I had the great fortune to be able to spend a great deal of the past six weeks hunting for antelope, deer, and elk. It has been a great season so far, with a lot of great success and the opportunity to see a lot of God’s Country. I wish the photos were better, but I only had my phone this year for a camera…
I did not take an antelope this year. We found a huge buck that was spending his time on private property and we tried to obtain permission to hunt, but were denied. We spent a lot of time hunting that immediate area and watching him and trying to get lucky by catching him on the public, but never got the opportunity. This buck was the biggest antelope buck I have ever seen on the hoof!
Opening morning yielded a pack out of a good deer that a friend shot. That afternoon, we sat on our typical meadow where we spot from. This place never yields an opportunity to shoot from, but is a great place to glass from and formulate a plan to make a move on a deer. This afternoon, we found this buck and I got to shoot him from where I first sat down.
315 yards, perfect shot. Spent the next several hours packing him out and got back to camp well into the night.
This photo doesn't pick up that fifth, but its a nice photo.
The elk hunt took a tremendous more amount of time. I drew a great limited quota bull tag this year and had the opportunity to get a monster. The weather never really cooperated for us and we saw a ton of great bulls, but never in a position where we could effectively make a move on them. We had several days of tremendous wind. Watching the weather reports, sustained winds of 65mph and gusts to 85mph. How does one hold for wind like that? Despite it being in the 60’s and being dressed very well, with the wind like it was, I still froze my ass off at times. Wind like that just makes everything miserable. Its impossible to be still for glassing, constant dust, blurry eyes, etc. But, we persevered through it and finally on the morning of day 12 of a 14 day season, we had our first opportunity. He's not the toad I wanted, but still a very good bull, and it was time to make something happen as the season was about to close.
375 yards, steep uphill. Perfect shot.
This is where he stopped after sliding down the hill about 30 yards due to the steepness. That's the entrance hole...
Spent all day getting him packed out. Was very tired by evening!
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