Just a Poor Colorado kid!

[Gellar]

Type faster!
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That’s creepy.

If it's not a Marlboro Red or an American Spirit he's losing cred points from me.

He strikes me as a camel nonfilter.

Back to it, chop chop!

 

[Oak]

I’m ready.

 

[Dinkshooter]

So 2023, 23rd year of applying plus my extra credit points for 25. No one thought I wouldn’t draw.

I was confident, except for the fact AZ was having it best moisture year in a long time plus the calendar shift, you never know in this Information Age how people will apply.

I threw down, one choice, early archery. When March came it wasn’t too big of a surprise to see a CC charge. It was done, I was going to the big show!

 

[Dinkshooter]

Funny how the draws always seem to work and everyone knows, you draw everything when you draw big. I had applied for and drew a Kodiak Brown Bear hunt the prior year, for Spring of 2023. This is also pretty cool because who knew a poor Colorado Kid would ever get to go chase the most infamous bears on the planet?

I spent most of the Spring getting ready for this hunt and not AZ elk. It was an amazing hunt.

 

[Dinkshooter]

Sitting on a knoll glassing=Spring Brown Bear Hunting

 

[Gerald Martin]

Loving the twist! Value added. Extra points are back on track.

 

[Dinkshooter]

Bears, foxes, birds, whales, seals and more birds. Best place I’ve ever seen if a person wanted to go Bald Eagle hunting.

 

[BrowningCitori]

So far so good...

 

[Dinkshooter]

This hunt for a AK resident or next of kin like me has around 2% draw odds. So it’s not likely I’m gonna get to go again. No pressure.

 

[Dinkshooter]

Sow and cubs I tried my best to step on when they were sleeping. stripes in shorts.

 

[Stocker]

 

[Dinkshooter]

I went in to the hunt declaring I was all in or nothing!! I figured if I was going to have to spend the rest of my life finding places to hang a bear hide, it better be big! I also wanted a nasty old skull with missing teef and age. So this was an easy pass first day.

 

[Dinkshooter]

However, that was pretty much the last good sized bear we saw that wasn’t rubbed. The rest looked like baboons at times. This was the most I’ve ever spent on a hunt, but I still didn’t want a rubbed hide either.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Upon further review since you are not using a dull pocket knife duct taped to the end of a stick as your weapon I'm out!

 

[Dinkshooter]

Last day sow. Still couldn’t talk myself into it. Hero to Zero it was. I got to fill out my first harvest survey of the year with a swing and a miss.

 

[MTLabrador]

I was hoping to see the shock and dismay caused by killing a Kodiak bear with something as small as a 7mm mag, the most powerful rifle cartridge in the history of mankind.

That first bear looked like a tank…

 

[Dinkshooter]

May came and I started calling everyone I ever met through the years that had hunted the unit and their brothers.

By July my ONX had so many waypoints you could hardly see the map when you zoom out a bit.

I decided to take a ride South over the 4th of July weekend. I was warned that the unit does not have very good glassing and that it might be hard to spot elk. Add 95 degree days and a full moon with mouse fart silence and they were 100% correct. We had a good time despite it all and also did some sight seeing. But man it was HOT!

 

[Dinkshooter]

In the end we saw a few elk, only 2 giants and snapped a terrible pic of them. We did focus on life skills, such as how to hold the Jack Light steady….

 

[Dinkshooter]

Back home and more calls more waypoints plus the ones from the scouting trip.....silly.

The first big problem for the hunt starts rearing its ugly head. With the bow set up I have, that I thought I was reasonably accurate with, I cannot get it tuned and I am pretty much spraying arrows all over the place. I'm trying to paper tune and going to bow techs and it still is not coming together.

I'm shooting so much and removing arrows from tough targets my shoulders are screaming. At times I'm laying on the shop floor in pain because they hurt so bad. I'm actually wondering how I'm going to pull the bow back at the big show. Big sissy I know.

I break down and drive to Denver and drop a mortgage payment on a new set up, it helps considerably but my confidence is pretty much gone.

 

[Buschy]

I have been waiting rather impatiently for Dink to post about hunts. You have all night to type sir so get crackin'.