The "Beav"

In the Blood

Fall 2007 Hunt

This year I drew on a late bull hunt. As you can see I was very successful. I took ten days off to go hunting this year. I went up a day or two before opening day. We did some scouting but we weren't finding much down low. So we decided to head to the back country. We spent all of opening day hauling back in. Then the next day it snowed 8 to 10 inches on us. It made the hunting very tough. It was great for tracking but was crunchy to the ear. Elk could hear us coming a mile away. There were a few more elk in the back country but we couldn't get close or find any good bulls. My dad almost had a monster bull but it went over a shale mountain on him like a mountain goat into the other unit. One night we started talking about bear tracks we had seen above camp and joked about hunting down the bear. I buy a tag every year just in case I see a bear and I told everyone I'd shoot it tomorrow, after all I'm the only one with a bear tag. Long behold the next day I was working my way up a bench above the creek toward a bull I heard bugle when I a blur of blackness, just a little black movement through the timber. I thought to myself that's to big for a squirrel. So I tiptoed another 40 yards and then I saw it again, just a blur the timber was pretty thick and it was moving fast. Then I stalked another 10 yards and it finally came into open view 20 yards away! It was going back and forth in a small opening like it was looking for something. I sat there and watched him trying to decide to shoot him or not. I new if I shot him, I'd spook the Elk on the other side of him some 500 yards away. I wished I had my bow it would have been a great shot. After watching him for 1 or 2 minutes, I decided he was a good sized bear and I had never shot one before and this was a golden opportunity. My family stopped bear hunting just before I got to hunting age. So I took aim and shot. After the first shot he ran at an angle almost right by me about 15 yards away heading down hill towards the creek. As he ran by I shot at him two more times. I only hit him with one of the two. We found him down next the creek in a perfect spot not to far from camp.

Fall 2007

Now to the story behind the elk. While in the back country the snow wouldn't stop. On Friday we decided to start packing camp out. My friend Bo and his dad that were hunting had not returned from the morning hunt yet. So me and my dad hauled out camp on our fat cat motorcycles. On our last trip out we found them at the trail with a set of antlers. Bo had shot a decent sized six point up on a ridge. The next morning we went back up into the back country to haul out the rest of his meat. They had to leave that afternoon so it worked perfectly. After getting two tires fixed on our four wheelers we drove around hay fields in the low country spotting elk. We saw several herds with some small bulls but none on public land all on private. With an hour of dark left I spotted a herd of 14 with a small 5 x5. They were on the edge of some hay fields close to some public property. They were pretty spooky so I just walked up the wooden pole fence stood up on it and waived my hat. They spooked, jumped the fence on to public land. After making sure it was public land with a local landowner and friend I made ready to shoot. The herd was about 300 yards away in the open sage brush. I got a good rest on this wooden fence. But I had the fever, it wasn't a big bull but I was so excited I was shaking. So I took my first shot and missed by a mile. The herd spooked and the bull stopped another 50 yards away. This time I took my 2nd rest and I wasn't nervous, I was solid as a rock. At 350 yards I took my second shot aiming right at the upper 3/4 part of the shoulder. I heard it hit him, he ran about 50 yards and dropped. The land owner with us called a couple of friends and helped us load it into the truck. Not the biggest set of antlers but he had a good sized body. But the main goal I had with this hunt was to fill the freezer I had just bought about 2 weeks before the season. It worked out perfectly.

Random deer picture

This is a deer I shot on a late hunt in unit 69. I hunted for almost 2 weeks and saw on average 100 head a day but no really good bucks. On the last day of the we had seen this buck up above the Ririe Reservoir. He was in CRP grounds that had grown to about 5 to 6 ft tall with small quake patches spread through it. My dad drove his truck through the CRP around the patches and we would shoot a .22 into each patch. Finally we found the patch he was hiding in. He had about 15 does. We drove around the patch to try and cut him off. I hopped in the back of the truck so I could see other wise standing in the CRP I couldn't see a thing. We drove up on a little draw and saw him come up out of it about fifty yards. I didn't hesitate. Aimed and shot once just as he disappeared over a small hill. We drove up to where I thought I shot him. We then tried to track him for 1 hr. Then finally found him 10 yards in front of the truck. The CRP was that bad. It was a good medium buck but with all the deer I saw in that area there should have been bigger bucks.

Carp Fishing with my bow

Here is a few random photos of carp fishing on Blackfoot Reservoir. They spawn every June. It's hit and miss. But if your lucky and time it right it can be a real hoot. On average a carp would weigh around 15-18 pounds. They put up a real fight especially if you get 2 with one arrow.

My first late bull hunt.

After years of putting in for my family's area late elk hunt I finally drew. It only took 10 or 12 years. It was a fun time. Some of the best hunting I have seen since I was little and there weren't hunters everywhere. We were in the back country. There were elk everywhere. We went to bed at night listening to elk bugle. My dad screwed up and shot a small six on the first day. While my cousin shot a huge 7x7 up the canyon I wanted to go up. I passed up 4 or 5 bulls a day. Finally one day on a all day hunt we were moving in on some bulls bugling. We moved in to about fifty yards from a bull and 8 or 10 cows. The little herd moved right toward us. I had a cow and a calf 5 yards from me and the bull was about 40 yards away in thick timber. I couldn't see him but my dad said he was about a 300 bull. We were sitting there listening to him rake a tree and expecting the cow and calf a few feet away to finally figure out what we were laying on the ground in front of them. That's when we heard it. A huge growl from down in the canyon on the other side of the herd in front of us. I looked back at my dad mouthed to him, "that's the bull I want." A few minutes later the cow and calf in front of me smelled us and the whole herd took off. My dad asked me again if I wanted to shoot the 300 bull and I said no. I wanted the growler. So, we let the 300 bull go and dropped down in the canyon above the big bull. The problem was this was no dumb bull. There is a reason some of them get so big. He always stayed in the timber and his cows were alway out in front of him. We could never get a look at him and every time we tried to move in on him we always run into his cows and they would all spook. We chased him all that day and never even seen him. We started back to camp with about 1 hr of light left. When we heard a bull bugling above camp which was pretty common. He sounded decent. So I decided to leave my dad in the dust and run the 1.5 mile above camp to check out this bull. I made with just a few minutes of light left. The bull was in a sagebrush park about 150 yards above me. Looking at him through my scope with just enough light I saw his last point was good and long. I only had 2 more days left to hunt so I decided to take him. Even though at the time I couldn't see good enough to realize the last point that was so long ended up to be the bull's 5th point. It was a 5x6. Anyway, I got a rest on my knee took aim and fired. He dropped immediately and I ran up the hill and finished him off with another shot. He still scored close to 300 even though he was only a 5x6. By far it was one of my favorite hunts. I don't think I have gotten into so many elk before and passed up so many bulls. Unfortunately this unit we hunt has gone down hill since then. They have increased the tags from 100 to 250 so finding large bulls is a lot harder.