seeth07
Well-known member
It's sure going to be a really tough task to try and top what my wife and I were able to all experience in 2022. It sure was a very memorable year in the outdoors where we got to experience a lot of different and new things.
The highlight for me hands down was finally being able to knock down a beautiful bull can. Every year for the last 5 or so years I take one weekend and head to the largest concentration of migrating cans in North America that is only about 3 hours away from my house with hopes and dreams of bagging one. We always do great on getting ducks but our locations, setup and impatience has always kept them safe from my barrel. Until this fall. It finally happened and its by and far my most prized duck ever harvested. He was an absolute stud and went to my taxidermist right away.
If you ask my wife, her highlight will without a doubt be the harvest of her first elk with the bow. It was a very emotional hunt with lots of failed attempts including 3 on the bull she finally got on our 4th try. I couldn't have been more happy and proud of her for making that great 45 yard shot especially because I know I couldn't have.
So whats on deck for 2023? There is quite a bit already planned and we dont even have a single draw result yet. Hopefully we are stuck once again with trying to figure out how we are going to squeeze a bunch of great tag opportunities with the vacation time we have. Its mostly my vacation time as its way more limited than my wife due to her 7 on and 7 off schedule. This year it helps as a bonus for my 10 year anniversery my company gave me 5 bonus vacation days!
First week of March - We rented a home on Bowstring Lake in northern MN for a few days of ice fishing and hanging out with friends and family. Its an 8 bedroom mansion and right now we have 11 people commited to going and hoping pick up a couple or two more.
Middle of June - We pulled the trigger on booking my absolute number 1 dream hunt. We are headed to Argentina for a 3 day waterfowl hunt followed up with a 3 day hunt for axis deer and blackbuck. In total its a 10 day trip.
Long 4th of July weekend - Our typical camping trip with family on a northern WI lake to fish and hang out around the campfire eating some great food.
End of December - We are heading back again to New Mexico to waterfowl hunt. Go back and read from my 2022 hunt log and it should be easy to understand why we want to do this again.
There is nothing special in my home state we are planning on. We each got a turkey tag in the draw and with landowner preference we receive now from our property purchase last January, we both qualify for a guanunteed first choice now. We missed our bear tag last year so this year we had no choice but to put in for points only since its a dog first year. We will draw our tag 100% next year with 11 points. Typical waterfowl and deer hunting as usual.
For draw hunts out west, we are again taking the swing for the fense approach. We already have 2 trips planned and we allot for three 7 to 9 day trips each. With my bonus 5 days this year we may be able to sneak in 4. Hope is to draw jusy one of those swing for the fence type hunts and odds and history with that approach should get us one.
I do want to burn my Wyoming elk points though. The unit we wanted to save for and hunt when we bought point number 1(almost ten years ago) sort of got ruined by point creep and the fact that my wife lost her points last year from her draw. I could wait the next 4 to 5 years it would likely take to draw that tag but I'm really leaning to just use my points and go now so I'm reset to a closer point total as my wife in case WY ever decides to get rid of point averaging. I'm looking at a hunt where I know two people that succeded on it last year and it has everything I want in an elk hunting experience - mega type 2 fun type of stuff. My wife said she won't go so that is weighing on my mind as I know she would like to come help with my tag choice. We could also average this year and get a general tag. That's also on the mind but I don't actually have a specific general spot in mind so that makes it tough to do it. I'm also not a huge fan of us having two elk tags.
We do want to get the annual NE deer hunt back on the calendar too. We skipped last year due to the area we hunt being closed down due to fire. Not sure how comfortable I feel yet about going to a spot that burned so bad just a year later. Might be wasted time, need to wait and see and try to get some fresh intel in summer from the biologist hopefully.
Lastly, if we don't end up drawing anything, our fallback plan for the last 5 years now has been to try and draw in SD. We both have almost max points for West River deer, antelope and Custer cow bison. Due to the cubed system, our draw odds are actually not getting better due to the absolute rediculous amount people that have jumped in over the last 4 years. Its super cheap to keep adding points every year so we will continue to do so until we draw and then likely never apply again. Its very convienant at least with their draws being so late that we can make it our back up plan each year.
Some goals for this year:
1) More photos. I always regret reviewing my album after a trip and saying to myself "I wish I would have gotten of photo of that". I also need to take my time and take better photos and videos. Basically I'm a horrible photographer and need to do better!
2) Embrace my wife's growing love for waterfowl. This last year she really started to get into it and I'm positive that part of it is because she finally has some gear that keeps her more comfortable while doing it. She finally has a pair of womens waders. She finally has a shotgun that properly fits her. She finally has neoprene gloves to help set and pick up. She got into calling. I didn't make her walk through a mile of muck to get to the secret spot just to shoot 2 ducks. However, with that much helping, there were still times when I chose to take my kayak or walk deep through hellholes to go duck hunting and she didn't or couldn't as a result of where I wanted to hunt. If my wife can and wants to go, need to make it work for her rather than be selfish and go solo.
3) Enjoy Argentina to the fullest extent. Wait, what? How could I not enjoy it? Well, I've been on 2 guided waterfowl hunts and a guided moose/caribou hunt in Canada and all three times I didn't let myself experience them for what they were. I hate not being in control and I really do not like following someone on a hunt. I like to figure it all out myself and enjoy the rewards at the end so much more. Well, that isn't really how it often works on a guided hunt and I just need to accept and tell myself that its ok to hit the "easy" button on this and enjoy being spoiled with the experience. If I can do that I feel that I will overall enjoy the experience more.
4) Meet and have a beer in camp or a bar with a member of the Hunt Talk crew. This last year I got to actually meet a few members and time was just never actually made to sit down and swap stories, experiences and share a few brewskis. There are so many great, like minded people on this forum and I'd love to meet more of them along our way. My home in WI is always open as well to anyone passing through this way! Hell maybe I'll end up meeting @BuzzH and he'll see that I'm actually a pretty decent guy
I hope you will all enjoy following along this year. I'm doing this in part for selfesh reasons to log all of our experiences someplace that we can always go back and enjoy them ourselves or share with friends but I'm also hoping that it provides some entertainment and knowledge to those as well that care to read.
The highlight for me hands down was finally being able to knock down a beautiful bull can. Every year for the last 5 or so years I take one weekend and head to the largest concentration of migrating cans in North America that is only about 3 hours away from my house with hopes and dreams of bagging one. We always do great on getting ducks but our locations, setup and impatience has always kept them safe from my barrel. Until this fall. It finally happened and its by and far my most prized duck ever harvested. He was an absolute stud and went to my taxidermist right away.
If you ask my wife, her highlight will without a doubt be the harvest of her first elk with the bow. It was a very emotional hunt with lots of failed attempts including 3 on the bull she finally got on our 4th try. I couldn't have been more happy and proud of her for making that great 45 yard shot especially because I know I couldn't have.
So whats on deck for 2023? There is quite a bit already planned and we dont even have a single draw result yet. Hopefully we are stuck once again with trying to figure out how we are going to squeeze a bunch of great tag opportunities with the vacation time we have. Its mostly my vacation time as its way more limited than my wife due to her 7 on and 7 off schedule. This year it helps as a bonus for my 10 year anniversery my company gave me 5 bonus vacation days!
First week of March - We rented a home on Bowstring Lake in northern MN for a few days of ice fishing and hanging out with friends and family. Its an 8 bedroom mansion and right now we have 11 people commited to going and hoping pick up a couple or two more.
Middle of June - We pulled the trigger on booking my absolute number 1 dream hunt. We are headed to Argentina for a 3 day waterfowl hunt followed up with a 3 day hunt for axis deer and blackbuck. In total its a 10 day trip.
Long 4th of July weekend - Our typical camping trip with family on a northern WI lake to fish and hang out around the campfire eating some great food.
End of December - We are heading back again to New Mexico to waterfowl hunt. Go back and read from my 2022 hunt log and it should be easy to understand why we want to do this again.
There is nothing special in my home state we are planning on. We each got a turkey tag in the draw and with landowner preference we receive now from our property purchase last January, we both qualify for a guanunteed first choice now. We missed our bear tag last year so this year we had no choice but to put in for points only since its a dog first year. We will draw our tag 100% next year with 11 points. Typical waterfowl and deer hunting as usual.
For draw hunts out west, we are again taking the swing for the fense approach. We already have 2 trips planned and we allot for three 7 to 9 day trips each. With my bonus 5 days this year we may be able to sneak in 4. Hope is to draw jusy one of those swing for the fence type hunts and odds and history with that approach should get us one.
I do want to burn my Wyoming elk points though. The unit we wanted to save for and hunt when we bought point number 1(almost ten years ago) sort of got ruined by point creep and the fact that my wife lost her points last year from her draw. I could wait the next 4 to 5 years it would likely take to draw that tag but I'm really leaning to just use my points and go now so I'm reset to a closer point total as my wife in case WY ever decides to get rid of point averaging. I'm looking at a hunt where I know two people that succeded on it last year and it has everything I want in an elk hunting experience - mega type 2 fun type of stuff. My wife said she won't go so that is weighing on my mind as I know she would like to come help with my tag choice. We could also average this year and get a general tag. That's also on the mind but I don't actually have a specific general spot in mind so that makes it tough to do it. I'm also not a huge fan of us having two elk tags.
We do want to get the annual NE deer hunt back on the calendar too. We skipped last year due to the area we hunt being closed down due to fire. Not sure how comfortable I feel yet about going to a spot that burned so bad just a year later. Might be wasted time, need to wait and see and try to get some fresh intel in summer from the biologist hopefully.
Lastly, if we don't end up drawing anything, our fallback plan for the last 5 years now has been to try and draw in SD. We both have almost max points for West River deer, antelope and Custer cow bison. Due to the cubed system, our draw odds are actually not getting better due to the absolute rediculous amount people that have jumped in over the last 4 years. Its super cheap to keep adding points every year so we will continue to do so until we draw and then likely never apply again. Its very convienant at least with their draws being so late that we can make it our back up plan each year.
Some goals for this year:
1) More photos. I always regret reviewing my album after a trip and saying to myself "I wish I would have gotten of photo of that". I also need to take my time and take better photos and videos. Basically I'm a horrible photographer and need to do better!
2) Embrace my wife's growing love for waterfowl. This last year she really started to get into it and I'm positive that part of it is because she finally has some gear that keeps her more comfortable while doing it. She finally has a pair of womens waders. She finally has a shotgun that properly fits her. She finally has neoprene gloves to help set and pick up. She got into calling. I didn't make her walk through a mile of muck to get to the secret spot just to shoot 2 ducks. However, with that much helping, there were still times when I chose to take my kayak or walk deep through hellholes to go duck hunting and she didn't or couldn't as a result of where I wanted to hunt. If my wife can and wants to go, need to make it work for her rather than be selfish and go solo.
3) Enjoy Argentina to the fullest extent. Wait, what? How could I not enjoy it? Well, I've been on 2 guided waterfowl hunts and a guided moose/caribou hunt in Canada and all three times I didn't let myself experience them for what they were. I hate not being in control and I really do not like following someone on a hunt. I like to figure it all out myself and enjoy the rewards at the end so much more. Well, that isn't really how it often works on a guided hunt and I just need to accept and tell myself that its ok to hit the "easy" button on this and enjoy being spoiled with the experience. If I can do that I feel that I will overall enjoy the experience more.
4) Meet and have a beer in camp or a bar with a member of the Hunt Talk crew. This last year I got to actually meet a few members and time was just never actually made to sit down and swap stories, experiences and share a few brewskis. There are so many great, like minded people on this forum and I'd love to meet more of them along our way. My home in WI is always open as well to anyone passing through this way! Hell maybe I'll end up meeting @BuzzH and he'll see that I'm actually a pretty decent guy
I hope you will all enjoy following along this year. I'm doing this in part for selfesh reasons to log all of our experiences someplace that we can always go back and enjoy them ourselves or share with friends but I'm also hoping that it provides some entertainment and knowledge to those as well that care to read.