Ahh, its not done!! Plenty of opportunity for a last ditch effort to plaster another layer of crazy onto a pretty epic season of crazy. I'd bet the hardest part is being properly motivated to engage the crazy button hard enough this late in the season :D.
Without reviving a 10+ page discussion, I chamber a round if I'm in country holding critters. That may be right out of the truck, or waiting until moving through an easement etc, just depends.
I will say this, with a round chambered I am constantly checking my safety and very focused on muzzle...
Ahh but would you have learned as much?
Mistakes are amazing teaching tools, and for what it's worth, I'm personally finding way more value in them than I used to.
Huh, thats actually a really good question, one I haven't really thought about.
Where legal, I've always picked up antlers/deadheads, so that's the best answer I can give really. In this case the carcass had sat for better part of a month, and not in a hard-to-get-to spot, so the proper owner...
Thanksgiving Family visit/tagalong hunt
Spent Saturday morning "helping" BiL Brian look for a muley for is remaining tag.
Took along Caleb to help retrieve some "treasure" (a spike elk carcass from the general elk season where the hunter had left the head intact and taken all the meat).
Nice...
Got in a late afternoon hunt today. Been wanting to get out for a longer day but final winter prep on the house and a fun 2nd round of a cold slowed me down a bit.
Was a great quick trip, bumped a handful of does on my target ridge and cut some good sized buck tracks on the way up the hill.
Annual Central Idaho whitetail hunt: The rest of the story
The next morning Tim and I cooked up some hang-over hash for the whole crew. Both Tim and I packed up our stuff and headed home, leaving Andy, Felicia, Rod and Jeff for the remainder of the season.
Jeff had been trying his hand at...
Annual Central Idaho whitetail hunt: Day 3
Brian was planning to head home later in the morning with Andy & Felicia showing up sometime later that afternoon.
Tim & his son dropped back into the ridge we started on the day before. The did turn up the small 4x4 that had been on Brian's camera...
Annual Central Idaho whitetail hunt: Day 2
Brian, Tim & his son and I headed back down the ridge where Brian had taken his buck 2 days before.
Brian had set a camera on an active scrape. We checked the camera which had a small 2-1/2yr old 4x4, a couple does and a little tiny spike on it mostly...
Annual Central Idaho whitetail hunt: Day 1
The next day Brian and I took the day to head into a drainage none of our party had hunted yet, getting greeted with a tiny bit of snow first thing.
We looped way around the drainage on a closed road.
Sign was hit and miss, we did turn up some...
Annual Central Idaho whitetail hunt: Travel day
Our motley crew of friends and family started making our way to our annual whitetail camp last Thursday. Andy's dad and uncle were in the lead position to camp, to be passed in the wee hours of the morning by my BIL Brian :D.
Brian hit the woods...
Like the others are saying, dig in and enjoy the hunt and the country and learn a bunch!
The other guys will do their thing and they can wonder why someone would be crazy to put so much effort into elk hunting ;).
I did read it all, some of which you did mention in prior posts, so good stuff!
Its clear the cart was built for this particular spot (cow trails, lovely cacti etc). I'm personally applying the concept to some of my hunting ground (inland northwest close roads with plenty of logs to roll over...