2024 - Bryan's Season of Redemption. A Live Feed

[Prairie Rambler]

HT!

Its been awhile... and by that I mean I haven't been active on here for awhile. My life has had some serious ups and downs over the past two years. My daughter was born in Sept of 2022 and with the ridiculous cost of child care my wife and I elected for her to stay home. This means that I have been the single source of income for almost two years now. We tried to make all the sacrifices we could to save money but we had to sell our house last fall. One of the first things to fall off when my daughter was born was me hunting. For the 2022 and 2023 seasons I only hunted for a total of 6 full days across elk, bear, deer, and turkey. I'm thankful for the time that I had and was able to take a turkey each year, but to be perfectly honest I've been slightly depressed.

Now that I'm done with the back story to this season, my wife and I talked a lot about how I need my time in the woods and outside of hunting season I'll be super-husband. She agreed that as long as trips are planned out then there shouldn't be an issue now that our daughter is approaching two. My younger brother(Sam), who lives in WI, and I were talking around the new year and we made a deal that we are going to meet up to go hunting out of state every year. In this year's line up we are planning a 5 day elk hunt in either Montana or Colorado. On top of that I'm planning a trip for spring turkey in NE Washington and I'm re-attempting the Washington high buck hunt in the Cascades which will be 7 days. I think I finally figured them out last year.

Stay tuned for my new rifle build, spring turkey, and off-season training!

 

[bmt99]

All that is understandable. Choices, consequences, economy, etc. Some are in your control and some are not. Sounds like your wife is supportive and that is incredibly helpful. I can't imagine how hard it would be if she wasn't. Count your blessings. I know I count mine even in bad times...can always be worse. If the depression gets bad, talk here, reach out to someone etc. I took it lightly and that has worse consequences. Good luck this year!

 

[Prairie Rambler]

All that is understandable. Choices, consequences, economy, etc. Some are in your control and some are not. Sounds like your wife is supportive and that is incredibly helpful. I can't imagine how hard it would be if she wasn't. Count your blessings. I know I count mine even in bad times...can always be worse. If the depression gets bad, talk here, reach out to someone etc. I took it lightly and that has worse consequences. Good luck this year!

I think it took some talking it out to make her see that hunting is what I live for after her and my daughter, but she gets it now. Thanks dude! Good luck to you too

 

[nrpate05]

I feel ya. My hunting career has been limping along since my son was born in 2021 and we just had a second last fall. I was able to get out for 5 days of archery elk before he was born, so compared to the two seasons before that, it was a win. Although we didn't punch a tag, it was good to be in the woods with some close buddies. I think we are in a better groove now and have good childcare (although damn expensive) so I'm hopeful 2024 will be a freezer filling year. We shall see. Good luck to you.

 

[Prairie Rambler]

I feel ya. My hunting career has been limping along since my son was born in 2021 and we just had a second last fall. I was able to get out for 5 days of archery elk before he was born, so compared to the two seasons before that, it was a win. Although we didn't punch a tag, it was good to be in the woods with some close buddies. I think we are in a better groove now and have good childcare (although damn expensive) so I'm hopeful 2024 will be a freezer filling year. We shall see. Good luck to you.

Idk about you but it's not something that I saw coming. I'm glad your in a good place now and good luck to you as well!

 

[Prairie Rambler]

3/30 - The Build

I've primarily been a deer and pronghorn hunter since moving out west in 2011 at the young age of 19. I always wanted to get into elk hunting but didn't know how. I've had a few resident muzzleloader tags in Washington but almost never see elk during the season. I somehow seem to see elk everyday during turkeys season, which is my luck. With my newfound commitment of hunting out of state every year I wanted a "do it all" gun vs the .25-06 I normally hunt with. Around the beginning of February I started researching calibers, rifles, scopes, etc. Here's the build I settled on:
- Browning X-Bolt Stalker LR, 26" barrel, 300 win mag
- Vortex Viper PST Gen II 3-15x44 FFP MOA w/ Vortex 30mm medium height matched rings, Leupold Backcountry LA cross slot pic rail 0 MOA, and a 30mm Vortex low profile bubble level
- Rugged Ridge 7-10" bipod w/pic rail and rear rest
- Additional Items: Vortex Diamondback 2000 rangefinder and Kestrel 5700 w/Link

I really wanted a 7mm PRC for the BC and energy retention, but I couldn't justify the price and lack of ammo availability. I'm still really happy about my new gun. The range days over this summer should be fun. Next year I think I'm going to upgrade my muzzleloader. My end goal is to have a dialed in rifle and muzzleloader. I enjoy bow hunting but haven't done it in over 10 years.

 

[Prairie Rambler]

4/18
Well the Montana combo draw was a bust. I've been looking into other possible hunts around the west. I've somewhat come to the conclusion that a post rut or late season elk hunt might not be the best idea for introducing Sam to western hunting. He's starting from square one with gear. Our fall plans might shift to pronghorn or deer while we build points for elk, deer, and pronghorn elsewhere.

On a positive note, it's spring thunder here in eastern WA and I'll be hitting the mountains for turkeys this weekend on an overnight trip. I'm the world's worst turkey hunter but a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again

 

[Prairie Rambler]

6/18 - Sorry for the late update. Turkey season didn't pan out the way I hoped. I had to work two of the 6 weekends during the season and I got a nasty cold that had me laid up for 2 weeks in May. All in all, I was able to hunt 2 days and didn't put eyes on a public land bird. I put 15 miles on my new Lowe boots that I'm throughly enjoying compared to Crispi's. For those that don't hunt mountain birds, my turkey mentor(John from Northwest Spur Chasers - YouTube) taught me his technique of "running & gunning". It's pretty simple, hike your ass off calling every 100-150 yrds until you hit a hot tom. When it works, it's great! The tom will sprint at you so you have to be ready to sit down. When the Toms are henned up or the weather has them not active it turns into a hike with a gun.

 

[Prairie Rambler]

Finally! Some success in a draw after busting in Montana/Colorado. Looks like Sam and I are Wyoming bound in Oct! I love a rifle pronghorn hunt, it's always a blast.

 

[prhunter]

Finally! Some success in a draw after busting in Montana/Colorado. Looks like Sam and I are Wyoming bound in Oct! I love a rifle pronghorn hunt, it's always a blast.

Congrats and good luck!!

 

[Prairie Rambler]

6/21 - we took a break from focusing on hunting to have a fishing adventure. I drove 6 hours to pick Sam up from the Portland airport, another 2 hours to the Washington coast. This gave a time for a 4 hour nap and we were off fishing the next morning at 6am. The weather was rough, 6-10ft surf and 15 knot winds. I'm officially envious of people who live near the ocean. Rock fish and lingcod are a blast!

 

[Prairie Rambler]

6/29 - Making memories with the kiddo.

We hit the road early to beat the heat and pick strawberries at a u-pick farm up the road. For not even being 2 I was really surprised she picked up on what we were doing really fast. We all had fun picking and she didn't want to leave. They'll be lots of strawberry jam to hold us over until next year.

 

[Prairie Rambler]

10/23
We both arrived on Wyoming on Sunday and had 2 hours for a quick scout-hunt. Our 2 mile trek in yeilded no pronghorn, and I knew we'd have to push deeper to hopefully find anything.

The next day, we woke up 3 hours prior to sunrise hiking into a large glassing point over water. Still nothing. We pushed even deep and found a large rock formation where we could post up in shade for the day. 30 minutes later, I spotted a large group of pronghorn 3,200 yards away. The stalk was on! We quickly closed the distance to 800 yards, but we were pinned down behind a rock out cropping. We backed out and dropped into a cut, hoping to pop up at 250-300 yards. When we arrived, the herd had disappeared. We dropped back into the cut for a long lunch and afterward spotted 5 pronghorn in a flat 1,000 yards away in the same direction. Game time again! Working our way down the cut, cutting the distance, I walked around a sharp corner to see a buck pronghorn's white butt. I quickly ducked back repositioned for a shot at 250 yards, but the buck was facing dead away. After what seemed to be 20 mins, he still hadn't moved. I looked at Sam, and he asked why I hadn't shot one of the four? What!? Where are the others? In that 20 mins, 4 does had come up onto a small ridge above the buck. After a moment I said "F*ck it, we're doubling up right now". With the buck still facing away, we both got into position, and 5, 4, 3, ..., .... *two bangs*. Our pronghorn does both dropped.
We spent the next 90 minutes quartering and packing up for the suckfest in what little shade we had. With 1.5 hours of light left, we set out for camp with heavy packs. It took us 5 hours to cover those 7.5 miles, running out of water at 6 miles. We arrived at 10:15pm, broken but successful.

I couldn't be happier with the trip. It was my brother's first pronghorn and only the beginning of many years of us hunting together out west.

 

[Prairie Rambler]

11/19
Modern deer season has came and went here in WA. I wish I could have said it went better but I didn't even see a legal buck over 4 full days of hunting. The areas in question were 2-5 year old burns or recent timber cuts. The sign seemed fresh and the deer tracks were fresh but I only found does. Hunting big timber WT without snow is definitely a challenge I have not figured out. One thing I've noticed that is drastically different then the Midwest is bucks don't seem to roam as much during the rut to check on does. One day I watched 4 does in a burn for 6 hours and a buck never came by. I know they were alone because I watched them travel over 500 yards to settle down into one small area.

The military in me says I need to make an AAR to cover all the things I did well, poorly, and need improvement this year.

My brother and I's hunting journey together is just beginning and I'm happy about that. We're already talking about next year.