Genuinely never even worried about that hitting me before... but yesterday was the first and last time I'll push down on those poles without the coupler in my left hand, ready to slide it over. I'll also be wearing glasses next time; to be safe.
Tent shanks hunter. Film at 11.Stupid Beats Effort: A RiGht iN THa FuGGiN HeAd Story
Gather rounds kids...
I woke up at 6 am, took a quick shower and loaded the car. Took care of the last few honey do list items, kissed my wife good bye and headed down to @Dsnow9's house to pick up the fabled cart from an earlier hunt. I arrived in about an hour, as traffic was slow as it had snowed unexpectedly across the Denver area. Cars were spinning out like crazy and it was a bit of a shit show. I arrived to his house around 745, grabbed the card and was treated to a first edition of his leather work. For all the shit he gives me, he owed me at least a sheathe for my knifeIN all seriousness, a super kind gesture from one of the nicest people I've met in a long time.
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After loading the cart into the bed of the truck, I think opened my back seat to put the knife in my pack when I noticed that the space my rifle always goes was empty. #*^@#*. You have got to be kidding me, I did not forget my rifle. I turn around, drive another hour home and grab the rifle. Then I get suckered into helping a neighbor pull something out of his yard with the truck and am back on the road like 3 hours after when I was originally supposed to leave. The drive up 25 through Colorado was a breeze - literally. A little windy, but nothing crazy.
Arriving in Wyoming however, the wind was having a $*)Q!#@$ day. Whipping like crazy, all trailered vehicles enclosed and under 4000lbs were pulled off the road. Flatbeds and loaded beds were all that was allowed. Needless to say, it made for some empty roads. The wind itself wasnt terrible, but the blowing snow led to some shitty visibility and some icy spots on the road. I backed way off on the peddle and it made a 5 hour drive about 545. The picture below doesn't do it justice. From the border to Casper was a bit of a hot mess... like me on this 26th day of December
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I was texting with Deacon and we agreed the best plan was to park the truck and haul ass up to a glassing point that would allow me to look at a huge swath of land, to see if I saw any movement. I parked the truck, grabbed my stuff and hauled ass. The first was a "bridge crossing". One that creaked under my weight haha
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I was actually quite impressed with the time I made to the glassing point, considering I stopped twice to takes pics of a small herd of deer that I spooked
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I get up top with about 30 mins to spare... and the sunset starts playing its part... illuminating the far hillsides
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I saw no elk, but I did see a ton of pronghorn. Like a group to my right of 30, a group to my center of about 20 and then from the left I saw a herd of about 125 come in. They were all converging on the same spot. It was really awesome. I have no photos or video of this, because for all the talk of ease of use, the Magview continues to fluster the hell out of me for getting that camera on the binos or spotter just right. Its maddening. Maybe one for sale on here soon haha. But I did snap this photo of myself for the wife, because I remember feeling really happy to be there and just vibing with the sunset and the pronghorn meetup that I got to watch
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I snapped one more photo of the sunset... got back on the glass and watched till I could barely see anything anymore
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I traversed down the scree field in the dark, managed to find my way down in the gulley and back up the other side, hopped the fence and was back at the truck at 6 pm. Making great time, feeling really good about the trip so far and excited to get after it for the next 48 hours.
as mentioned early, I had two tent setups with me - a basecamp (my kodiak flex bow) and a bivy (stone glacier minimalist setup). The plan was to set up the flex bow next to the truck and operate out of there until such time that I could locate the elk. I have set this tent up no less than 15 times. I have done it during the day, at night, stone cold sober and even twice after one too many old fashioned. Never an issue, always a fast setup (sub 15 mins mostly, sub 10 mins at time). I got it laid out, I staked the corners and went to assemble the cross bar that goes across the top. It's a set of two T bars, one with a coupler on it. You assemble the wings on the t bar at each end, then the ends of each t bar go together - under tension - and then the coupler slides over.
Now for the life of me, I cannot understand what follows, but the best is my guess. In my haste, or tiredness, or whatever, I get the two ends together, under tension and flat on the canvas and I think I must have let up on my right hand as I was reaching to slide the coupler over. But that slight change in pressure released all that tension and THWAP.
RiGht iN THa FuGGiN HeAd!!!!
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I took this photo immediately after it happened - more as a funny photo... but this was literally a few seconds after it happened and the blood just did not want to stop. It was probably a good thing I didn't take the photo 10 seconds later as it was gruesome. the right side of my face was covered in blood. As if all this luck wasn't bad enough... two things conspired to really #*^@#* me up. one, my wife happened to call me right after this happened and I - in my state of shock - told her what happened. Big mistake, but more on that later. Second, in 2007 I had surgery to reconnect the 5th facial nerve that connects and controls the right side of your face. This steel pole whacked me right above that surgical scar on my temple and I felt the right side of my face get tingly (still is) and I will admit that made me nervous. As that surgery was brutal and the recovery not fun.
So I tell the wife I am ok, just bleeding and working on getting it cleaned out and steri stripped. I also text Deacon, who goes into dad / boy scout mode and gives me all the advice I would give someone in my situation. I sit down in the front seat of my car and all but pass out. I wake up about 3 hours later with 4 missed calls from my wife and a few texts from Deacon. I groggily call my wife back and the short version is that I was "voluntold" (or whatever the expression is when your wife gives you a choice but essentially tells you what to do) to get home. I tried talking her out of it, but I think the fact that I was alone and in the middle of an area where I was unlikely to encounter people scared her too much. Combine that with my face feeling numbish and my history of concussions (7 and counting) and there was no talking her out of it.
My hunt was over. As I told Deacon, 50/50 on whether it was the right call. My eye was pretty swollen when I got home at 4 am and even after icing it, the right side of my face is puffy and tingly.
It's a shitty ending to a hunting season and leaves me feeling pretty dumb. @rtraverdavis had some more Tundra stuff going wrong on this hunt, but did anyone have "Bryce splits head open with his tent" on their bingo card?
It helps to laugh about it, but genuinely don't remember the last time in my life in which I had such a string of weird / bad luck. Hopefully it's all out of my system, as I have really big goals for 2024 and would like the chance to just execute on the hunting part. There is plenty of mistakes to be made just in the hunting department, so a little break on the stupid injury / truck department would be nice.
Either way, a crazy and weird ending to a long and fun hunting season.
Once @Dsnow9 is done hunting, I'm sure he'll be deleted to share the incredibly funny (read: stupid) bet in place for 2024.
I don't care WHO wins. I'M NOT WATCHING!So… @MtnElk was telling me how his off season goal was to keep up with me next season. I was leaving his house and noticed a jazzercise place about a mile down the road. Said he should load up his pack and hike to the class, then do the class for some good cardio, and hike back to the house with full pack. Said if he did that every day he might have a chance.
He thought that was pretty funny but I could tell there was no way he was going to do it. So I gave him a little motivation.
The bet: He has to keep up with me on any hunts we hunt together, basically be my shadow. If he can do that he wins the bet.
The stakes: loser has to attend a jazzercise class in full spandex that the other winner gets to purchase. And the loser has to give the class 100 percent. The class will be recorded for viewing pleasure but we may have to figure out how to charge for that one!
I cant wait to watch this train wreckI don't care WHO wins. I'M NOT WATCHING!
though
I’m torn on this. Part of me wants to volunteer to buy ElkShape yoga pants for the loser, but the other part of me says we won’t send that sawed off runt a dime.
