Elk Hunting 2009

Elk hunting this year was very good for our family. We were 100% on elk hunting with 4 bulls and 1 cow elk. Three taken archery and two with rifle. The archery elk were take off of blinds set up by me and my dad. My dad hunted for almost three weeks on these blinds with bad luck. Then he brought up a friend to the blind for one night and he shot a spike. My brother's friend Heath who is in the hunting photo last year's hunt, killed another bull this year in a different blind while he was drunk! He fell out of the blind about four feet high and climbed back in and then shot a 5x5. Lucky punk that he is, he only hunted 2 or 3 days. My dad ended up shooting a cow after several weeks of bad luck, and then 15 minutes later had a 5x5 walk with in 15 yards of him. Unfortunetly I don't have photos of those elk or my brother's because I was not there and I haven't got them from the hunters.

Now to the rifle hunts. My brother and I both drew on a bull hunt for the first 2 weeks of October (peek of the rut). There were only 25 tags on this hunt and neither of us planned on drawing. With a brand new bow I really wanted to archery hunt and didn't think I was lucky enough to draw. Well, my dad took up the guide position for me and my brother. After all, he spent so much time hunting archery in the area he learned it pretty well, on the other hand Jeremy and I didn't know to much. Opening morning I decided to check out some hay fields up the valley a ways where a friend told me he had seen a big bull. At first light we were sitting close the field spotting and my dad spotted a herd of about 30 head with a big bull at the end. He gunned it down the road and told me I was going to shoot that bull. Well, I didn't totally agree with him because it was hard to see how big he was. When we got in position I started looking at the bull trying to decide to shoot him or not. It was hard to tell how big he was when they were running all out. Finally at about 250 - 300 yards I decided to start shooting still unsure of weather I wanted to shoot him. It was opening morning! I wasn't ready to stop hunting. I ended up getting a bad rest on the door of the truck and emptied my gun at him. It went to show that I need to practice my long range shooting. Later on we figured out he was only a 5x6 and there was a bigger bull on the mountain. I was glad I didn't hit but depressed at my poor shooting. Well that day we decided to take a camp up on a mountain where we heard of another big bull where my dad had scouted out during archery and where Jeremy heard a good bull bugling a week before. We put tent down after clearing 6" of snow off the ground. Spent most of the day hauling everything in for camp. That evening Jeremy and I went to scout out an area down the trail while my dad stayed at camp and spotted the area. My dad was the lucky one and spotted about 25 head on the ridge just down from camp. The next morning Jeremy had gout in his toe so bad he decided to go back down to the truck and road hunt since he couldn't walk well. Me and my dad went down the ridge to try and get a look at this bull. After just about 30 minutes down the ridge he started bugling. For an hour we tried to figure out where they were going to go and where we needed to be. There was a park to their left where I thought they might come out to feed and then work their way back up the ridge towards us. We almost decided to wait for them to come back but then decided to move in on him. We headed down on there right until I ran into some of his cows. They kinda spooked but not really they didn't know what we were and the wind was in our favor. To keep from spooking the whole herd we doubled back and I started moving in on the left side while my dad kept the bull bugling so I knew where the bull was. It was thick brush and loud snow but I was able to sneak with in about 50 yards of the bull but I couldn't see him well because of the brush. Then some cows cut wind of me or something and spooked running to my left towards that park. I knew if I could get to that park quickly I could get a shot at that bull and see him. I bolted to my left and could see cows running almost parallel to me 30 yards to my right. I hit the park and immediately sat down and got a rest on my knee. Then the rest of the herd came out of the timber into the park about 30 head. They still couldn't figure out exactly what I was because most of the herd stopped and looked at me including the bull. That's when I decided to take him. He was a good bull but a little week on one of his fifth points that he had broken off. My first shot hit him and the herd went from a stand still to a run. The bull ran another fifty yards and was having a hard time. I shot at him twice really quickly but I think I only hit him once. He then went through a little patch of timber and cows just kept coming through the park while I ran up the park to see if I could find this bull again. I knew if he dropped off the other end of this park it was going to be a pain because it was very steep. Luckily he came out of the timber at the end of the park and I shot him again. While I was reloading he went down and was done. It was a very pretty place to kill an elk. On top of a mountain with beautiful views in every direction. Plus, it died right on a 4x4 trail. It was one of the easiest elk hunts I have ever had and one of the best.
My dad wanted the cape so I let him take the head home. He then surprised me by having the head mounted English style. It's pretty cool looking. I haven't hung it in the house yet, still trying to find room. All in all it was a great year. On the way out off the mountain we spotted about 5 herds of elk all of them had similar bulls in them. If they made it through the year there should be some really good bulls up there next year for archery. Jeremy ended up shooting a five point coming out of a hay field a week later. It was a good year and we got a lot of meat. I had to give a bunch away.

Good fish.

This is a 5.5 lb cut that I caught on the river near blackfoot. He kinda of a surprise to me I was using spinners and had caught a few little fish. He hit so well I thought I had a snag at first. It took me about 5 minutes to get him in which for a trout is a good amount of time. He got in the current twice and I thought I was going to lose him. For 1 hour of fishing I was pretty happy for the day. He wasn't that long of a fish, he was almost 23 inches but "she" was thick and fat.

CARP fishing with my bow

Carp fishing this year was fun but the weather didn't really help out until the end of the season. Between the rain and the wind that was constant it was tough to see in the water. Usually I only got about an hour of good weather to shoot with. Be sure to watch my video I made on how to hunt carp with your bow.

Big AZ Buck

Check out this big buck while I was at a funeral in AZ this last January. Sorry I didn't get this posted sooner. I could have shot this buck with my bow from 15 yards two or three times. He looks to be around 30 inches maybe a little bigger and he is tall. This is just in time to get you in the mood for the upcoming hunting season. Also sorry if my camera skill are not the best I was a little shaky, I really needed a tri-pod.

Heath shot this elk in my Blind!!

This last fall's hunt was an exciting one. Unfortunately only 1 of the 4 of us that archery hunted got a Elk and I would call him the rookie of the bunch. He shot this bull just after I had to go home for the season. I believe it was about 15-20 yards and he some how shot him in the neck. He's really lucky that he didn't lose it. The spot I found where we all started hunted is a gold mine and should produce many elk in the future for us. We started out hunting in good old Leodore with the 100's of other elk hunters. Even with all the other hunters up there we still managed to get into elk. I had some close calls with a few bulls but never got close enough to get a good shot. One day before heading back up to Leadore for another weekend I decided to go to another spot where I had been deer hunting several years before and where I saw a bull elk come out of a quake patch of trees. So I drove up to the spot on one our fat cats and found a watering hole/wallow with a highways of trails from all directions coming to this spot. I then found 3 places like this one that were good to. There were so many tracks I had to convince my dad to come and see the place a few days later after hunting in Leadore, he was sure they were cows. Of course when his mouth dropped and said all the tracks were elk, I new we had a winner. Unfortunately we were 3/4 of the way through the season and I only got to hunt the spot for four or five days. However, I saw elk come in every night while I was there. I finally on my second to the last day had a small 5x5 come in above me and I was able to take about a 25 yard shot. I drilled him right behind the shoulder! Bulls-eye!! He turned and ran and I celebrated saying "that is a dead elk." But as I watched the elk run up the hill I noticed my arrow only went maybe 1" or 2" into him. I knew that was trouble. To this day I don't know what happened but I know I'm getting a new bow for next year's hunt. We tried tracking him, he went up hill the whole time. He'll live at least that's good. Maybe I'll see him next year. I have a feeling with this new spot were are going to kill a lot of elk. I saw and was in elk every day and got some good bugling action that made for a good year.

Our last good fox trapping year.

This was our last good fox trapping year. I think it was 2004. I want to say we got around 150 between the my old man, my brother, and me. After this year or during this year a mange disease came in and started slaughtering off the fox like a cancer. 1 out 4 we were catching had mange and the odds were getting worse. I don't know how many we lost but I had at least 5 or 6 I had to throw away. Hopefully they will fight through this mange and come back. It's been 4 years and I still don't see many fox. Not that pheasant hunters are complaining. We are seeing more pheasants then we have in years. Thats probably why the fish'n'game doesn't care at all about them. They don't get any money from coyotes and fox, so they could care less. After this year finished we stopped fox trapping. Never thought I would see the day. There was always a ton of fox in this valley and now there kinda of rare. I gotta tell ya I miss those big fox hunts we would go on.

Winter sleigh ride through the Elk Refuge.

These are some winter photos I took while on a sleigh ride at Jackson hole with my wife and son. As you can see the photo on the left, the bull has some sort of mange.