2024 Hunt “New Fronts and Challenges”

[HerkHunter]

2024 is the first year I’ve had to contend with balancing the desire to hunt with the fact I can’t leave the wife with the baby every weekend. It led to some scheduling challenges, but after some debate and some excellent negotiations on my part, it was finalized. I did not get out much this archery season since we were getting married in Sept., so I was itching for rifle season to come. Opening weekend I had all planned out then a pretty sweet deal work trip came up that weekend, one I honestly could not refuse, so I scheduled the following Tuesday and Wednesday off and set my sights on then. Started out hunting a new area with the boss that I have never explored or hunted. Pretty sweet area though. We started out climbing way too high through some of the most nasty crap I have ever climbed. Once we found a good elevation band to work, we came upon a sweet bench just below a park, and bumped two bulls from their beds at about 100 yards. We were in them at least. Explored some more but no luck. Did see this sweet billy though. Makes you wonder how they get where they get.

 

[HerkHunter]

Next day I decided to take it easy and hunt the family ranch and see what bucks are cruising around so far before the rut kicks off. Invited my buddy out so he could get a buck.
He got this decent four point and then had to head home to pick up his boy from school (we are masters at balancing life and play I have learned). Throughout the rest of the day I spent time glassing every nook and cranny of the place looking for something that excited me. Just a few weeks earlier I ran into a mountain lion here, and we watched each other for about five minutes at about 50 yards. Super cool! There was still lots of scat around from him. Ended up bumping a really nice whitetail from his bed, but the highlight of the day was these two studs:

 

[HerkHunter]

I was super sore from the week but the weekend was soon here and my buddy and I were planning on hitting one of my old spots, but I wanted to go a little further than I have before and check out an area I know has elk and might hold a nice buck too. Well, sometimes plans work and sometimes they don't, and it is usually the latter that holds true. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again and my plan actually worked! We were at my first glassing point just before shooting light. I was doing the Wordle when I heard a cow mew. I figured it was a hunter as this area is typically very busy and full of guys that get to the top of the trailhead and bugle every two minutes. But then I heard another, and another, and then a bugle. I put Wordle away and told my buddy lets go we got elk to find. Once it was light enough we saw them feeding their way right to where I wanted to be glassing later in the day. We quickly bombed down the trail and up the next draw and got within a hundred yards. No shot. They filtered through some standing burns and I let it rip. My bull went down and my buddy shot as well. The two bulls (spoiler: a raghorn and a spike) went down. Once the herd kept moving though, they got back up and were stumbling their way to the herd. We waited for them to rebed and took another shot and we both had our first bulls down!
(Also a good day when the Buckeyes win)

 

[HerkHunter]

Once I could process what happened, my “WE HAVE TWO BULLS DOWN” quickly went to “oh s**t, we have two bulls down…”. Now, I can quarter and packout, but I aint gonna lie and say im great or efficient at breaking down animals yet. Especially two elk. But we all gotta learn somehow right? It took us longer than I would have liked but we got all the meat quartered, brought down the hill into a draw under some fallen trees away from the carcasses, and began our first hike out around 5 pm. It was a heavy load and it sucked but it’s always worth it. My buddy experienced his first packout and we talked about how excited we were over a beer and steak from the local bar. Called some friends to see who could help with the packout tomorrow and we were on our way. My buddy from work is a godsend and went in just before us to debone the rest of the meat and took out the two fronts from my buddies bull. All that was left was my bull. The wife wanted to come help and so the three of us headed in to get the last four quarters. I took a front and a back, the wife took a front, and my buddy got the last rear.


Now, I don’t know if my wife will ever want to go help me packout again, but she sure kicked ass, and we got it all out in one go thanks largely to her.

So far this season has been pretty great to me. Wanting to go find a nice buck in a few weeks so stay tuned!!!