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KHunter ‘21 archery elk semi-live

This morning put in the effort to finally get look at a growler bull we keep hearing but is always way up and away through and in nasty deadfall. Whole area is almost entirely beetle killed. Makes for fun hiking. lol. Anyway turned out to be a nice bull, and biggest seen so far, that I would arrow in a minute but only got to 60 yards. Fun stalk with thecgrowler and another bull he was with very responsive throughout. Topography and wind got me.

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Spending rest of day way up and away from camp in this area of the growler bull to see if can turn him up again.

We are looking at pulling this first pack-in llama camp to try fresh ground. Even as hunting seems to be improving. Sometimes just need new ground.

For first time since Wednesday we had bulls bugling through the night in the drainage we are camped in. Jumped on that and stalked a couple bulls before focusing on aforementioned growler a drainage over. Got close to one that was responding and darned if I did not also call in a hunter (thought we had area to ourselves!). Nice guy, got his tag through an allotment given to native americans through some process I do not know details for. Guy puts in the miles knowing where he is camped and where we have seen him.

Lastly, I mentioned prolific wild strawberries previously. found a deadfall where an enterprising critter seems to be drying them out for storage and later eating? dunno. See what you think…

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ABQBW. spotted a couple good bulls squaring off on the skyline this am while i was fighting deadfall. I bet that was cool to see.

Here is a bull I saw on the drainage divide yesterday morning. Screenshot from a video taken a mile? away with spotter and iphone….

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Hopefully the soon to be stars of our hunt when we put some elk on the ground. Magellan and Powell.6F99A489-600C-4400-A49C-3442D856F40A.jpeg

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We move them couple times a day to keep them on fresh grass. Really Abqbw seems to do most of the llama tending so far and we loaded them in his truck bed—I think he likes them. They drink precious little water but we keep a bucket of water within their reach so they have something to kick over. lol.

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Really cool, interesting, quiet and docile animals.
 
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a poor photo of a bull I chased a long way opening night. Got winded by any one of his 28? cows. Not even sure if I would have shot him in retrospect but I was “amped up” on opening day haha. I paid the price after the long 7 miles near 12,000 feet chasing this and another bull…with heavy fatigue and weak legs next two days and just had to suck it up.6FA4388D-D50B-4324-90C1-2DC465A0E44B.png
 
I read a story where a mountain man left some poisoned fruit around for some rival native americans, or was it vice versa.

Good luck with the move, but reminds me of a fisherman's mantra, "Don't leave fish to find fish".

And yeah, deadfall sucks!
 
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Got close to one that was responding and darned if I did not also call in a hunter (thought we had area to ourselves!). Nice guy, got his tag through an allotment given to native americans through some process I do not know details for. Guy puts in the miles knowing where he is camped and where we have seen him.

Brunot agreement rights with the Utes?
 
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Anybody thinks this scene is OK at and above tree line in and around wilderness areas in fragile environments at the tippy top of our watersheds kindly raise your hand and kiss my @!)5/!(

The habitat destruction is obscenely obvious everywhere we are seeing these masses of cattle above 11,000 ft. just looks completely uncontrolled and without any reasonable conservation strategy.


Perfectly legal and perfect example of how some legal activities shouldn’t be.


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OK rant over. well actually OK one more… but I’ll share details later on a deal that involves a fed employee who was on vacation hunting just like us but Grossly abusing his position for personal gain. Person was so far off the ranch it was almost comical but really it was disgusting and for sure we weren’t being buffaloed by it.

We started on August 31 and we hunted through this morning. I should get home tonight so I can work all this week and I’ll try to scratch out some time to post what I think are some fun stories and cool pics and vids. we have been sifting through a lot of elk and enjoyed some truly incredible high country in the last 10 hunting days.

We started with two tags to fill and I’ll have to take time to do a count to see how many we still have to fill. Will say we have more hunting to do before September is over…. and have set aside at least a dozen more days, with llamas in tow to do it. can’t wait to grind out this upcoming work week do you get back up to the highest of the high country where only the bighorn sheep and the elk and the deer and {sigh} cattle roam.

….and tomorrow my truck gets a brand new suspension and a slight lift. i’ve got 10 years and 105,000 miles on it and I’ve never changed the shocks or anything in the suspension so this is going to be a vast and much overdue improvement.
 
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Unusual to see cattle that high due to the risk of hypoxic pulmonary hypertension. LMK where later.
 
Too quiet!
Agreed. We have been pretty much packed in deep in Wilderness Area, hunting and also hunting a couple other spots without cell coverage since Sept 19th. We wrapped up the hunt and arrived home late last night and I have a ton of family catch up paid work to do before the Oct 8th to 21st archery bison hunt on the Kaibab and will start posting up best I can as time allows. Amaziing remote hunt and arrows did fly and llamas did come out ‘heavy’ as did me and ABQBW.

Here are a few to snack on in the meantime!

Morning after an unplanned bivy that became necessary at 10,800 feet in a rain/sleet storm just as darkness descended and we learned the hard way llamas just do not hike in the dark. Who knew? We sure didn’t.—woulda been good for the llama provisioner to have mentioned this critical fact. We were sliding downhill all darn night trying to stay under tarp and out of the rain as we were stuck with llamas and all our gear on a STEEP mountainside with nary a flat spot to be found. Not a lot of sleep when, all night, you had to be propping foot against a tree to avoid sliding. We were in the steepest portion of the trip about 3.5 miles into our 7 mile descent from camp at 11,700 ft to trailhead at 9,300’. But we stayed safe and warm under a tarp and llamas were good to go again at dawn:

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Have a pile of photos and video of various bulls wallowing, harassing cows, sparring, bugling in our face in bow range and all manner of cool things we got to see pretty much every day and sometimes all day long in our area that was devoid of other hunters:

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Yep: fresh backstraps in camp 7 miles from trailhead: (should note the refrigerator shelf grate was found in the bushes near an old campfire ring we happened upon)
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Just one of many rutting bulls we saw and filmed that will be shared ASAP:

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Ollin Magnetic Digiscoping Systems

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