Vanish and FireTiger's 2018 Hunt Journal - Season 8

[vanish]

Holy cow its almost the weekend again already.

Forrest located a flock of turkeys, but failed to shoot before she was spotted. I looped around and had them filing by at 40 yards, but they were walking and not stopping. Suddenly, I noticed that a tom in the lead of the flock had hopped up on a downed tree about 3 feet off the ground, and was facing away from me. I made yet another bad choice, and instead of letting down, ranging and drawing again, I put my 40 yard pin and let it fly. There was a loud thwock and the turkey appeared to do a double backflip and fell on the other side of the log. I've heard stories of turkeys running off, so I ran over there immediately. The rest of the flock appeared to be in shock and was just standing there for a few seconds with me under 20 yards. I motioned FireTiger how to cut them off, but it was too late.

Fitzy came over excited as she watched the shot and also thought I got him. Unfortunately, there was no turkey lying on the ground. I found my arrow with no blood on it. There was nice gouge in the log under where the turkey had been perched. I had misjudged the yardage and hit underneath him, most likely scaring the bejeesus out of him upon deflection.

There may have been more happenings that evening, but I don't remember specifically what happened. We still had the next morning...

 

[vanish]

We headed to the blind again in the morning. I expected to run into some turkeys on the way in, but no such luck. It was a pretty slow morning until something unexpected happened. We saw a tom on the cliff overlooking the creek bed. I suppose I need to give turkeys more credit, as the only reason for them to be up there was to avoid us. There were at least 8 in the bunch. As they passed behind a bush, I told FireTiger to grab her gun, quickly move 100 yards ahead and sneak through the thicket up to the edge. The turkeys should walk right by her.

Well, I'm not sure what happened, but she didn't make it very far before I saw the tom on alert. I figured they would turn 180, so I told Fitzy I would get in position to cut them off on the other side. When I arrived, there was one hen calling down in the bottom. I don't know how she slipped past, but I saw her climb up to join the flock. It seemed they wouldn't be coming my way, so I decided to slowly ascend the ridge. I needed to be careful as I didn't know exactly where FireTiger was and this was a little dangerous, however we saw each other a few minutes into it. She was directly below where we had seen them, and pointed up to the top.

I eased my way up, ready to shoot in a moment, but could not find them. I could hear one softly cooing, however. Easing ahead, I finally came to the precipice, but no turkeys. What the heck? One more step and they burst out of the grass and flew down into the creek bottom. There's no way I would have thought that grass would hide a full grown turkey. Turkeys 5 - 0.

One thing registered in my mind as important. Two of the turkeys had flown north, while the rest went south. Our blind was between them. Back in the blind we go deciding to see if they try to flock up again.

Reading on the internet had led me to believe a call wouldn't be useful in the fall. This is decidedly false. I did however, have an elk diaphragm in my bino harness. When I was first learning how to use it, I remember sounding like a goofy turkey. Why not give it a shot? So I do and we get instant responses. I tell FireTiger this is going to happen fast, and before she can even reorient her body there's a turkey running in. I'm not sure if her caught her moving or if he remembered us being in the blind, but as he hit 40 yards, he circled. Over about 5 minutes, the two separated turkeys managed to make it around us out of range. Turkeys 6 - 0.

While we didn't bring home a turkey, it was extremely entertaining. I think we learned a lot and as long as those turkeys are still in the area next time, they're going to have a tougher time making it past us.

 

[vanish]

Its looking pretty grim for my elk and bear tags this year. I had committed to an exploratory deer trip for this upcoming weekend long ago, and with other recent happenings I won't be able to take time off. That leaves me with about 3.5 days to hunt elk and potentially a little more for bear, though I'll be focusing on helping FireTiger find a buck.

This weekend should be a very interesting trip but I don't know how much I am going to talk about it. The terrain looks neat, but its a small area so I may not share photos.

 

[vanish]

We got a little glassing in Friday night before setting up camp, but didn't find any deer. The area certainly has some neat terrain.

Saturday morning, the local parks and wildlife came up and talked to us briefly to tell us about some training happening in the area. They also mentioned they didn't have any bucks on their trail cams yet. Not what you want to hear.

We ventured forth and climbed to a high spot. Glassing from here yielded 4 mule deer does and 4 fawns. Where there were trees, it was much thicker than I expected, making it impossible to glass animals once they bedded down. We jumped one doe while traversing from canyons to ridge to canyon to ridge, getting a lay of the land. During the heat of the day, and it really was a bit too hot for me, we found a water hole deep in a canyon and hung out there. We were assaulted by a snapping turtle, having to leave our spot to let him pass. First time that's happened to me while deer hunting, and I certainly didn't expect it here. The evening glassing was ruined by a freak, unpredicted thunderstorm right at crunch time.

Sunday morning we relocated and spotted our first buck of the trip, a small forky at about 400 yards. FireTiger doesn't have much experience with her bow, so she went on the stalk. As she got to 100 yards, 13 does came up out of the coulee and the buck turned and followed them up the hill.

We found some deer still feeding as we reached a plateau, and FireTiger snuck in, in case there was a buck hanging with them that we didn't see. She was able to get to 20 yards of 3 does, but no buck around. We tried glassing some of the drainages, but were unable to find any deer.

It was cool country, but I have no idea how I would hunt it without the luxury of being local and knowing where the bucks are hanging, patterning them, and setting up in a specific ambush location. If we had found bucks moving towards bedding, the bedding areas just seemed too thick to be able to make a play that same day. Being able to see 3+ miles in many directions, it was a bit discouraging to not spot any bucks. Still, the challenge of it has me wanting to give it another try, but maybe when its not 90 degrees. It feels a little silly to complain that I didn't see any bucks, as that was par for the course whitetail hunting back in NY. Feeling a little bit like I've gotten spoiled!

------------------------------------------

Back to archery elk and bear this weekend. Returning to the area I killed my bull last year. Fingers crossed that they're in the area again this year. Looks like Dad will be joining me as moral support.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Keep at it,It always happens when you least expect it.

 

[vanish]

Let's go find an elk.

 

[NC2CO]

Good luck team. These threads are awesome : )

 

[vanish]

The aspens are already at peak. That feels early to me.

I made it to our camp spot about an hour and a half before dark, so leaving a walkie talkie out for when my dad arrived, I threw my gear on and tore off up the trail. The plan was to get about a mile back and the detour half a mile up a ridge to some nice looking benches. There were cattle in the area down low, so I was hoping to find the elk a bit higher. Instead, I just found more and more cattle. Dad showed up while I was on my way back and we hung out in the dark for an hour before heading to bed.

The plan for the morning was to hunt in the area I killed my bull last year. We'd hike up to a ridge in the dark and troll for bugles. If that didn't produce anything, we'd climb the "stairway to heaven"; a 1200 foot climb in ~.6 mile in hopes that the elk never dropped down the night before. Welp, we were finishing that climb at about 9:30 when we came across an old camp site dang near on the edge of a cliff. Grills and pots were strewn about, mixed in with the skulls of two cow elk.



As we examine the mess, a bull bugles, and within 200 yards. Heck yes, game on! However, the wind is not good. The bull is South West of us, with a gusty wind from the west, and thermals from the East. Its a cliff to the North. We're not terrible, but it will be impossible to get the wind blowing in our face. The best I can do is get perpendicular. As I slide to the West, the bull bugles again, closer. This is looking good.

Then the bad happens. Hooves thundering between me and the cliff, which is only about 20 yards away. However, they don't go far, as a cow steps out at 50 yards, and then a second. I don't know if there were more. I was flabbergasted in where they had chosen to bed. Shoot the cow? No, not what I came here to do. The bulls bugles again, sounding like he's within 100 yards. The cows quietly walk off. Maybe this hasn't fallen apart yet? I let out a few soft mews. There's the sound of sticks snapping. Arrow knocked, I'm ready.

A few minutes go by, and the next bugle is much farther away. I check the wind and sure enough its blowing South. We decide to just park it until the wind figures out what it is going to do. It never really does, so eventually, move into a couple different spots and try some blind calling. I don't want to go too far back in here as we're already pushing the limits as far as what I am willing to pack out under the circumstances. That ends up being it for the day. As we head back down, Dad mentions that its a good thing I didn't shoot anything up there as he had all he could do just to get back down.

Sunday morning, we head to where Dad shot his bull on opening weekend. That was a bust. It didn't appear anything had been there since!

Kind of a bummer of a weekend, but that happens sometimes. I've got two more days of elk hunting, and then we roll right into FireTiger's mule deer hunt. I'll keep carrying my bow in case we see a bear. Not sure if we're taking two vehicles yet.

 

[vanish]

The Rav4 is loaded down. We don't need the 4x4 this weekend so looked to save some gas, but dang looks like we could have used the extra storage space.

I've debated back and forth on the merits of hunting different locations on Saturday, but I've decided to hunt a spot a spent a lot of time a few years ago. I can't say I've ever gotten into good bugling there, but it will allow me to do some scouting for FireTiger's deer tag, is probably the best spot for bear in the unit and if I do manage to find an elk to shoot, is a good spot to be packing one out from.

I don't know what FireTiger is looking for in a deer. She seems to be swinging back and forth between "shoot the first decent buck" and "shoot one bigger than Dad's last year." This is a good tag. There are good bucks and we know pretty good idea on where to find them. I have a feeling once she's out there, she'll get excited again. Perhaps I've been a bit oppressive, as my brain has been hunting hunting hunting very strongly this year and she's feeling pressure from me, though I'm not trying to do that.

I'll be curious to see what the aspens look like this weekend, as they seemed to be peaking on my last trip.

I leave you with this photo I took while freehanding my phone and 12x binos. This tree was between my Dad and the cliff in the previous photo. Sometimes its the little things.

 

[duckhunt]

Good luck

 

[vanish]

This is going to take a long time for me to write up, but I'll just jump ahead with tomorrow's lunch.

 

[WildWill]

You find one that was a organ donor?

 

[Lostinthewoods]

Yay!!!

 

[Hummer]

Looks like you finally got to the heart of the task at hand. Congratulations, Vanish!

 

[bowhuntmontana]

Nice!

 

[vanish]

Sorry its taking so long. Gotta do things like work and such.

Friday Night

We got the Rav4 all packed up. It looked a bit silly with the amount of cooler space. The coolers were mostly filled with our gear. We had to be prepared for multiple animals, though we only expected a deer. We left with enough time to get to one hunting area and glass for the last hour, but about 45 minutes into our drive I realized my wallet was not in my pants and we had to go back home. Bummer.

Saturday

FireTiger dropped me off to go look for some elk. It did not go well. It appears they had mostly left the area I had chosen to hunt. On top of that, its an area I expected to see some good deer, but I only found a couple small forkies and their sisters. One was still in velvet which was curious. I walked right up on them and sat down, eventually having about a dozen deer file past me at under 40 yards.



I made it about as far as I could possibly go before hitting private land, and finally found my first elk sign. They had recently left, however, with several parallel tracks through the freshly fallen aspens leaves.



Around 5pm, I met back up with FireTiger, picked up the spotting scope and we went to go glass for the evening. We didn't find any elk to chase on Sunday, but did find a couple of bucks, including one very nice 5x5 that FireTiger was excited to possibly pursue. A problem though, he was about 200 yards from the public boundary on the wrong side of the fence. Sadly, I had left my digiscope adapter back at camp.

 

[vanish]

Sunday Part 1

I had a choice to make here. It was my last day to hunt elk for the year. Having fulfilled my goal of helping my Dad get his first bull earlier in the season, I decided that while I would still carry my bow around, I'd rather help FireTiger scout for her deer tag at least for the low light hours than head to a new area looking for elk.

We headed to a knob to glass where the sun would mostly be at our backs. The smoke from all the wildfires had settled in to the valley over night and was a bit oppressive. Not only did it hinder glassing, but our lungs didn't care for it either.



Even with the smoke, we were still picking up animals. There were several groups of pronghorn playing in the sage, and every once in awhile we'd spot a buck. When all was said and done, we'd found 5, with one being a very nice symmetrical, dark-horned 4x4. FireTiger was very into this buck, and said she'd be happy to look for him again once her season was open.



Once the deer seemed to disappear into the timber, I went in search of elk and bears. FireTiger took Hank to go look for dusky grouse. We drove to a new unit to get out of the smoke and crossed our fingers that the wind direction would shift for the next day.

The area I hiked produced a beautiful bench that I was sure would hold some elk, but sadly there was no indication that any had been in the area for awhile.

 

[vanish]

Sunday Part 2

We met back up and drove back to FireTiger's deer unit to do some evening scouting. Thankfully, the smoke was no longer an issue as the winds had shifted. We were a little bit earlier than the evening before, so I wasn't sure the deer would be out of the timber yet. This was wrong, but not quite in the way I expected. We found these two bucks taking a snooze in the wide open about 1200 yards away.



Now, my noobness will be showing here, but this was the first time I had ever spotted bucks bedded in the sage during an open season. The sun glinting off the upper bucks antler were a dead giveaway.

More exciting though, was when I started panning around nearby.



At the distance, I couldn't be 100% sure this was antlers sticking up in front of the rock, but it looked an awful lot like antlers. Really wide antlers.

Our glassing other areas may have suffered as we watched the hillside. Finally, his head turned.



Oooh yeah, that's got to be a good buck. Wide with deep forks. I was very excited, but FireTiger was not as impressed. She still preferred the dark antlered buck (who we referred to as the "Pretty Buck") over this "Wide Buck". The other two had gotten up to feed, and we finally identified that both the "Tall Buck" and the "Round Buck" were 4x4s, even though they looked like 3x3s originally. I thought I could see 5 on the "Wide Buck" on one side, but it was definitely not the 5x5 from the night before, as that one had very obvious ~4 inch splits off his G3s.

They all got up to feed and slowly worked their way down, eventually hitting some aspens where we left them.



FireTiger's attitude had noticeably shifted now that we had 4 bucks scouted that she was interested in pursuing. Now she had a decision to make ... where to be opening morning?

I realize the quality of these photos is low, but it was pretty far. The video looks better

 

[vanish]

[video=youtube;OyIPiwcCf_s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyIPiwcCf_s[/video]

 

[jeremy.b]

Very sweet! I can't wait to see the rest of the story (even though I cheated and saw a pic on another forum )