The Hunting Times

That damn alarm went off again at 4:45. But we laid around and did not get out until about 6:30. We drove out to the Lower Roan Creek area via DeBeque. There were many more hunters today. Maybe the cold snap brought out the elk! Sure enough, as we rounded a bend, there were 3 large bulls about 50 yards off the road. They bolted south and stopped by the creek at 120 yards. An easy shot for Super Hunters like us. Two problems though: 1) we do not have bull tags and 2) they were on private land. We took lots of pictures though. Shot them with a camera instead of a gun. We drove up the road a bit and stopped to get our gear ready (guns out and orange on). We were standing at the tailgate and a truck pulled up. Fella was Rod Graham and runs his own guide business. He said, "I hope you boys don't plan on hunting here." No, we assured him, we were just getting ready. We showed him our GPS and how we could tell what was public versus private land. We also told him th...

Oh what a long day. It's 10 pm local time and we just got back from dinner. We did sleep in a bit this morning. Up at 6 and out by 7. Suppose that was a good thing though as Phil jumped a lady at the gas station. No, you perverts, not that kind of jump. Her Jeep had a dead battery. So we three Eagle Scouts did our good turn for the day. We topped off the tank and bought a gas station breakfast. Seems that our Nissan Pathfinder passes everything but a gas station. Geordie told a funny story this morning. He said that Re-Phil and I had a snoring contest at about 10:45 last night. I'm sure our wives would agree, but personally, I did not hear a thing. I think Geordie is a Big Liar. Re-Phil says that's what Geordie gets for wearing us old men out. Geordie got out his ear plugs so that he could go back to sleep. He's threatening to film us tonight if we do it again. We drove up to Douglass Pass and spotted 4 mulie bucks that we stopped and took pictures of on th...

Got up again this morning at 4:45. Re-Phil was already in the shower. Said he couldn't sleep. I did not have that problem. Rolled out at 5:30. We were on top of the ridge by 7:30, trying to spot the elk. Sure enough, by 8:30, they were walking back up the opposite ridge, exactly where they've been the past two days. We headed back to the truck and drove around the top of the mountain. We parked and headed S. We were three ridges away at the head of Roan Creek. Elk are on that ridge somewhere. We walked down, up, around, down again, back up and across the top to make it to the opposite ridge of the elk. We arrived at 11. It was very difficult terrain. About 350 feet up and down across shale. We glassed for elk. Nothing. So we ate lunch. We glassed some more. Nothing, but we did hear a bugle. We were still glassing when the snow started. It got down to 29F with lots of wind and very little visibility. Snowing on the way out. Note lack of visibility. We walked b...

I'm disliking that alarm more and more each day. It went off again at 4:45 this morning. We got up and took quick showers. Hit the road at 5:45 and gassed up at Loma. We spotted a coyote crossing Douglas Pass. We arrived at the top of the mountain at 7:30. We headed off the E face to glass the elk again. They were going up the ridge exactly where they came down last night. That's two ridge lines to our east and about 2000 feet of elevation change. We decided that we would attempt to get at them from the bottom. As we walked out, we met two other hunters, a man and wife. Marc and Ginn are from California. They are camping on top. This is Marc's fourth trip out and he is carrying a bull tag. Ginn just retired and is on her first hunt. They saw the same elk we did last night, but are unwilling to walk that far. We drove over to DeBeque and ate lunch. We headed up Roan Creek Road. We made it 20 miles up the canyon before reaching a locked gate. We were still abo...

The alarm went off way too early this morning. We were all sleeping very well. Up at 4:45. Left hotel at 5:33. Kinda windy today. Parked the truck at 7:01. Promptly took a wrong turn. Headed out and down. Got to see a beautiful sunrise. At 8:30 we heard a bull bugle. We could tell it was E and in front of us, but not how far. We stopped for an hour to see if any elk moved up toward us. Nothing. We cut across a S face on an elk trail that switched back. We hung out in an Aspen grove until 2:30. Told stories, ate lunch, and even broke out some iTunes, which I think goes against all hunting rules. We came back out on point and sat both sides, hoping to get a shot as the elk headed down to feed. Geordie saw a roosting hawk and called us over to see. Then he came over to ask if we heard another bugle. We did not. Next thing you know, Geordie is hollering. We ran over. He had spotted an elk. He talked us through landmarks until we could see it. We glassed for an hour and s...

Got up this morning at 5:30. Left hotel at 6:11. Arrived at destination at 7:40. Ninety minutes to go 65 miles. The last 10 miles takes 30 minutes - yeah, the roads are that tough. We busted S down a drain wash. It was STEEP and ROCKY. Re-Phil came close to going over the cliff. Said that was his worse nightmare. Check out our climb. Really, this does not do the area justice. A little better. But look back up. Took 2 hours to get to our home base. We were about half way down the hill, or 600 feet below top grade of 8500 feet. We glasses for several hours but never saw an elk. We left the mountain at 4 after planning our attack for tomorrow. We headed almost straight up. Well, the range finder said it was a 38 degree incline. It was tough climbing, but we did it in about 1:15. We saw 3 more mulies on the way out and got some good pics. Gonna be an early one tomorrow. Geordie climbing out. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Location: Crossroads Blvd,Grand Junction,United...

Well we slept in this morning, which for us was 8 o'clock. We all took showers and then hit Denny's for breakfast. We drove down to Safeway to get lunch items for our packs. We also got a 12 pack of Modello. We then headed W to Loma and SR 139. Then we headed N. We stopped along Douglass Pass for a photo op. That's where we just came from. Facing SE. Our turn off to come back E to our GMU is marked by a large barn. Should be easy to find tomorrow morning. We only made one wrong turn getting to the high gate. Well done for noobs like us. We parked and hiked around with our packs. Had a shore lunch and then back to the truck for more scouting. Noob elk hunters loaded for bear. Notice the awesome weather! We drove as far E as we could and then headed back, checking all pull offs as we came W. At our second pull off, here comes the CO. We initiated contact by exiting the truck without weapons. We volunteered our licenses and he validated them. We chit-chatted for ...

Got up at 3:15 this morning so we could hit the airport by 5:30. No issues checking in our rifles, but by habit I put my pocket knife, you guessed it, in my pocket. I was hoping that it would somehow get through security, but they found it. I was told I have two choices: mail it home for $18 or throw it away. No way my $100 Spyderco was getting tossed. Oh but wait, I have checked firearms. TSA kindly took my knife and locked it up with my gun. Sweet! Arrived in DIA at 7:30 local time, two hours behind Indiana. No pick-up trucks for rent, so we settled for a Nissan Pathfinder. Hey, at least it's 4-wheel drive. Geordie drove the four hours to Grand Junction and we checked into our hotel. We ate at a local Thai restaurant, which was awesome eats! The weather here is absolutely fabulous. It's full sun and 70 degrees F. Awesome! We hit up the local Cabelas for some supplies and called meat processors to check on pricing. Returned to the hotel and plan an early dinner so we ...

Geordie, Re-Phil and I were fortunate enough to get drawn for cow (female) elk tags in Game Management Unit (GMU) 31 in Colorado.  We have been planning this trip for three years now. We are flying into Denver, renting a pickup truck, and driving to Grand Junction.  Our GMU is NE of Grand Junction.  We do have a hotel reserved in GJ.  Thus, we will be driving up to our unit and back every day.  The bonus is that we will be staying in SOFT BEDS each night. We do not have any private land secured, so we will be hunting on public land.  Our hope is that most folks are hunting for bulls or not willing to walk down the mountain to find the cows.  We do intend to spend time hiking. Here's a map that I have loaded onto my Garmin eTrex Venture showing public (or BLM) land. The yellow indicates public land - where we can hunt. The white is private and we are not allowed on that land. Grand Junction is off the map, down towards the lower left. We f...

It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The ...

Had a Lodge meeting on Monday, so could not hunt then. Kathy and Alex came up Tuesday, so we hit Marshall / Neal again. After the below picture, Nick headed to the W stand on Neal. Kathy and Alex split the Marshall / Boyd / Neal property line and I waited at the truck. Alex, Nick, and Kathy are ready to hunt. We arrived at 5 pm.  It was 68 F when we left the house, but 67 F by the time we hit the woods. The wind was blowing pretty well.  The screen shot says 2 mph with gusts to 18 mph.  It felt more like sustained 15 mph winds to me.  The winds are mostly from the S-SE, blowing to the NW.  This is definitely in my favor as I intended to stalk towards the E. Screen shot of weather conditions at 5:15 pm on 10/16/2012 After 20 mins, I slowly started across Marshall's standing corn at a diagonal towards the NE Killing Finger.  I moved only when the wind blew (which was fairly often) to cover my sound. The corn rows are planted ...

Took the time to sleep in - catching up on some much needed rest. Besides, the wind is HOWLING at over 40 mph today.  Nice that it's 70 F though. Nick says if we shot in the crosswind, we'd actually have to aim where the deer are NOT so that our arrows would be blown into them. Yeah.  Gonna pass on that. Lodge tomorrow (Monday), so I suspect no hunting for deer. Our elk hunting trip is coming up Friday, so I only have a few more days to put another one in the freezer for a while.

Kathy & Alex arrived about 6:30 am. Nick, Alex, and I headed to Neal / Marshall. Alex went to the W stand to try and get out of the wind. Nick went to the E stand. I headed to the Marshall / Boyd N property line and sat over the north bottoms. Back in the woods, out of the wind, it was actually a pretty nice morning. The sun rose at 7:44 am.  We were in the woods before legal shooting light.  In fact, it was so dark that I loaded the wrong bolt - I put in the field tip, but noticed before I hit the woods. At 9:00, I had not even seen a bird.  I was ready to leave.  I stood up to stretch and look around.  At that time, I saw a 6-point buck coming along the trail from the E in the bottoms.  He was going to cross broadside at 40 yards, but at a steep decline.  However, if he took the left trail, he would cross broadside at 10 yards.  The wind was not in my favor.  Didn't matter, as the buck took the right and headed away from me. ...

Drove back up to Young America and picked up the doe. Stopped by Char & DC's to visit. Came home and cooked a huge pot of chili for Saturday. Kathy & Alex are coming up tomorrow morning to hunt.

I had to work late today as it was our global day of service.  Thus, I returned late and hauled the doe up to Simpson's in Young America for processing instead of hunting.  It will be ready tomorrow afternoon and I shall pick up after work. So instead of any hunting stories, I thought I would share with you a limerick that a fellow blog reader has supplied after reading these posts.  He did not say "Don't" but did also not bless this publishing.  So here it is, without permission and left anonymous....I'm pretty sure it's not trademarked or copy writed....enjoy Craig Now Seager, with daughter and son Decided to go have some fun; All dressed up in camo With lots of fresh ammo They each chose their favorite gun.   Alex had asked to go too, For him this was all something new; Quite lacking in skill He could not land a kill ‘Cos his shots were all going askew.   They thought Re-Phil and Davey were there; From their text they sho...

Finally.  Finally after 10 straight days of hunting, the good Lord put a second deer within range.  I did not bungle this opportunity.  Read on for the full story... Re-Phil showed up at 4:30.  We parked on the MJBT and walked in through Jenkins' standing corn.  This first picture is me in the S stand on Jenkins.  The truck is parked at the wood line ALL THE WAY in the back of the picture.  Yes it was quite a hike through standing corn... In S stand facing E.  The truck is parked at the trees in the background. It was 54 degrees F.  And if you thought the wind was bad yesterday, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Today was a steady 16 mph "breeze" with gusts in excess of 32 mph.  Today, however, I found a stand out of the wind.  Originally we thought we could park on the golf course and walk in from the W, as it's closer.  Seems there were golfers on the course - those idiots are dumber than we hunters.  Who coul...

Since the corn was being picked on the farm W of Neal's on Monday, Re-Phil and I decided to test our luck in the two stands on Neal.  I had to work late and did not arrive until 4:10 pm.  We changed clothes and headed out.  I was on stand at 5:00 pm.  I climbed up the E stand (new one) and Re-Phil took the W stand (installed several years ago).  This was decided because the E stand is more open, and I have a greater range with my crossbow than Re-Phil has with his recurve crossbow.  Mistake - more open equals more wind can blow through - and that's exactly what it did. Check out this screen shot from my phone.  60 F.  16 mph wind, with gusts to 28 mph.  Yep, that's THE definition of windy.  Now, everybody get out your wind chill charts. 25 - 30 mph winds drop the temperature 12 - 14 degrees.  That means it was FEELING like it was somewhere around 46 or 48 degrees.  Try sitting is gale force winds at 48 degrees F for 2.5 hour...

Tonight, Kathy and Alex came up to hunt again.  We headed for Neal / Marshall at 4:45.  It was 57 degrees and sunny.  As you can see from the picture, not too cloudy.  Kathy used the crossbow tonight and I took my horse bow out.  I had forgotten how light it was - especially compared to the crossbow. Kathy and Alex ready to go afield.  Kathy is holding my horse bow outfitted with snake skin camo. And, it was a far cry from this morning, where the temperature was 29 degrees F.  Yikes! Look closely, that's my truck reading 29 F this morning at 6:26 am. Neal's beans were being finished tonight, so once again I sent Kathy and Alex to the Boyd / Marshall / Neal line next to the standing corn.  I stalked around the edge of the entire corn field.  Just for the record, it is nearly impossible without some serious skills to stalk a standing corn field when it's dry.  Holy cow - I sounded like a herd of elephants in there.  ...

Re-Phil showed up at my place at 6:35.  We loaded our gear and headed for the golf course.  As we parked, there were 3 deer feeding between the club house and pond on Hole #17.  We watched them until 7 am.  It's fairly cold today - freeze advisory cold - 37 F.  A slight breeze from the NW at 6 mph. Re-Phil headed up Hole #18's fairway and jumped into the woods to the W of where we'd seen the deer.  I booked around Hole #9, down #5's fairway, and then settled down on Hole #15.  The deer were now between us. The woods came alive with all kinds of birds and squirrels.  Those little piney's sure are noisy critters.  At 8:10 I had a doe run W down #16's fairway.  I could only see her silhouette. Four minutes later, a deer rounded the corner, exactly where I thought they should come out - W of me and traveling to the E. I was out in the open on the course, but tucked up next to a large sycamore tree.  This large doe stopped and look...

No body else can hunt today, Saturday, Oct 6.  So, I headed out to Neal's W stand by myself at 3:15.  Wind was blowing a steady 18 mph.  It's 43 degrees. The corn was coming out S of Marshall's, across the road.  Farmer said he saw two coyotes, but no deer.  I said, Me neither. I was in location at 3:45.  I saw 3 squirrels and some crows.  I heard an owl.  But I can tell you where the deer are NOT located.  Anywhere I've been the last week. I stood as long as possible and then sat down.  Remember all the rain from yesterday?  Well, now some very sensitive parts of my lower body are wet.  Yes, I was cold.  I stuck it out until 7:45 but saw nothing but a beautiful sunset.  From stand, facing SE. From stand, facing SW.  Sunset as I walked out.

It's Friday, day 5 of October and Indiana's Archery Hunting Season. Re-Phil came over at 4:45 and we headed for the golf course.  It was raining and 42 degrees out.  And when I say it was raining, I mean it was RAINING... We parked at Deer Track and walked the golf course back to the E end.  Re-Phil and Nick walked in the woods behind Hole #6.  Re-Phil took the big platform stand and Nick took the willows.  I walked into the woods behind Hole #7 and stood on a ridge.  It continued to rain. Nick saw a squirrel.  I saw a raccoon.  Nick got wet and cold quickly, so took to stalking the willows.  It got dark early in the woods due to the cloud cover.  I called "Uncle" at 7:10.  I couldn't see anything, my hands were numb, and I was wet.  I walked out.  Nick was right behind me.  We took a picture under the awning at the restrooms on Hole #7 and then we headed to the truck. Re-Phil had too many clothes on to feel...

Kathy, Alex and I headed back out to Neal / Marshall Farms.  It was warm, like 74 F.  But, the wind was really blowing, 20 mph from the S-SW.  The beans were being picked on Neal, so Kathy and Alex headed to the Neal / Boyd / Marshall property line to hole up (farther E than the stands) while I headed to the bottoms. I was ready to pack it in at 7:20 when my phone vibrated that I had a call.  Seems that Kathy had grunted in the ubiquitous 6-pointer and Alex shot him.  My directions to them were to mark their location and the location of the buck and then leave - meet me at the truck. We grabbed flashlights and headed back out to track in the dark.  The buck was broadside at 12 yards when Alex let his compound go.  The arrow hit a little high, behind the shoulder.  The recovered arrow was broken off right at the broad head.  No blood or hair could be found. We tracked the buck (following prints) for nearly 40 yards (in the dark, mind you) b...

Re-Phil, Nick and I went out to Jenkins' place this afternoon.  I dropped them off at the old parking place at 4:30.  We were greeted by the new home owner and his black lab. Wind is blowing from the SW at a steady 12 mph, with gusts to 17 mph.  It is however sunny and 67 F. I parked on the Mulberry-Jefferson blacktop and walked back to the little finger.  Those two walked to the stands at the NE (Re-Phil) and Willows (Nick).  Of course our new friend, the black lab, followed them the entire way. The wind was nowhere near those two as they were protected by the woods.  So, they got to fight mosquitoes all night.  Me?  I had so much wind rustling the corn that a deer could have walked within 2 feet of me and I would not have heard it. Re-Phil saw 2 doe ab out 75 yards W of him.  They never passed Nick, so we're guessing they went toward the golf course. We're not getting any shots, but hey, it beats working for a living. Nick and Re-...