Vanish and FireTiger's 2022 Journal

[vanish]

Friday

Socked in. It was pouring rain and foggy when we woke up, and stayed like that until 9am. We made the drive over and FireTiger hunted a different direction for a couple hours before coming back for lunch and to feed daughter. Dozens of does seen, but no bucks. The rain came in hard again and we pitched options. She's not really into road hunting but it started to seem like the only potential thing, however with our current truck setup she can't glass very well from inside.

I remembered an overlook we could park at and glass some decent country, so for the last hour we could hunt we decided to try there. As we were leaving, another truck came by and stopped. I immediately recognized the driver as a guy I had run into twice before while elk hunting nearby. He also had the same deer tag. Said he'd spent the entire day driving the roads and seen a few bucks, but nothing of the caliber we know exist in the unit.

Well, we did some glassing from that overlook, but the rain was making even that difficult. Saw some does, but no obvious bucks.

Saturday

More fog and rain! Its a trend! Finally though, it looked like things would break.



We decided to limit the amount of possibilities and FireTiger would head out by herself.

The rain did not go away, but it was definitely less frequent with some nice stretches. It took a few short hikes with the girls near the truck, spotting some does and a group of pronghorn.



The sun even came out for awhile, even feeling hot at one point, such that I put all our damp stuff out to dry. Ada thought that was very convenient. How generous of me to put a pillow down for her on the tailgate.



Well it didn't last for very long and the rain was back, so everything thrown back into the truck and hiding again. FireTiger checked in at 11:30am on the walkie talkie saying she hadn't seen any bucks and would begin heading back for chili dogs and to feed Wren. Would probably take her 45 minutes to get back.

At 11:52am I heard a single shot. I didn't want to interrupt anything so I gave it a few minutes before trying the talkie.

 

[wolfpup]

Can’t wait to hear the ending … your better than I am with a baby in tow.

 

[vanish]

( You can see some deer butts if you squint! )

I turned on the walkie talkie a few minutes later and got confirmation that it was indeed her that shot. Just after we had ended our checkin, she spotted some deer feeding our during a break in the rain. One looked to be a buck, so she closed the distance on the group. There were actually two bucks, a spike and a spork. She spent several minutes debating if she really wanted to end the hunt with the spork when another deer appeared, one with obviously more tines. Considering she had been debating the spork, she went right into kill mode on this deer.

She had watched for several minutes after the shot and had not seen her buck leave, but also hadn't seen it fall. Several of the deer (there were about 10 in the group) were still milling around so she waited half an hour before going to check things out. At our next check in, we were having radio issues and switched to text messages as there was just enough signal. The following occurred over the course of several minutes. Keep in mind I'm about a mile and a half away, I'm watching the baby and dog and its raining.



She'll probably cut my leg off if she ever reads this thread.

Anyway, she was able to get out and find her deer a few minutes later. We refer to him as the "most adorable 4x4"



She had made a perfect shot, taking out the top of his heart. He was DRT, that's why she never saw him.

She had been traveling light, so she tagged him, marked him down on the GPS and said she was headed back to me. I got lunch heated up while she was coming back, and after over an hour I was starting to get nervous. Did she fall in the hole again? It shouldn't be taking this long. Should I be worried about hypothermia?!

She finally appeared and I jumped out of the truck to see if she was ok. She was totally fine, had some trouble corrsing a creek and then had been waylaid by a pair of rutting moose. It seemed every time she tried to go around them, they would come her direction, and she got pushed almost half a mile off course.




We ate some chili dogs in the front of the truck while listening to her stories, and I heard a funny noise. Turns out Ada thought 4 of the dogs were hers, since the cookstove was just on top of a cooler outside the truck, right at dog mouth level. Silly me.

We traded off watching the girls and I went in to pack out the deer for her. The weather was nice enough not to rain too much in the process and I was able to get back with the whole thing in less than 3 hours.

 

[vanish]

Sunday



We came home Saturday evening, which left us all of Sunday to process. My dad gave me some new grinder blades for Xmas last year, and they worked great. Our old grinder has a ton of HP and can grind most anything, but the sharp blade made it even better.

 

[vanish]

Tuesday, 10/4

We had just missed the window to get a CWD sample taken nearby where she shot the deer, so we didn't get a chance to take it up to Fort Collins until Tuesday.



Shortly after getting the sample taken, FireTiger was turning left into a parking lot on Harmony. Its a 7 lane road, and there was no stoplight for the intersection. Traffic was stopped in both directions, and the people in the oncoming lanes waved her through. However, when she got to the furthermost lane, a person had pulled around a big truck in the middle lane and sandwiched her into another car that was trying to come out of the parking lot.

Nobody was injured, the airbags all did their jobs, but the Subaru is totaled. I wasn't the biggest fan of this vehicle, so I am not sad to see it go, and we didn't lose any money on the whole thing, but boy, the vehicle market has NOT improved in the last year. Ugh, car shopping right now _sucks_.

 

[vanish]

Friday 10/7

Despite CPW saying the CWD test results would take 3-8 weeks, we got them back pretty quickly. Really wish we had taken up our neighbors offer of aging the deer in their new setup ( we had the time, so processing it immediately seemed to make more sense ) because wouldn't you know it, her deer tested positive.

In years past I had said I'd probably eat it, but with the baby we are going to pass. I guess Ada is going to eat well this year.

At least CPW will throw you a few token $$ when it happens.

 

[vanish]

Monday 10/10

I had the day off, so I finally got Ada out locally to look for grouse. I decided to try a new location, but at an elevation where I had found them before. It looked ok and I found some food. I flushed one off the top of a mountain down a steep canyonside, and she missed it completely as she had been lower on the hill at the time and the wind covered the sound. Didn't come home completely empty handed, though.

 

[kansasdad]

I am completely impressed that you all press on with your outdoors activities and bring your little one along as well.

Amazing.

 

[trb]

Glad she was OK, that is really rough. Sorry to hear about the CWD as well.

Purely out of curiosity in case I'm faced with the same decision in the next couple years, are you doing anything special with your processing equipment/coolers/knives to try and sterilize them?

 

[vanish]

Purely out of curiosity in case I'm faced with the same decision in the next couple years, are you doing anything special with your processing equipment/coolers/knives to try and sterilize them?

With all the things going on, this is something we hadn't even considered.

 

[vanish]

I am completely impressed that you all press on with your outdoors activities and bring your little one along as well.

Amazing.

We are really trying! It certainly complicates things, especially the schedule. It would really be better if we were hunting from camp, such that FireTiger could slip out early and I could put her to bed while the sun was setting. We have fall turkey tags and just decided it would be too hard to coordinate since by far the best time is first and last hours, so I am going solo later this week.

 

[MNElkNut]

Nice to tag along again on your adventures! My cousin is about a year ahead of you. He and his wife take their daughter on all kinds of adventures.

 

[vanish]

We went elk hunting! OK, only FireTiger had a tag. She really wanted to get out one more time this year, so she picked up a leftover cow tag on Friday for an area we have hunted in the past. We knew it would be a long shot; more about being out there.



We got camp set up at a reasonable time Friday evening. The plan was essentially for FireTiger to hang out in an escape zone and hopefully get lucky.

This buck taunted us right away on Saturday. Just chilling in the open.



Saturday ended without any elk sightings. There were a few other hunters in the general area but not s many as we expected.

 

[vanish]

Glad she was OK, that is really rough. Sorry to hear about the CWD as well.

Purely out of curiosity in case I'm faced with the same decision in the next couple years, are you doing anything special with your processing equipment/coolers/knives to try and sterilize them?

I guess we will go with this: https://www.realtree.com/timber-2-t...lth-says-new-research-proves-household-bleach

 

[vanish]

Sunday cow elk hunt



This buck tried to run over FireTiger. Grainy pic as it's a screenshot of a video.

I had noticed some ravebs about. Daughter and I did a short hike and we found a cow moose carcass. Smart hunter got her in a good spot! Pic too large

Lots of paper wasps about. Ada got stung on our deer trip and now she's terrified of them. One got we this time. Swelled up real nice. Site doesn't like my wife's iPhone pics, though.

Anyway, no elk again. Ah well, we knew it was a long shot. FireTiger got some quality woods time.

 

[vanish]

Friday October 21

I had the day off, so Thursday night I headed East to look for a turkey in the morning. I would be hunting a piece of public I have a lot of experience on and know a few spots they usually roost. However, last year it had gone downhill due to a substantial increase in the number of cattle grazing the property. There had been no grass, and a lot of the underbrush had been trampled. My friend hunted it in the spring and only saw one Jake. I went in with mixed expectations.

The cattle were definitely still there destroying the place.







Additionally, I don't know if it is from the drought, but those Russian olive trees ( I think that is what they are ) all dang near all dead. They usually hold their leaves a long time, and there were only a few here and there.

The morning roost site was a bust. I heard one a couple of times and that was it.

I did a 3 mile loop one way, as I was kind of in the middle of the property, and I did find 6 hens - just across the fence where there was actual grass. Also jumped a small whitetail buck a few minutes later, also just over the property line.

Afternoon had me piling up some deadfall to make a blind where, historically, I knew the turkeys were very likely to pass by to roost.

I didn't feel the spot had midday potential, so after making the blind I headed the mile to our traditional blind in the bottom at the far end of the property. Around 4pm, I heard some noise and saw another hunter, lacking a weapon, passing by. I decided he was likely am archery hunter I had met here in the past, so figured I might as well move to my evening spot.

Well, by the time I got my stuff together and out of the bottom, he was coming back. Just scouting for rifle season. We talked for 15 minutes and he expressed his frustration with the cattle as well. Said he'd talked to cpw about it and they had lots of complaints, thus this would be the last year for public access on this property. Not exactly how I was looking for this to work out being an SWA. Apparently the land is leased though, and control changed a couple years ago.

It seemed he was going to scout near my other blind, so I stayed until 5pm then moved. Silly me was too late. There were already turkeys in the "field" near my blind, two groups of 20ish each, and they spotted me from 400 yards. I backed out, loops around and got in place, but the field was cleared. Dummy.

I sat there and could hear turkeys off to my left. I was expecting more to come from my right. Torn, I hemmed and hated about pulling the plug on my plan and going for the turkeys I could hear. At 530 (30 min left) I made the decision to stalk in on the cluckers.

I didn't have to go far to start seeing some. I had a good bank to my right to hide movement, but I was getting glimpses in front and to my left. The brush was still pretty thick, which was working for both of us. I cut some distance and turkeys were crossing 50 yards ahead, but I had no shot. Peeking up on the berm at the sound of other clicks, I saw some hens pass by just out of range, but in the open. Torn once again - go right or forward. I got another 10 yards forward, but the brush was still too thick. Toms were passing by now. Where are they coming from? Gotta be my right. I peek up above the bank and there are a dozen red heads looking back at me. Shoulder the gun, line up on the one furthest to the edge and BOOM.

 

[vanish]

Nine friends came over to share him. Weighed 12 pounds before the bacon.

 

[MNElkNut]

Congrats! Nothing better than sharing game with close friends!

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Way to go!

 

[vanish]

Packing for Colorado unit 61 this weekend. Still not sure what to expect from my dad, but I'll be there to help at least for a couple days.

Hope he has recovered from pneumonia