the buffalo a couple weeks prior to the hunts and started our seach about 1/2 hour into the hunt we had them found and started our aproach we were able to get in front of the heard and waited for them to come to us. Well the plan worked out perfect the buff came up over a hill and down the hill towards us they came to within 300 yards and started grazing. after about 1/2 hour of glassing we had finally picked out the bull we had come for and just had to wait for him to get clear. after a little bit more wait we finaly had our shot and don put one in him but now he was with the rest of the herd and couldnt get another in him. after about a mile of chasing we finally cought up to our bull and we were able to put him down and he was and still is a true giant we taped him out just over 122 inches net that would have put him in the top 10 in the state after the 60 day drying period he lost about an inch and neted just over 121 and still landed the number 15 spot in the utah book.
well after this i finally had my chance to hunt for big bucks on the muzzleloader southern region. well opening day wasnt a huge success but boy was day 2 i was able to capture this great buck at about 600 yards just light enough to get a bad picture through the spotter before i made my failed stock to never see the buck again
well i went on 2 more buff hunts one was a success and the other was also but we just didnt see an animal that he wanted so he went home empty but here is a picture of the other buff we were able to harvest
well my wifes due date was first of may and finally mid may my first daughter was born we named her Kenna Dee Albrecht man what a life changing experience and i would not trade it for anything. cant wait for her to get old enough to join me on some of my outings here is a picture of her at about a month or 2 old
fast forward a few months to august and i had already booked an elk hunt for september with Rod Petersen with his premium fishlake permit after a few weeks of scouting i had found a few good bulls for rod and as the hunt got closer i was contacted by Don Weston he had the sportsmans buffalo tag and was also ready to hunt well this was like 4 days before rods elk hunt with me would start. we made arangements that if we killed rods bull early in the hunt we would meet up and go hunt buffalo.
Well Rod arrived thursday before the early rifle hunt started with his bow incase the oppurtunity came up that we could hunt a bull before the rifle hunters showed up. that evening we didnt really find anything good that afternoon. Friday we found a bull the BigJohn had hunting with his son on the archery hunt and his daughter had named him willey wonka because of his dark antlers and really we probably could have went in and killed this bull with a bow but decided we had better play it safe and not bump him so instead we watched him come all the way from the top of the ridge all the way in plain sight but still manage to be hidden from the rest of the crowd when they passed by man were we lucky. well saturday morning we awoke to a black out it was raining and raining and just would not let up. everything was fogged in to where we could only see a few yards in front of us so we elected to stay at the truck and wait for it to clear rather then go in and possably spook the bull. the whole time that we sat in the truck and listend to it raining was just torture. About noon the fog started to lift and the loud bugles of big bulls started to ring out as we went from one bugle to the next we finally found our bull and he was heading over the top of the mountain with his 6 cows so we had to pull back. later that afternoon we headed back to the area we last saw the bull we started the hike and a couple hundred yards from the truck we spotted the elk starting to feed on the side hill so we got to where we thought would be a good spot to set up and wait and start our calling. after we were set up i hit the bugle once just to see what would call back and it was like the whole hill lit up. we had my dad back on the road aways away so he would have enough elevation to see what was coming our way and all of a sudden he says over the radio whatever you just did pulled the bull out of the trees. well i hit the bugle one more time and then starte cow calling and he says again here he comes but we already new it by what we could hear but would we have enough time.
well we didnt get enough time the night before as light faded quick i managed to get the bull to come from over 1000 yds to within 500 but no shot and like i said not enought light
The next morning brought us back to the same spot and the bull that i had sucked off of the hill the night before was low on the hill. as we were walking in the fog moved and and now we were just going off of bugles so as we walked in i was chirping and cow calling and just listening to the bulls sound off. As we were slipping over the little knob we had sat on the night before to get set up for a hopeful shot i looked over the west at about 300 yards and in the shadows i could see the outline of an animal as it got a little lighter i through up my binos and there he was a bull that we need to kill i told rod to get set up and as soon as we were legal to shoot to hammer him. after what seemed like 1/2 an hour was probably only 5 min but finally we had enough light and the shot rang out of rods 300 weatherby the shot was perfect and the bull was down. after we got to the bull we had then realized it was the bull we had been after it was willy he has 65 inches of mas and about 5 inches broke off of his cheaters rods bull taped out and exactly 354 or 358 i cant remember but it is a good bull
Well to continue on to dons buffalo hunt. we killed rods bull on sunday and i still needed to break camp and make it to the henrys so i made it back to town and called don and told him if he could to meet me down there tuesday and we would go kill his bull. so after getting camp broke down and moved i met up with don tuesday after noon and started to look we made it up the hill to one of my favorite glassing spots and although we did not see any buffalo it was still a good ride and it was good to get to know don a little better.
Wednesday morning we awoke and had plenty of time to get things ready and head out throught the desert we made it to where i had seen the buffalo a couple weeks prior to the hunts and started our seach about 1/2 hour into the hunt we had them found and started our aproach we were able to get in front of the heard and waited for them to come to us. Well the plan worked out perfect the buff came up over a hill and down the hill towards us they came to within 300 yards and started grazing. after about 1/2 hour of glassing we had finally picked out the bull we had come for and just had to wait for him to get clear. after a little bit more wait we finaly had our shot and don put one in him but now he was with the rest of the herd and couldnt get another in him. after about a mile of chasing we finally cought up to our bull and we were able to put him down and he was and still is a true giant we taped him out just over 122 inches net that would have put him in the top 10 in the state after the 60 day drying period he lost about an inch and neted just over 121 and still landed the number 15 spot in the utah book.
well after this i finally had my chance to hunt for big bucks on the muzzleloader southern region. well opening day wasnt a huge success but boy was day 2 i was able to capture this great buck at about 600 yards just light enough to get a bad picture through the spotter before i made my failed stock to never see the buck again
well i went on 2 more buff hunts one was a success and the other was also but we just didnt see an animal that he wanted so he went home empty but here is a picture of the other buff we were able to harvest
