Pink camo, #dadbodhunter, and a whole lotta stupid!

[Dsnow9]

After watching the Farve-Rice info-mercial on copper compression knee sleeves years ago, I bought one, went for a jog ... and now have three pairs!
Then three years ago at 76, backpacked the Thorofare seven days eighty miles. Last summer over Headquarters Pass forty miles through the Bob Marshall.
Always wear them working, hiking, hunting and they do make a significant difference. Try 'em; you'll like 'em.

And, yes, ibruprofen is my friend too.

Those are great and not a bad call. I’ve been nursing a knee injury for a while now and daily run it tape.

I don’t take pharmaceuticals but had other options. It will come up. Stats was eating ibuprofen faster than his sour patch kids. This wasn’t your average hunt. I should have time to catch everyone up in the next couple days.

 

[INMT]

View attachment 342900
Miles per day since I hiked in last Tuesday.
View attachment 342901
Elevation per day since last Tuesday.

That’s legit! Great work on a nice buck! Looking forward to the rest of the write up.

 

[SwaggyD]

Stats

Can you call him 'spreadsheets' instead?

 

[noharleyyet]

Damn, even the offline guys are switching handles.

 

[Dsnow9]

Can you call him 'spreadsheets' instead?

How about sheets?

 

[Dsnow9]

Damn, even the offline guys are switching handles.

Hey when they change their names I can too! That’s the advantage of them just lurking without signing in! I get creative liberties!

 

[Dsnow9]

Back to the elk hunt where three guys do their best to fill three Wy Gen W bull tags. An adventure I will not forget and one all of our bodies are still hurting from today when we met back up in Denver. I’m just going to keep the names simple with W (sheets) and his hunting buddy J.

I will do my best to tell the whole hunt story even though some of it is second hand because of the logistics of the trip.

W and J are also letting me post their pics so it may be slow going as I sift through the photos and get it all put together.

7 days, 3 guys, 3 bull tags

Here we go!

 

[Lostinthewoods]

Great goat! Congrats!

 

[Dsnow9]

Night one of scouting was not a complete bust but the elk only came out with less than 30 minutes of light left. I was able to grab a pic of a nice bull.

I was pretty sure this area wouldn’t get much pressure because of the location so decided to change up my scouting location Wednesday morning for the Thursday opener. I was finding and hearing elk everywhere. Right below me there were two very nice bulls hanging with a group of about a dozen cows.

Growly bull

I called this one the grey bull because the mud on his antlers made them look more grey than the other bull.

I watched their movements as the morning went on and had a pretty good plan for opening morning but checked out a few more places in the evening.

Meanwhile W&J were on their way in with three llamas we rented from Beau at Wilderness Ridge.

 

[SwaggyD]

How about sheets?

Approved.

 

[Dsnow9]

The guys bringing the llamas in and getting all of their camp gear carried for them!

I spotted them on a far ridge about 4pm. They made it to camp and then came out to meet me glassing. We watched the final light go down and a few animals work around. The morning was definitely more active the day before season.

Then we all hiked back to camp and talked for a bit to come up with a plan.

W and I decided to team up and go after the two bulls I spotted Wednesday morning, Joe didn’t want any of the s-storm W and I were about to put our bodies through. He decided to go check out the area further back that we didn’t think would have much pressure. Alarms were set for 5am and we called it a night.

 

[Dsnow9]

At first light W and I were sitting the glassing point above the drainage that I saw the big bulls the morning before. There wasn’t anything moving for the first half hour or so. And then a couple cows popped out of the trees and we dove off the ridge hoping the bull would follow them out. We made our way to the bottom of the valley and set up for the elk to work their way across the three open faces and three dark pockets of timber. They were well on their way and the bulls started to fire off. There were a minimum of 4 different bulls bugling.

I pulled out the two dice I keep in my bino pack and handed one to W. Told him to roll and he laughed. I rolled a 5 and he rolled a parrot with pistol. At first I thought it was a one but after examining the dice we realized it was a six. W was up first:

We started to call and then heard branches snap behind us. We made the move only to realize that it was two hunters and a guide side hilling above us, and then noticed three more on the ridge above us.

WTF! We are over 7 miles back, what are all these people doing.

At that moment the growly bull rips a huge bugle and W looks at me. He said that he would like to go in after them and hunt hard. It was like music to my ears and part of the process of feeling out new hunting partners.

I didn’t even hesitate and started getting my gear ready. Let’s go!

We basically sprinted through the first two sections of dark timber before needing to cross the large avalanche shoot that they were feeding out of.

For some reason they had worked back into the trees. We checked our wind and then crossed into the dark timber. Step by step. Check wind and glass. We started calling and had multiple bills calling back. We closed into about 80 yards with a clearing between us and the bulls. They stopped movie and the bugles slightly changed. Calling from their beds. We could see the shadows of the antlers and an ear twitch.

We waited.
We would occasionally call for the next 30 minutes or so and the one growly bull would respond. The others seemed to be getting further away.

Then silence for a while, over 30 minutes. We started to discuss going in hard and fast but then heard a long off bugle. The hunters on the ridge above us must have had their sent come off the ridge because the elk were all moving far and our wind was never bad.

We chased the bugles as long as we could until W called it. Said we probably shouldn’t chase them anymore with the elevation drop. We had already lost over 1200 vertical and following them would have required dropping another 1000 vertical. They weren’t stopping anytime soon.

We hiked back up the ridge and W ended up taking a nap after I stopped talking long enough for him to sleep.

 

[Dsnow9]

We ran back to camp real quick and took the llamas to water because it was pretty hot out. In hindsight we should have left water buckets out for them but it was a learning process.

Meanwhile J was finding a lot of sign but not having much luck finding elk.

 

[Dsnow9]

We contemplated moving camp to an area where we saw a lot of elk and very little pressure but J said he was going to stay in till last light.

We decided to drop into the basin he was in so we weren’t miles apart going into an evening hunt. This is a spot I scouted and thought it could produce a nice cross valley shot and had seen a nice 6x6 in it.

There wasn’t much going on so I made a peak meal and started eating it. W asked if he could call. He got after it with his little cheater primos. I was just starting to eat my meal when we saw a smaller bull come out of the trees about 650 yards as the crows flies and over 1000 vertical below us.

The bull turned and started walking right towards us. Will asked if he called it all the way up would I shoot it. I said I’m not going in the hole after it so you have to call it to the bench about 80 yards away. Deal!

I continued to eat my meal thinking there is no way. And then as I was finishing my meal I heard a branch snap and some hard breathing. He was getting close. About three minutes later he was in sight and working side hill away from us but nothing to stop him from descending the 1000 yards if the shot wasn’t instant.

The bull rounded the trees and came right back at us. I laid my gun across a down tree and lined him up. There was no one on the hillside behind him and I had my sight picture. Frontal shot with a slight 1/4 to so I should be able to miss all the meat.

 

[Dsnow9]

The bull shook off the shot and I racked another one. Then you could see the weight shift to his hind legs and he went down. He was about 5 feet from rolling off the face. Mission accomplished.

 

[Dsnow9]

It's at least a rag horn, @Dsnow9 probably shot the first elk he saw, he's so picky...

And technically I passed on a 3x3 at 80 yards in the dark timber waiting out the big bull. So 2nd elk I had a chance at. But a deal is a deal and I’m not walking away from that opportunity.

 

[Nick87]

The bull shook off the shot and I racked another one. Then you could see the weight shift to his hind legs and he went down. He was about 5 feet from rolling off the face. Mission accomplished.
View attachment 343073

Glad he didn't make it 5 more feet!

 

[Dsnow9]

We started cutting on the bull almost right away and J came across the top of the basin and saw our pink hats. Sent us an inreach that he would go get the llamas. W and I had the bull cut up and in bags in 1 hour and 15 minutes with little more than a drop of blood on us. We were both being cautious as GBears are said to be in the area.

We started hiking back to camp and almost made it back before catching J. We dropped our packs and went back with him for the meat.

Shot was at 5:57 and we were on the trail headed back to camp by 9:15.

It was about a mile and we made it back to camp pretty quickly and came up with a game plan. W&J would move camp with Frankie and I would take Rebel and Otto down to the truck with the meat and assess wether to stay the night at the truck or come back into camp.

*****Keep llamas together, do not separate them into singles. Frankie did great but a point that should be noted*****

 

[seeth07]

Keep it coming! No sleep until you're done!

 

[Dsnow9]

I was going through their pictures and found this one. The bull came from the furthest clearing before the left hand turn at the bottom of the avi chute.

And it looks like J found a friend.