30 day blog

[under H2O hunter]

Fallow a long as I blog about my hunting season.

Day befor opening day: left Denver at 6am and was up on the mountain and setup by 4:30. Went to my favorite wallo to get the camera I left there a few weeks ago. I found the camera vandalized and my SD card erased. The wallo was tore up so I was a little pissed cause I know that wallo had some good bulls using it. My son and his buddy desided to spike camp the first night down the mountain so I helped them get their stuff set up and retreave another camera off another wallo by them. This camera had 3 good bears on it and a really nice 6x6 and a couple cows.

Opening day: took my girlfriend and a buddy off the west side of the mountain and walk through some aspens and pine tree mix. We managed to lose my girlfriends stabilizer and her cow call as well as my small game arrow with judo point. I glassed up a couple nice bucks but we decided to chase elk instead. In the afternoon we sat the wallo that is being torn up. I called a cow in to 32 yards for my buddy but she never turned broadside. My son who was a ridge over got a bull to bugle and come in however the bull ended up winding him and took off.

To be continued...

[under H2O hunter]

Well the last couple days have been interesting.

Day 2: rained pretty good so we didn't hunt the morning. The afternoon we went to a spot where some elk were bugling the day before. I called a cow into 70 yards who caught our wind because the winds were swirling.

Day 3: my dad showed up at camp and he and I did some construction on building a new game hanging pole. Our old one was busted when a dead tree blew across it this past winter. We went to the same spot as day 2 but only managed one lone bugle from 1000 yards off right at dark.

Day 4: my girlfriend Dana and I went to a place we call the dock. We sat and glassed the north facing slope of the mountain just south of us. We spotted a large bull we names "ghost" from last season. He has a very distinctive bugle and will let you bugle and get with in 50 yards of him in thick cover but he shuts up until he knows your 50 yards or more away. I have never laid eyes on him till today. He had a single cow with him and the two of them just feed up the mountain out of the deep canyon. Dana and I decided to walk over the ridge we were on and work our way through some pines. I spotted some doe's and got her ready. A medium size doe got broadside at 26 yards up hill from us. Dana let her arrow fry. It sailed high over her back. We dropped down the north side into a small valley I have never been into. We found an old elk skull that someone cut the horns off of. We sat on a saddle and marked the area on our GPS. After getting picked up on the bottom by my dad. We filled out water cans for camp at the spring. I dropped my camera not knowing. When we got back to camp Dana and I were able to take out first solar shower as my dad went down to the store to get motor oil. I was gonna take a picture of our shower set up when I discovered my camera was missing. When my dad was riding back from the store he got thirsty so he stopped again at the spring and found my camera. The afternoon hunt I decided to go solo and check out a place I found on google earth. As I suspected it was a wallo. I also was able to locate a couple other watering holes and a wallo that was tore up.

Day 5: I got up late this morning cause I am pretty sore. So I decided to walk back to the dock and see if I can pattern Ghost for a future stock. No more then 200 yards out of camp I spotted a 6x6 by himself walking so I dropped my pack and put a stock on him. I used a couple of trees as cover to move into range. I ended up being 10 yards from him and he was staring me down through the tree. I decided to take a risk and draw my bow and take a couple steps out for a shot. When I stepped out he busted away. I tried cow calling with just my mouth cause I didn't have my reed in my mouth. He stopped at 106 yards in the open and looked back at me. Figuring the game wa up I decided to shoot him with my camera. I got some shacky video of him for about 2 min then he trotted away. I am writing all this as I stand on the dock glassing the mountain looking for Ghost.

[under H2O hunter]

Day 5: afternoon hunt was pretty relaxing. Went to an area I call "the grey area" my dad Dana and I sat around listening to the birds cause there was nothing happening.

Day 6: went solo and was headed to retreave the trail cameras down where Ghost lives. Ended up dropping off the south side cause I heard some bugles. I located 2 different herds and positioned myself between them. I had several cows and 2 spikes less then 10 yards away. I managed to get a good look at both the herd bulls one is a good 300 and a 6x6 the other is a decent 5x ? Neither one presented a shot. Later on I walked down into "hells canyon" the pictures on the cameras are ok. Nothing really big. But plenty of animals including a big bear. The afternoon was spent taking photos of my dad and I overlooking a small mountain lake and cooking up some grouse I have killed.

Day 7: morning hunt sucked. Went back to the dock area and spotted one elk but couldn't tell if it was a cow or a bull on the north face of the other mountain. Walked over the ridge to make a loop back to camp and shot another grouse who ran off with my arrow and judo point. Dana left her bow where I shot the grouse so I had to teach her why you never do that. She walked around for 45 min looking for her bow. I was pissed but laughing at the same time. So we came back to camp and had tomato soup and cheese sandwiches

[under H2O hunter]

Day 8: went for a day long hike. I dropped down into national geographic. I fired off some bugles and cow calls and finally got a good sounding bull to respond. I chased him up to 11k feet but he shut up and pushed his cows over and down the ridge. I took a nap on top and found the saddle the elk are transitioning through from water and feed. I bumped 2 bedded bucks, one was really nice. On my walk out I bumped "old grumpy" he's a big 5x5 buck that beds in the same area and we have bumped him a couple times. I plan on hunting him from a blind after I get my elk if I still have a deer tag.

Day 9: rained half the day. In the afternoon I went for a deer ATV ride. My son has been seeing some deer along the atv trail so I decided to look for an easy deer. I found 3 does 2 Fons and one small forked horn buck. Nothing special. Broncos played at 6:30 so we drop down the mountain and got gas and watched the game and had dinner.

Day 10: Dana and decided to spike camp out. We headed for the ridge I chased the bull up from a few days ago. In the afternoon we were sitting on a log cold calling when a bugle rang out. I moved ahead and Dana stayed back cow calling. I spotted a cow and watcher come 40 yards from me. Dana worked her to 65 yards from her before she got feed up with our calls. The bull ended up being Mark a man from the south who is solo hunting. The rain came in so we invited him to stay with us and we had some MH dinners. I gave him my bivy sack and tarp to use for the night.

[under H2O hunter]

Day 11: we headed back to base camp with Mark from Georgia in tow with us. It was raining all day. We sat in the wall tent like kings eating and swapping stories. In the afternoon I took him to the dock and we sat and watched a doe feed up to 32 yards from us.

Day 12: Mark and I headed for his camp which was opposite side of the mountain from my base camp. We drove the atv to the top (11k feet) hunted our way to his camp which is 8700 feet. Half way there we were talking a break when a big 4x4 mule deer ran by at 30 yards up the hill from Mark. I looked up and spotted him at 80 yards so I stalked him to 40 but no shot opportunity before the buck decided to bound off again.

Day 13: Got up at 7am and said my ferwells to Mark and headed around the south side and the Westside to get picked up by Dana. It took me 5 hours to walk 8 miles. My hips were burning when I finally was able to off load my 40 pound pack. Only seen 8 doe deer. Talked with a few hunters I know on the ride back up to base camp. They said they have seen a few elk and finally heard a few bugles yesterday on the mountain to the west. Got to base camp and took a solar shower and pigged out on some grub. My buddy Pagel is due in camp any minute now.

[under H2O hunter]

Day 13: evening hunt. My buddy Pagel and I decided to hunt a drainage that I usually see deer in. Tonight's hunt didn't disappoint. Had 4 big bucks in the timber at 60 yards one of them spotted us while we were creeping in and they bounced.

Day 14: Pagel and I headed back to the same drainage as the night before. We had good elk sign everywhere at 7am on the opposite hill side by my base camp I spotted 8 elk feeding through a small opening. We hussled back to our ATV's and raced back to camp. We hussled across to where I thought they may be. I got my poison arrow decoy and we took a couple more steps when Pagael was pegged down I put up the decoy and moved to some cover I had a cow at 50 yards starring me down. She didnt like what she seen and trotted over to some other elk. All the elk went crashing down hill. Later that afternoon we decided to chase some antelope that have been hanging around the top of the mountain. Pagel spotted 3 doe's. he has an antelope archery tag so we put a stalk on em. He got to 60 yards but they only offered a Texas heart shot before trotting off from what ever had em spooked. They never knew we were there. I filmed the stalk from 150 yards back.

Day 15: opening day of muzzleloading season. The 4x4 trail I am camped on is like a super highway. Every Tom Dick and Harry wants to go to the top of the mountain. I take Pagel back to my spike camp area. We call it the bone yard cause we have found lots of old bone piles from years past where people have killed elk and packed em out. No other hunters but no elk today either. We did spot a nice buck and doe as well as a golden eagle. Stayed all day but nothing. The muzzleloading guys were riding the trail all day my son and Dana said.

Day 16: Pagel, Alan, my son, and I head for the dock area early to beat the muzzleloading guys in. As we head across the trail some muzzleloaders who are coming up the trail stop and fallow us to the dock. We shined our lights letting them know we where in front of them but they kept on fallowing us in.when we got to the dock area we spread out. The muzzleloaders approached my son and asked how many of us there were? My son was very polite in answering there question. I guess the reason they followed us in was because the day before one of the guys had taken a shot at a small bull that ran across the small opening just below where my son was at. They moved on after hearing that 4 of us had the area covered. I was all the way to the west and a quarter way down in hells canyon. The same place I spotted the 8 elk feeding through a couple days prior. I sat down made a couple small cow chirps and 5 min later I hear one stick break. I grab my bow and get ready. I look back up towards Pagel's spot and when I turned my head back a small raghorn 4x5 had walked out around a tree and was looking at me from 15yards away. He never took his eyes off me but took 2 more steps. The wind was blowing down his direction and I knew this opportunity wasn't going to work out for me. He hit my wind and bolted back down into hells canyon. I tried stopping him with some cow calls but he was gone. A little while later I sqeeled out a bugle and was cut off by ghost down from the bottom. Having played his game last season I stayed put to see what he would do. Another bull bugled and stepped out 65 yards from Alan but quickly disappeared back into the trees. Ghost chuckled one more time and I could tell he was moving his cows up the opposite side of the canyon and away from me. Pagel and I walked around the hill we were on and headed for camp. Along the way we cut some sign from the bull that had popped out by Alan. We followed it until a grouse jumped up into a tree. I told Pagel to film me while I killed the grouse. I place a rubber blunt tipped Easton nemesis arrow straight through em from 20 yards. When the bird fell out of the tree another bird jumped up and flew into another tree close by so I grabbed my arrow and took another shot at this new bird. I smacked the bird in the head killing it but my arrow sailed off about 100 yards making it impossible to locate. Damn birds are expensive lol.

Day 17: Dana and I went back to the same spot as yesterday to see if lightning can strike twice? Weathers really warm today. We spotted 2 doe's and put a stalk on em. But they just didnt come close enough before figuring out what we were doing. We are now headed into town to get some messages, do some laundry, and grocery shopping. We might even take a shower and sit in the hot springs if we have time.

[under H2O hunter]

Day 17 : we ended up going into steamboat on our drive off the mountain I slashed the side wall of one of the tires on my truck. I had told Dana as we were leaving " I forgot the spare, hope we don't get a flat" I guess I put it out there in the universe. Lol, A couple grouse hunters on atv's were passing by so I hitched a ride and drove my atv with spare tire back down. Got it changed and off to town we went. Did some laundry and had lunch while the tire place put a new $200 tire on. Went and did some light grocery shopping and then headed for the hot springs to relax and take a nice shower.

Day 18: Headed west out of camp past the dock area and down into hells canyon. Once I reached the bottom I picked up one of my trail cameras. 2 hunters had pasted by it 20 min earlier. I decided that they were headed down hill so I humped it up hill heading for another camera. The hill is steep and thick with pine trees. Moving slow I was able to spot a couple doe's. as I was getting close to my other camera I bumped a nice size bull elk from his afternoon nap. After getting to my camera I decided to death march it up hill to the head of the canyon staying around 9500 feet. I have never worked the canyon this way. Around 3pm took a break and napped for an hour when I woke up I gave a couple cow calls and got a bull to respond down from the bottom. I decided to let him go as I was worried about the light and how long it was going to take me to climb out of this hell hole. I ended up bumping another elk. Not sure if it was a cow or bull. I relized I dropped my grouse arrow somewhere. Not cool at all, especially after climbing down another small feeder creek. I spotted 2 grouse. As the second grouse walked in front of me at 8 yards I pinned him to a tree with a broad head arrow. Unscrewed the arrow from the tree and dispatched the bird. When Dana picked me up at dark I noticed my GPS missing. Not sure if ill go back for it or not as this hike was dangerous and long.

Day 19: Decided to sleep in and rest the sore muscles. 7:30am I hear hoof passing my tent. I scrambled for my bow and release. Open the door and a doe is 25 yards away. I try and get a good shot and notice 2 small fawns. I decided to give them a pass. I figure them seeing me in only my underwear was punishment enough. Dana and I grab the four wheelers and go trail ride looking for a deer we can shoot. Get back at noon after not seeing anything and had a big breakfast.

[Indian Summer]

Well you certainly haven't had a problem getting into elk. Since there are multiple bulls I'd pick one and get aggressive. I'd also be learning more about Ghost's habits and try to close the deal on him.

It would drive me crazy hunting with a bow where there are muzzle loader hunters! They just stomp around too carelessly for me.

[under H2O hunter]

Day 19: The even hunt was pretty boring except for the fact that a bull bugled from half way down the mountain. This gave me a game plan for the morning. That plan was solidified when a couple muzzloaders stopped by to share some info. They told me that they been seeing some elk trying to cross the saddle I was thinking about hunting in the morning.

Day 20: Best day yet. We got up at 5am and got ready. The muzzleloaders beat us to the top of the mountain by 15 min. This would be their undoing though. They walked down to the saddle in the dark missing the herd that was feeding up the drainage. Because I know this drainage well I knew that I needed to glass as we worked our way to the saddle. It was twilight but my vortex binos were able to clearly show me two elk 90 yards away. Dana and sat down and I watched them feed towards us. We were out in the open as there was really no cover. I could see a muzzleloader way down the trail and was worried that at sun up he would spot them and shoot with us being so close I decided to move a little closer to see if I could get to 60 yards from em. They kept looking up our way but also kept feeding our way. At 77 yards a very large herd bull bugled out. The 2 cows we were watching looked over to the herd bull but didnt move. The bull bugled again but sounded closer to our position but I couldn't see him yet. On the third bugle. The two elk feeding our way trotted over to the herd. When they got out of sight I quickly moved around to the edge to see what was making all the noise. Well this was my undoing as a couple satelight bulls and a cow caught my movement and started trotting away. This caused the entire herd to run away. I tried cutting them off but it was invein. By now the light was good and I laid eyes on a monster 6x6 fallowing the herd. His 5th and 6th points were well over 12 inches each making a monster whale tails. He is perfectly semectrical. We worked our way down the mountain and picked up my atv that I left the night before. I grabbed my bivy gear and decided to sleep out under the stars on the backside of the mountain. 25 min before sundown I let a couple bugles out, hoping to get a location on the herd. Nothing answered but a cow and a 2x1 bull came out of the aspens and were coming on a string right to me. They had 500 yards to cover and a lot can happen. As I watched the cow lead this rag bull closer I was thinking this is it. At 90 yards I got the feeling across my neck every bow hunter fears. The wind was blowing their direction. When my sent crossed the cows nose she froze and stared into the sun. After a minute she bolted pass the bull and down hill about 30 yards and stopped. The bull looked at her like she was crazy. He stood there and she stood at her new position. I figured that my chance at this cow was over so I decided to try some different calling tactics. They looked like they wanted to come but the cow was very nervous. After 5 or so minutes and several pictures. I decided to be silent and see what they would do. They eventually trotted back into the aspens were they came from.

Day 21: My son, Alan, Dana got to the top of the mountain and worked their way down to the saddle. I got up and packed my gear up and worked my way to them. Nothing seen or made a sound. The afternoon hunt I took my son and Alan to my spike camp area otherwise called the bone yard because of the previous kills in the area leaving bleached white back bones and skulls. My son picked up a cows skull and packed it back to camp.

Day 22: During the night a lost cow called out about 75 yards behind my tent and was answered by a bull a couple hundred yards away. This kept me up most of the night thinking and hoping that they would stay in the area. At daybreak my son and I headed behind camp and down to where 3 creeks join. We seen 4 doe's but nothing we could get a shot on. We looped back around and was back in camp by 9am. We needed fuel and propaine so we headed down the mountain and supplied up. The weather was really hot so we took naps till 5pm. My son said he was gonna go work the atv trail for a deer. 20 min later my phone rang. My son tells me that he punched a doe at 25 yards. Alan and I headed his way. After 30min we started looking for his deer. I found the arrow and it looked ok. I picked up the blood trail pretty quick and we found the deer piled up 40 yards from where she was first hit. I gutted her out and my son and I were able to drag her to the trail. I got her hung on the game pole and I headed for the dock as my son skinned her down. On my way out I spotted a small buck out in a meadow. I put a stalk on him but with no good cover I was handicapped. When I got busted I notice a very large buck up above the smaller buck about 40 yards further away and tucked up against a pine.

Day 23: went to the dock as my son deboned his deer. Alan and Dana sat on a field by camp. I didn't take my pack as I figured it would be a quick hunt cause Alan and my son would be headed back to Denver soon. I quickly spotted a couple cows feeding on the north face of hells canyon. All of a sudden the herd from the other day was running across the mountain. They swept up the two cows I was watching. I lost them when they got a little lower on the mountain and in some thicker cover. I started glassing where they came out of to see what may have spooked em. Didn't see anything out of the normal but I found a huge cow and younger cow maybe a large calf. I watched them feed and move around in the same area for over an hour. I spotted some large bucks feeding below them. Which had their attention. I decided to head for camp when I thought they had bedded down. I sent Alan and my son home and I took Dana on a stalk. We dropped in above the two elk and had about a half mile to cover. We got to were I thought they were bedded but nothing. So we turned around and hiked back out. Headed for camp and listened to the broncos game.

[Lark Bunting]

Conclusion?