Vanish and Firetiger's 2023 Journal

[vanish]

Well, I'm going to try my best at journaling again this year as it is the TENTH ANNIVERSARY of me doing so. I have found it much more difficult to find the time with a job that I care about and an 18 month old daughter.

Here is the hunt schedule thus far:

CO Elk Muzzleloader - Vanish
CO Pronghorn Muzzleloader - Vanish & Firetiger
CO Early Rifle Deer - Vanish & Dad
CO Plains Deer - FireTiger
OK Archery Deer - Vanish & Dad

One of the downsides of my job is that the NFL is BFD. That means it would be risky of me to hunt opening weekend, which coincides with my elk tag, sadly. I had been hoping to give this hunt a chance for awhile and managed to snag it off the reissue list. It will take place in my old archery OTC haunts and a friend has committed to supporting, though it will be a 2.5 day banzai.

Also new this year is ! 2020 F-150 and 1996 popup camper which I intend to drag along to the Pronghorn and Deer hunts for the family. We drove it to Alaska and back earlier this year.

 

[WildWill]

Them little ones sure take up some time. Goodluck to both of you this fall I'll be following along.

 

[F250]

Enjoy your journals !! Looking forward to your posts !!

 

[kansasdad]

You all were a hunting family before your little one came along, and you all are still a hunting family. Always gonna be a good story when you get to go adventuring.

Buenos suerte

 

[buckbull]

I was going to PM you if this thread wasn't up by the end of August. Always enjoy reading about your hunts.

 

[vanish]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. The hunts will mostly be short, but hopefully also sweet.

Hopefully our daughter takes to hunting as much as she has to camping and fishing.

 

[vanish]

Another hunt in the books! Sorta This was a hunt for large golden trout. It was also Ada's first backpacking trip. We got some good ones by most standards, but there are far larger fish around. They were not cruising, instead holding deep and I didn't even bother to get the fly rod out. Day 1 camp was 13.5 miles in, and I did about 50 miles total over 5 days.

 

[timberman56]

great pics ..beautiful trout

 

[kansasdad]

That’s impressive mileage for hiking with a toddler. Good stuff!

 

[vanish]

That’s impressive mileage for hiking with a toddler. Good stuff!

Oh, heck yeah it would be. She wasn't on that portion of the trip. FireTiger and DD were set up in our popup at the campground at the trailhead. They did not join on the backpack portion. They also caught more fish than us!

 

[Lab]

Nice man- You haven't been on the Colorado site for a long time. Shoes been up a bunch and We also hit the bighorns.

 

[vanish]

Nice man- You haven't been on the Colorado site for a long time. Shoes been up a bunch and We also hit the bighorns.

I lost the link!

 

[vanish]

Friday afternoon, I left work a bit early, picked up a friend and headed to elk country. We through out a quick camp and headed out to hunt/scout the access I had planned to use on Saturday. I hadn't been in the area since 2019 and knew the deadfall could be bad.



We found lots and lots of deadfall, but didn't think it was un-navigable. The area I was hoping to find elk sign unfortunately had cattle using it. This bird was lucky I wasn't in the mood for chicken.



Upon returning to camp at dark, the other hunter parked in the area came to chat. He'd just shot a cow moose and had been there all week. He said he hadn't heard a bugle. Dang. He did confirm where we were planning to look historically would be a smart spot.

 

[vanish]

We knew Saturday was going to be rough. With only two days to hunt, my plan was to get to the ugliest, most likely holding spots I felt we could pack an elk out of. First couple miles was downed timber, then +1200ft in 1/2 mile.



Elk can be found all along here, but not on this day. Intel said they were hanging out up top, so we had high hopes when we finally gained the plateau.



The sign did not support the hypothesis. We were committed to keeping on the move until we found fresh sign. The wild thing was we weren't even finding old sign.

As we continued pushing further, we came to a good looking draw coming up from a high bench. I told my parter this looked like a great spot for elk to bed and I would try some calling. We took packs off to settle in for a bit.

I was in the middle of my second cow call when I caught movement 100 yards out. Scrambling to get my gun in position, I set up for a shot...

 

[Lab]

I lost the link!

Colorado Mountain Fishing

 

[timberman56]

well?

 

[vanish]

Ironically I didn't leave off there to create suspense, but rather ran out of free time. It is in low supply these days.

Two cows followed by a giant bull crossed quickly in front, never giving a shot. Apparently they were not into my calling as they trotted away from rather than toward us. Dang.

We continued on our loop looking for sign. Things got a little sketchy at times.



We came to a fantastic looking saddle, but the only sounds were of coyotes howling and still no real sign of elk. I was really shocked how there wasn't even old sign to speak of. I'm a bit of a sucker for pics of water.







The afternoon loop down continued and the sign stayed bleak. We were excited to be going down as the day was getting long and legs were getting tired, but honestly wasn't much better than the route up.



Finally arriving back to camp, we both agreed thay despite seeing those elk, there was little evidence that they weren't the only ones on that mountain, and we would do better to move for Sunday.

 

[vanish]

On Friday, I had checked our plan B location and there was a single camp set up there. They had a SxS so it was difficult to tell if they were even hunting that spot. I was comfortable also heading in there, so we moved Saturday evening, but upon arrival that camp was gone, and there were NINE vehicles parked there. I don't feel that spot can support more then two groups, let alone six, so it was on to plan C.

I was pretty concerned that Plan C would be overloaded, but upon arrival there was only one other vehicle in the general area.

Oh something to note, on Saturday at some point half of my front sight's fiber optic had disappeared. Not ideal!



Sunday morning started off with a couple mile hike in the dark to get into the more elky area. Just before 8am, as we were slinking along an elk trail, a cow materialized about 50 yards in front of us on the right side of an opening. There was about a 10 yards gap where she would be clear, so I went to take an off hand shot, then reconsidered and dropped to a knee. However, I couldn't see over the grass, so I had to stand back up. By this point she was approaching the left side, with a calf tailing.

I stopped her with a mew and took the off hand shot. She turned and took her calf back up the hill where they came from. Mostly silently and then there was a little noise as they got further away. I turned to my friend and let him know I had shot at the cow, not the calf, and his response was "Damn, I was watching the bull! Didn't realize you had an either sex tag." to which I said "There was a bull?"

We decided to just hold position for half an hour to ensure she didn't get bumped. About 20 minutes into our wait, the bull came back through and taunted us.





What a jerk, just standing there still while I couldn't shoot! This is the second time I've shot at a cow and then had the bull give me an easy shot.

It seemed like a good sign that the bull had separated from the cow. After our wait was over we went to look for blood. We spent a good three hours searching and found no evidence of a hit. I have no idea what happened. This was quite demoralizing and it took me half an hour of just sitting there ( after we concluded it was a miss ) to regain motivation.

As we were now approaching afternoon, I decided our best strategy would be to set up near some dark timber where I had found elk moving midday in the past. We would then move to a spot I had more confidence in the evening when the time came. Just as we stood up to transition, I spotted a cow elk about 150 yards away slowly working her way down a small ridge. I could only see the top of her back. The wind was blowing right toward where she would wind up, so I tried to loop around to keep it in my favor, but halfway through my movement the wind shifted and she ghosted me.

The evening was a bust, and that was a wrap for my season. I had my chance and blew it!

 

[vanish]

Well the Pronghorn hunt was more of a family camping trip. Dad (me) forgot a couple of DDs things and let's just say we didn't get as much sleep Friday night as we intended. This led to a late start Saturday morning.



We spotted a group of four right away and I attempted what I knew was a dumb stalk when I thought I needed to be on hands and knees at 600 yards. I got to about 250 before a doe caught me moving when I thought they were all heads down.

We moved locations and found a couple groups of Pronghorn, but none in a great spot for a stalk. After watching one group for an hour and a half, they finally bedded and it seemed like there was a decent stalk opportunity. FireTiger went to go first, but was blocked by an obstacle she wasn't comfortable dealing with, so she returned and told me to give it a go.

The stalk ended up being one of those "I thought they were closer cases". There was a short sunflower patch between us that was both a blessing and a curse, as it was good visual cover but really annoying to crawl through. I discovered I had left my leather gloves in the truck which made this a bit painful. By the time I made it to where I thought they would be just on the other side, only the buck was in range. The does feeding again and were 200 yards away and not feeding my way.

Over the next three hours, I shadowed this group. I followed them south for half a mile, and when they switched back north I thought this was it. Just out of range, they bedded down again. Usually this is great, but I barely had any cover to work with and it seemed like one was always on the lookout.

I just needed them to stand and work about 40 yards more in the direction they had been going, but instead a herd of cattle came from miles away and the Pronghorn went the opposite direction. Pretty annoying result for four hours invested.

Back at the truck, we watched another group but came to the conclusion we couldn't get a stalk on them with the remaining time that day.



Ada had a great time watching for doves and jackrabbit. I was less enthused with this.



Sunday we found another group that FireTiger thought she could intercept on a fence line. DD and I watched from the truck but mostly played.








FireTiger had a very similar stalk to the one I had the day before. Hopes were high when a second buck came to check out the group, bringing both bucks inside 50 yards, but the does never moved the way we hoped and after much posturing between the two bucks finally headed entirely the wrong direction.

We are both feeling like it might be time to check out a different location. We had a great run here but tags have become much harder to obtain and the numbers are way down compared to what we used to see. There are definitely still opportunities to be had, just needed a little more luck on our side.

 

[vanish]

Coming up this weekend is my deer hunt ( along with my father ). This will be a more serious endeavor. I will have 1.5 days of scouting followed by 3 days of hunting. A buddy of mine will be along for 2.5 days to help glass. Hopefully we can turn up something that can keep me a little off the trigger, but the freezer could use a little more meat.