dcopas78
Well-known member
To adequately tell this story, I feel that I need to backtrack a few years to the first western hunt my dad and I shared together, and a little about our family history.
My dad is a lifetime hunter, who started out subsistence hunting and trapping for a family which included eight siblings, and a father that spent 12-hour days in a fire tower for the state forestry service. Growing up in the foothills of Appalachia, in the poorest county in the state, was a tough proposition at best. Dad's "chore" however grew into a passion. Providing for his family became a connection to the outdoors that he passed on to my brother and I. My dad started doing his own taxidermy, since he couldn't afford to pay for someone to do it for him. This, too, became a passion and a career.
Since I first started hunting at age 9, we have talked about going "west" and hunting all the western species. We did manage to go on a few Canadian bear hunts and Dad managed to go on a caribou hunt after a couple years saving, but the western hunt never materialized. Years became decades and we felt the opportunity slipping from us with each passing season. No one had ever told us about on your own, do-it-yourself hunting on public land. We were under the impression that you had to have a guide if you even stepped out of the truck to look at western game. Too many "real" tree videos were the guide tells them to shoot lead us to this conclusion.
Fast forward to the January 2013. A few of our friends who own a sporting goods store asked me and dad to join them on a trespass fee hunt for antelope in Wyoming. It was a relatively inexpensive introduction to western hunting, so we jumped at the opportunity to split costs and bag an antelope. Being disillusioned with Ohio whitetail hunting to the point of almost hanging up the bow and gun, I was eager to experience something different and gaze upon all the "public" land that I had began to read about.
I was immediately awestruck by the vastness of it and soon I begin digging into all details great and small about western, DIY, public land hunting. I was mesmerized and my wife soon got tired of my addiction to computer research and calls made to the different agencies. Dad and I started building points for Wyoming, with the target "date" being Fall 2015 for our first elk hunt on a public land with a general license.
Again, fast forward to January 2015. Imagine my excitement at getting mine and dads names in on the draw for a "sure bet" draw. I was positive we would draw a general tag, second choice on the "special" draw with the opportunity to still build points for a limited draw area in the future. Darn my bad luck, as this was the first year, I believe, that not all second choice, special general license got drawn. That rejection was the ultimate let down. I had only dabbled slightly in research for other states like Montana, Idaho, or Colorado. Idaho and Colorado were both fine choices but Montana was really the first choice out of all three because of the leftover combo tags, allowing for a chance to harvest a mule deer if elk weren't found.
Soon the tags were purchased, we picked an area in the Little Belts, even going as far as going the in May to check it out for a week, and the dates were set. We found our "promised land" on the May trip and the excitement began to build. We would be leaving October 18, dividing the trip to Montana and the Belts into three days and making several stops along the way. The ADVENTURE begins.....
My dad is a lifetime hunter, who started out subsistence hunting and trapping for a family which included eight siblings, and a father that spent 12-hour days in a fire tower for the state forestry service. Growing up in the foothills of Appalachia, in the poorest county in the state, was a tough proposition at best. Dad's "chore" however grew into a passion. Providing for his family became a connection to the outdoors that he passed on to my brother and I. My dad started doing his own taxidermy, since he couldn't afford to pay for someone to do it for him. This, too, became a passion and a career.
Since I first started hunting at age 9, we have talked about going "west" and hunting all the western species. We did manage to go on a few Canadian bear hunts and Dad managed to go on a caribou hunt after a couple years saving, but the western hunt never materialized. Years became decades and we felt the opportunity slipping from us with each passing season. No one had ever told us about on your own, do-it-yourself hunting on public land. We were under the impression that you had to have a guide if you even stepped out of the truck to look at western game. Too many "real" tree videos were the guide tells them to shoot lead us to this conclusion.
Fast forward to the January 2013. A few of our friends who own a sporting goods store asked me and dad to join them on a trespass fee hunt for antelope in Wyoming. It was a relatively inexpensive introduction to western hunting, so we jumped at the opportunity to split costs and bag an antelope. Being disillusioned with Ohio whitetail hunting to the point of almost hanging up the bow and gun, I was eager to experience something different and gaze upon all the "public" land that I had began to read about.
I was immediately awestruck by the vastness of it and soon I begin digging into all details great and small about western, DIY, public land hunting. I was mesmerized and my wife soon got tired of my addiction to computer research and calls made to the different agencies. Dad and I started building points for Wyoming, with the target "date" being Fall 2015 for our first elk hunt on a public land with a general license.
Again, fast forward to January 2015. Imagine my excitement at getting mine and dads names in on the draw for a "sure bet" draw. I was positive we would draw a general tag, second choice on the "special" draw with the opportunity to still build points for a limited draw area in the future. Darn my bad luck, as this was the first year, I believe, that not all second choice, special general license got drawn. That rejection was the ultimate let down. I had only dabbled slightly in research for other states like Montana, Idaho, or Colorado. Idaho and Colorado were both fine choices but Montana was really the first choice out of all three because of the leftover combo tags, allowing for a chance to harvest a mule deer if elk weren't found.
Soon the tags were purchased, we picked an area in the Little Belts, even going as far as going the in May to check it out for a week, and the dates were set. We found our "promised land" on the May trip and the excitement began to build. We would be leaving October 18, dividing the trip to Montana and the Belts into three days and making several stops along the way. The ADVENTURE begins.....
