As I was cleaning out my old photos that had not been put in an album, I came across a stack of photos from my days at the University of Idaho.  Among the pictures of my fraternity brothers and events, I found a photo of a successful hunt. 

The photo was from a Sunday evening in November after I had returned from Thanksgiving break.  I was one of three guys who got in Saturday despite the snowstorm that cleared out Sunday morning.  Jeremy McNeal, Brad Warr and I all conspired that Sunday on our plans for the last day before classes resumed.  We all still had unfilled deer tags and there was a couple of days of the whitetail season left.  With a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, we loaded up in my 1977 GMC and drove out of town to a logging deck where we started walking softly through the powder. 

Brad and I went East while Jeremy went West, just following skid trails hoping for a fleeting shot to fill our either sex tag.  Fresh red meat was a scarce commodity in our house of 60 guys and a venison barbecue was always welcome, no matter the time of year. 

We had started hunting in the late afternoon, and I was working a skid road back towards the truck.  Deer tracks from does and fawns were evident, but I had not seen any animals.  Suddenly I heard a shot ring out back towards the truck.  Just a single muffled shot.  When I reached the truck I began to follow Jeremy’s tracks and ran into him a few minutes later, bloody handed and grinning.  He recounted the story that he was following a skid trail and was immersed in a set of bobcat tracks that followed the same direction.  He looked up and a buck jumped to his feet out of his bed, and stared at him no more than 30 yards away.  His shot from the .300 Winchester Mag (I remember because I lent him the shells), took the buck through his left eye and dropped him in his tracks. 

We got the buck loaded up just before dark, and made it back to the fraternity house just as many of the brothers were returning from Thanksgiving with their families.  Brad was kind enough to snap the photo for us 

Bar none this was the biggest buck killed by any of the members of the fraternity.  The buck had 10 long unbroken tines, and a rut swollen neck.  Since Jeremy was my roommate, I got the chance to stare at that beautiful symmetrical rack over the next semester, and think about my unfilled deer tag from that season.

What really made me stop and think was the date on the photo.  It was 15 years ago.  I am not used to thinking about my hunting experiences in that long of a time frame.  But I suppose more and more of my hunting stories will begin to reach that double digit age.  That is despite the fact that many of my hunts are a new experience for me and I feel like I am still learning. 

Since then, Jeremy has settled in the area not far from where he shot that buck.  Someday I hope we can get together and hunt the skid trails of Northern idaho again.

If I can be as good of a citizen and enrich the lives of the folks around me as much as Charlie has I will certainly feel that I lived a good life. As a member of the “Greatest Generation” Charlie is a vital link to the values up and coming outdoorsmen and women should emulate today.

Gary from Base Camp Legends drew a once in a lifetime mountain goat tag in Idaho.  The rugged country near the oregon border is the setting for this unique and challenging hunt.   Read about it on his blog post on the subject.  He also has a couple of videos of the hunt in the Base Camp Legends Off Trail video series.   

Determination on a blood trail leads to success

When you talk about hunting hotspots, not many folks will mention San Diego County.  In fact if you look at the success rates, it would be one of your last picks for a place to hunt, much less bowhunt for mule deer.  Nate Treadwell, bucked the odds and applied for an either sex tag near his hometown where hunter success is only 6 percent.   It took his first year of hunting five years ago to figure out that traditional mule deer hunting tactics were not going to cut it.  He started employing a tree stand and whitetail tactics, and for the last 4 years he has been successful.

If you have ever met Nate you know he is a persistant and driven individual.  He put in the time to scout and find where the deer are travelling.  He even took along John,  a buddy new to the sport of bowhunting with the hope of showing him the finer points of deer hunting and blood trailing.

When the doe strolled into range Nate made the shot, and knew it was farther back than he intended.  So after waiting, he and John began the tracking job.  Nate recounted to me a lesson he imparted to John as they took up the sparse bloodtrail.

I called my buddy John Laraia over to show him an almost invisible speck of blood on a flake of red cedar bark. The only way I was able to spot it was because there were a few ants on the drop and a couple flies buzzing around on it too.

We were on the blood for about 60-70- yards when it just quit. The trail she was on split into two forks. We each took a fork and crawled on our hands and knees for a couple hundred yards, finding nothing. 2 hours later we were about to go home (65 mi each way), get more guys, come back and grid out over the hillside. I wanted to take one last look at the spot of last blood. We went back and when glancing a few feet off the game trail she had been on I spotted a 1/8” speck of blood where she went over a log. She had veered off the trail and gone downhill. Now that we were lined out we found a few more specks of blood. Then she came to a large meadow and we were stumped. No tracks, no blood. We had no idea where she went. We were standing on the edge of the meadow thinking “what now”. We grid out and look all over. We checked all the trails for several hundred yards on the far side of the meadow. Nothing.

3hrs+ later we were about to give up when John suggested we take one more sweep through some tall grass out in the meadow.   We’d already looked through it a couple times.  John went right and I went left.  He found one fresh track in a spot of bare dirt in the grass in the middle of the meadow.  He then took what he called the “path of least resistance” through the grass when he heard and then saw a swarm of flies over a dry creek bed.  He remembered what I said about insects on blood and veered over to investigate.  He took a few steps closer and found her stone dead. We had walked within yards of her several times.

So after a three and a half hour tracking job, Nate recovered his mortally hit doe.  While the hit wasn’t textbook, it was lethal and did the job.  It’s situations like this that you don’t want to wonder “is my broadhead sharp enough?” .  A sharp broadhead combined with the grit and gumption to work out the trail resulted in a doe where 94% of tags go unfilled.  The fact that he was able to give a newcomer to the sport a hands on lesson in the work after the shot, makes this more special.

Not all Western hunts are epic adventures into the back country.  Kirk Beckstrand arrowed this nice Blacktail on a small piece of property during an impromptu hunt after work.  In fact he said he couldn’t get traction to  drag the buck out since his “work shoes” were leather soled loafers!  He managed to sneak up to within 28 yards of the buck bedded under a tree, but shot over him on the downhill shot.  The buck jumped up, confused, and Kirk put one in the boiler room with his second shot.  The buck weighed over 125 pounds field dressed.

Continued from part 2

September 26th opening day of Elk rifle season

So with my bow put away, (un-shot), I slid the Ruger .300 Winchester Magnum in the scabbard as I rode out in the dark along with my Father and Billy.   this morning we got an even earlier start.  2 hours later, we arrived at the base of “Action Alley”  We could faintly hear the bull calling.  We dismounted from the horses and began our climb up the ridge in the dark. 

Now my 66 year old father had experienced difficulty with the altitude last season. So this year I ordered him a pack of the Hy-Altitude Advantage, from Wilderness Athlete.  He remarked that this season he was better able to cope with the lack of oxygen at 7000-9000 feet higher than we live. 

As dawn spread across the upper reaches of the ridge, The bulls began singing out.  Instead of setting up lower on the ridge, we continued to climb up to the trail I saw the bull traveling the morning prior.  As we began to traverse the side hill took the lead and began to see elk cows below and in front of me.  I motioned to dad that we were into the elk and continued to scan the hillside in front of me. 

What I didn’t count on was that the bull we had been hearing would come out of the timber BEHIND my father and I.  I heard the rocks rolling  above me and saw cows below me look up.  I followed their gaze and saw elk crossing the saddle above me.  I wheeled and brought my rifle to my shoulder just like I was quail hunting.  I had one shot and fired before the bull disappeared over the finger. 

My father called to me, 30 yards behind…”You hit ‘im?”

I responded: “I was on him when the shot went off”. 

But my thoughts were on the lack of a reaction from the elk.  Before I could follow up, I began hearing rocks clattering, and I saw dust rising from the next saddle.  I jogged around the finger to watch my elk rolling head over heels from 9500 feet elevation down PAST ME, until he finally came to rest 500 vertical feet below where he had been when I shot.

When we examined the elk, I could see the bullet entered under his “elbow” on the left side, punched through the thick Brisket bone, through the left lung, and major arteries, through the right lung, through the shoulder bone and muscle until coming to rest under the skin on the right side at the point of the shoulder.  you can see the bump on the right shoulder that is the bullet under the skin in the picture above.

As the dust cleared, another bull called his scattered cows from the dark timber below us and we scrambled to grab a cow call.  30 minutes after my shot, a raghorn 4 point snuck in to my cow calls.  Dad had his rifle up but elected to pass on the bull as he spooked and hot footed back into the timber. 

We spent the remaining day field dressing the bull when Billy rejoined us from the creek below.  He made the 5 hour round trip ride for pack horses, and this time I elected to wait rather than pack it out myself (like I did in 2007).  We arrived back in camp shortly before sunset, tired but smiling. 

Sept 27th

Did a meat run to town, and did a load of wash at the laundromat.  The rest of the crew hunted hard all day, but saw no elk.

Sept 28th

Took dad back to “Action Alley” and had the same bull calling in the timber.  I tried some cow calls and a 5-point with one Antler broken completely off crossed the side hill at 200 yards.  Dad “virtually killed” him as he held the crosshairs on him and then let him walk.  The big bull continued to answer our calls occasionally in a deep timber hole, but with a day old gutpile in there we did not want to meet up with a grizzly in the timber.

We continued to hunt mornings and spent the mid days exploring old cabins and even fishing the native cutthroat trout in the small stream that flowed through the beaver choked valley.

On our Final Day hunting we rode near the Continental Divide through some new country.  It was as much a scouting trip for next year as an elk hunt.  I managed to get a picture of the four of us as the sun broke over the horizon.

That evening we were back in civilization in Jackson with a hot shower and a cold drink.  We had a long couple of days of travel ahead of us on which to recount our tales of bulls that could have been.  Another Wyoming Elk season lies behind me, but there may be a trip, later this month for my partners.  If it materializes I will pass along the epic tale… 

Marc Smith of Wild Country Outdoors has scored ONCE AGAIN.  I guess that is one of the perks of living in a state with the most variety of big game animals (Nine big game species in Colorado).

I have not been out once this year chasing speed goats. Decided to hit some public land after work last night. My buddy Jace and I went out for an evening hunt. We found this buck at 5:30. He was bedded with two does in a hilly draw. I was able to stalk out on the knob and shoot this buck in his bed below. The buck was ASLEEP! I made a perfect 76 yard heart shot and buck went maybe 90 and piled up. Great public land over the counter goat.

He’ll tape about 75″.

Marc

John is off chasing elk in Wyoming.  But in the meantime, read about his buddy Kirk Edgerton who is an accomplished bowhunter.  He seems to make the best of a bad situation and is a successful hunter because of his tenacity and good conditioning.

Kirk is a fellow California bowhunter, P&Y and CBH Measurer.  He had a hard week in a Northern California wilderness on opening weekend.  Smoke, heat, and a full moon all compounded to foil his plans for a heavy pack out.  So when the last weekend in August came, Kirk made a quick hunt in the Sierra foothills. 

So here’s the scene; it’s 15 minutes till shooting time is over, there’s two bucks feeding under the oaks 150 yards away, no cover to stalk, and a doe staring at me from 70 yards. Bump her and the bucks are gone, move right and I’m out of cover to get around the doe and to the bucks, they’d see me for sure. So I head far left, careful not to spook the doe, checking the wind, which is now perfect, and as soon as I loose sight of the bucks under a small rise, I run to give myself enough legal shooting time to get an opportunity.

Nearing where the bucks where feeding and a slight rise hiding my approach, I came to full draw and crept forward. Antlers quickly appeared and the larger of the two bucks was already aware of my presence. I let down and quickly ranged the buck, 45 yards, I need two more steps to see his vitals.

It only took one step for the buck to know I wasn’t another deer coming in for a snack, so he bolted taking the other buck with’em. They ran to 95, stopped and just watched me from the fading shadows of a few large oaks. I knew I had one more chance, bump’em again, they’ll be too far to approach and I’ll be out of shooting light. So I kinda threw all conventional hunting wisdom out the window and got way aggressive on these bucks. I walked out into the open, so they’d see me, did my best not to look at them, and simply walked paralleling their position (I really think they thought i was just walking on and didn’t notice them). As I got farther away from’em (quartering away), I turned their direction, now quartering towards them. I pulled up my range finder, putting it in scan mode and ranged as I walked. At 64 yards, I slowed down and crept forward. The larger buck was in position for a shot, I anchored, relaxed, and touched the trigger.

He kicked high with his back legs and ran low to the ground out of sight to my left. I searched for my arrow and couldn’t find it or any blood……it was now getting dark and I headed to the truck to think about my next move. Not 100% sure of my shot, I figured waiting till morning would be best. After finding a bit of blood near a fence crossing, I eased foward, he didn’t make it too far once he hit the trees, bedded down, then was done.

He’s a solid forkie and has a small kicker on his left base, kinda tough to see in the photo, but it’s about an inch+ long. My first pacific hybrid buck, but I’m still suprised my ‘non conventional’ hunting tactic worked, sometimes ya gotta throw up a “Hail Mary” and make it happen.

After having a tough month of deer hunting, I’m sure Kirk really appreciated connecting on a nice freezer buck.  There is something to the saying that “Success breeds success”.  Once we know we can accomplish something, we approach all new challenges with confidence in our abilities.  Now when Kirk is on his next great bowhunting adventure (and he has a lot of them lined up), He can visualize that 64 yard shot and know he is capable of bowhunting accuracy.  In addition to being accurate, Kirk showed that he could improvise when he ran out of cover. 

john is off chasing elk in Wyoming.  Hopefully he can connect on a bull like Marc from Colorado did with a quick trip to New Mexico.

Despite stirking out after a moonth of Sheep hunting, Marc hit the Mountains of New Mexico with a landowner tag in a unit not known for an abundance of Elk.  Apparently his conditioning from chasing sheep around has made him into an Elk-Slaying machine.   Marc’s story was almost as quick as his hunt!

Got the call for a landowner tag last week. One day up and back, shot this bull opening morning at 7:00 home and back to hunting here in CO by dark. Fast hunt. Saw the bull on a ridge above me one soft cow call and he was at 50 yards in seconds. He took a step at my shot. I hit Liver. Had to leave him for a couple hours, but got him none the less. MMMM Good!
This area does not have many elk so I was just glad to get my meat. I drew a pretty good elk tag here in CO, so it will be more trophy minded. But really to me hunting has always been and will continue to be about the FREEZER!

Ok, I’m really trying not to laugh…..But over the years I have enjoyed watching my friend Marc Smith, of Wild Country Outdoors, have success after success with archery equipment across the West. When he left with a bighorn sheep tag in his pocket I just KNEW he was gonna have another trophy. 

I didn’t expect him to tell us THIS story…

Mon Aug 25, 2008

Well,

I’ve been sheep hunting since Aug 2nd. Season ends tomorrow I’ll be up for one last outing. I have lost 22 pounds so far in the month of August. Bighorn sheep are the toughest animals I have ever hunted. It looks doubtful… but I am going to give it one more try.

Dude, I went through a [Wilderness Athlete]10 day extreme pack and halfway through my 5 day pack. I literally lived on WA on the sheep hunt. My clothes don’t even fit anymore. But I feel good… strong. Deer and elk here in CO are gonna suffer from the Hell the sheep have put me through.

“Hard Like Hanes” that’s my motto!  I ain’t gonna run no freakin Ultra but I will jog up a trail to cut off a big bull or Muley

Oh yea, I got tree’d by a big Cow Moose! Scariest thing I’ve ever encountered. I did not know she was in the willows. I was trying to snap pics of her calf and BAM! …She came flying out of the willows and ran me up a Spruce tree. Mean %^&*!!!! If I would have had my bear spray I would have hosed her down good! She stomped my bow and pack into the mud, I tore the crap out of my clothes and legs getting up that tree.

But Marc did not let that wildlife encounter deter him from his hunting this fall.  He took a break from the sheep hunt to pursue a Utah muley. 

Took a break from Sheep last week and headed over to Utah. I saw a ton of bucks, I passed up 41 4×4 bucks inside 40 yards the biggest was about 155 inches. I could not find anything big. I was feeling the pressure to get back to sheep hunting so I whacked a 23 inch wide 3×3.
I saw this buck and four other bed up at 10:30. I crawled out into the sage and got as close as I could before an unseen forky busted me. He jumped up and startled the other deer. “My” buck stood up and began to trott off. I whistled and he stopped to look back, 62 yard shot and he stumbled about 20 yards and piled up.

 Beautiful Shot Marc.  It just goes to show that perhaps the greatest thing we take away from a hunt where we don’t punch a tag is greater strength, both mental and physical.  Archery hunting for sheep is not an easy task by any means.  Your 22 pound drop in weight attests to the effort you put forth.  You certainly have my respect and admiration.