Family Man's 2022 Season Log

[jeremy.b]

Hey all,

Its been a minute since I've spent much time over here at Hunt Talk (or any forum for that matter!).

2020 Season Log
2019 Season Log
2018 Season Log

Its been a fairly constant season of change for our little family and its a good time to catch folks up!

We decided early last fall to make an attempt to make the move from Utah up to north Idaho. It took a number of miracles, including finding a place with some acreage, someone to accept an offer contingent on the sale of our place in Utah, finding a place that ALSO had decent internet service so I could work full time remote, work blessing my desire to work full time remote and somehow managing to move before serious winter set in. BUT we made it, a beautiful place on 4+ acres of woods, 20 minutes from my folks and other family, decent internet service and within 1-2 hrs of some of my old elk and deer stomping grounds! Honestly we're still a bit incredulous that it all came together...

And I made a change I've been threatening for some time... I finally ditched my previous 'helsyeah' forum username (a remnant of college days) for a bit more appropriate one!

2021 hunt recap

Anyway, 2021 was a productive hunting year all said and done. I hunted new country for turkeys in both SE Idaho (and got one!) and a newish spot in Utah where I missed a bird the last weekend of Utah's season (I found its surprisingly easy for me to miss at 5 yds when a bird shows up unexpectedly!)

I had two hunts planned for the fall, a trip to Montana to chase pronghorn with my buddy Tim (from previous adventures) and another trip to chase whitetails in Idaho in the same rough area as we did in 2020. The move had the potential to disrupt both trips, but as luck would have it, we hadn't found a place before the MT pronghorn trip and we had a long time to close on the place up here in ID so I was able to sneak in the whitetail trip as well.

Tim and I spent 4 days in MT chasing pronghorn. Tim tagged out on our second day with his first pronghorn.

I blew some shots (2 that we just don't talk about, and one that I misread a wind call on) but finally on the last day I connected with a clean stalk and shot on a smaller buck.

We had a ton of fun chasing speed goats around in country my family has hunted quite a bit in past years (just hard to draw a tag now!)

The whitetail hunt turned into a sprint up for a quick weekend hunt. We had planned the same cast of characters from 2020: Tim (who managed to come down with Covid and then couldn't make it) Warning Shot Mike (see the 2020 thread) and Andy (@Sheffield5k). New to the crew as Andy's dad Rod as well.

Mike and I had to keep our trip short so we headed up on a Friday with Andy and Rod to follow and they would stay through the following week. Mike and I hunted separate ways through Saturday. I saw a few deer as well as a couple hunters. Early afternoon found me napping perched over a small open cutting unit when this guy woke me up across a draw 60 yds away. Talk about a surprise!

I did drag Mike the 400 yds from camp to retrieve the buck, but he didn't complain too much! Neither did Andy and Rod when they showed up late that night. We took a bit of the next day visiting and getting Rod and Andy settled and then Mike and I hit the road, him to get back to work, and me to finish packing up the house and get our move on! Andy and Rod got snow after we left. Rod eventually tagged out on a small buck. Andy (who had a bit of meat in the freezer) ended up not filling his tag.

2022 Hunts and plans

Having survived the move and a decently long winter up here I've been able to spend a bunch of time scouting new country and chasing turkeys (got a bird opening morning!)

I also go to take along Brian (my sister-in-law's husband) chasing birds and got him one as well!

The rest of 2022 is waiting on hunt draws to complete and then likely lots of OTC elk (archery) and deer.

More to come!

 

[duckhunt]

Great stuff

 

[jeremy.b]

Thanks!

Well, we've gotten back our controlled hunt results.

Struck out in WY for pronghorn.

Idaho results came out tonight and Hope and I had a nice chunk of luck fall our way:

This is a rifle hunt in a unit I have some good intel on so we're super excited about that hunt! We have logistics to sort out with kids and school but with having grandparents close by and available down in southern Idaho we should have good coverage there.

I get to take along a new-to-Idaho bow hunter (Josh) this fall chasing elk, so that will be a good time. I'm sure it'll be full of the ups and downs of public land elk hunting.

I snuck in a quick elk scouting trip last weekend and got re-aquainted with inland-northwest jungle (love me some alder thickets...). Didn't find much in the way of promising sign but did find that the area WAS used by other hunters a fair amount in the past.

I have a fair amount of areas to go scout still though that might be far enough away from the beaten path to not compete with too many folks. Also striking off areas is as good as finding promising ones at this point!

 

[jeremy.b]

Season is right around the corner! Life with young kids, visiting family and general busyness keep scouting down to a minimum the last couple months.

Even with that said we got in a couple more trips, looked over some big country and found a fair amount of huckleberries!

 

[Derek44]

In for the follow. Thanks for the stories and pictures

 

[jeremy.b]

We're back for a day off before heading back out to contend with the crowds over Labor day!

Mental note, get more pictures!

The theme for this year is all about just FINDING elk. With limited scouting other than a bit of driving we are committed to being super mobile until we nail down some areas that will consistently hold elk.

Monday night we hit the road and found a camp spot near a ridge system we wanted to check out. There were only a couple other camps set up on our way in, which was encouraging!

Tuesday morning we dropped (down a nasty pitch of a face) into the drainage right outside of camp and climbed into the ridge system. We worked the area looking for sign, calling fairly sparingly since it was likely anyone on the road past camp would hear us.

We did hear a couple road buglers through the morning. Later in the day we heard one bugle that made us slow down and work a different ridge in the area. We found no elk sign though and concluded it was the first decent sounding road bugle we had heard. We DID find a TON of whitetail sign though! Freshly opened up scrapes and recent historical rubs. There is clearly a buck or two in the area so the day wasn't a complete bust.

We wrapped up the day working that different ridge back down to camp, suffering with the nasty 300 ft pitch back up to our camp... That thing wasn't fun going down or up!

We made plans to move to a different area to bugle over some huge basins before sunrise the next day (yesterday).

Yesterday morning we got going plenty early, ate breakfast, broke camp and hit the road. We had probably 45 minutes worth of driving to the new area. I say probably because we never got there...

Less than halfway we turn a corner and there are 4 elk in the road! 2 cows peel off and head up hill, we keep following the other two to get eyes on them and its another cow and a small 6x6. They peel off a different direction from the other two and we keep driving.

We were able to find a turn off fairly out of the way and grabbed our gear and walked back down to where the elk had been. From the sign it looked like the cow and bull eventually followed the 2 other cows up the hill into a set of isolated ridges and knobs. We headed further down the road to come in from a different angle into the area. Up we went on a climb that was just as nasty as the one from camp the day before! At least it was at the start of the day this time..

We eased our way onto the first knob, sounding off a location bugle but no response. We DID have a whitetail doe circle past us at 20 yds or so. Josh has never hunted whitetails (or elk, or mule deer for that matter) so if it had been a buck our day would have changed course right there! As it was she moved off and we continued working on up to the next knob, sounding off one or two more location bugles along the way with no response. We were seeing fresh elk sign as we went, so the day was already WAY more productive than Tuesday! We hit the 2nd knob and eased over it into a dark timber saddle on the back side. I sounded off a location bugle and BAM, response just 300 yds in front of us!

We heard cows calling too so there was definitely a full herd. We wanted to see where they would bed and not push them, so we looked over the saddle to find a spot to hold up and see what the herd would do. As we're moving around we heard them moving our direction. We tried to cover a couple angles but we were pretty locked down and didn't want to give our position away. Wind was fairly good unless they circled down one side of the saddle from us. Eventually they started crossing the ridge out in front of us about 50 yds away. A handful of cows filtered by, with the bull sounding off a couple times. He crossed by as well (out of range of course) and we could now tell this was a completely different herd since this was a medium sizes 5x5. A spike and the last cow eventually filtered by as well. The whole herd had no idea we were there and seemed to be headed to bed further back along the knob we had climbed up.

We gave them a couple hours to settle in, grabbed a rest and started easing our way back up and over the knob, hoping to get close enough to see if we could get the bull to come in. We crossed over the knob and eased down look for a spot to set up. Then we saw a cow get up 70 yds below us and take off... And the rest of the herd followed suit... We had the wind but they definitely saw us and they were NOT where we expected them to bed. So much for that!

We circled back to the top of the basin they had crossed after going past us and found a nice (but not recently used) wallow.

From there we knew we had only a few hours left before we needed to head back home. We side-hilled over to the next major ridge in the area (we would be able to follow it down to the truck).

Yesterday was a hot one and it was mid afternoon at that point. We cooked nicely on the way over to the other ridge. We DID find another set of elk beds though, including one bull bed. They had been used that day, so its very likely they busted us coming across (we were not exactly stealthy at that point).

We slowed down and worked the ridge back down to the truck but no more action was had. We found plenty of elk sign going down the ridge too, so the general area definitely has been holding elk!

We cleaned up in a nearby creek and hit the road back home. All said and done it was a really productive day. Josh got to hear his first live bugle and almost within bow range, so he was SUPER stoked.

We do want to keep looking for other spots though. This area is not particularly big so elk will likely move in and out of it, and with us busting stuff around we'll leave it be for a bit.

We'll head out again this weekend and see what else we might be able to dig up. At this point we'll see how it goes with the Labor Day crowds!

 

[jeremy.b]

Got in a morning hunt today. Headed up to a couple small spots my dad has chased elk in years past. The areas don't hold a ton of elk but they are around!

Unfortunately this group headed right down into private property, boo!

I dropped into a isolated closed road system, kicked up a couple whitetails and covey of grouse and decided NOT to loose my one grouse arrow shooting at one of two sitting in a tree at head height (they were this years brood too, so not huge birds).

There was some recent sign down in the area and a couple good water spots, including one that had a small (unused) wallow in it.

I took a chance and set up on the water for a bit, but after 1 1/2 hrs I couldn't sit still any more and packed it up to head out. That spot is probably a good sit in REALLY dry years, but we've had a reasonable amount of moisture this year and there is water in most drainages.

Good little hunt for the day though, and based on what I ran into for whitetails one that I'll come back to during rifle season.

 

[jeremy.b]

Saturday 9/3 Josh and I hit up two new spots. Both were fairly long shots as they are really accessable.

The first spot greeted us with a smoky sunrise.

We worked the first area but it was fairly windy and we didn't have a ton of country to cover. We did find some cat tracks, jump a couple moose and run across someone treestand for rifle season.

The second spot was an area I had found elk in back in 2014. Its another smallish area and sees lots of change due to plenty of logging each year. In this case one of the two spots we planned to check out was in the middle of getting logged.

There are elk in the general area, but we didn't have any luck turning up fresh sign.

Overall we were able to safely check the spots off the list for now.

 

[jeremy.b]

Catch up time!

Our next trip out was Saturday Sep 10th. We drove out and camped fairly close to where we got into the elk on 8/31. That evening was a bit of a smoky one!

The plan was to hunt an adjacent ridge to where we found the elk before. On the way up the ridge we found a dry wallow, first one I've seen in a LONG time.

As we worked past the wallow we heard a bugle further up the ridge. We kept a steady pace and eventually climbed up just above where the herd was at. We had a pretty good idea where they would bed and so we decided to give the thermals time to stabilize and go slip in closer and try to call the bull off his bed.

A couple hrs later we went slid down towards the suspected bedding area (trying REALLY hard not to repeat our mistake on the 31st!).

We go to a decent section of cover and cow called a couple times and the bull answered right over the ridge from us within 150 yds!

Josh got set up and I fell back a touch and started calling. The whole hillside lit up with cows and the bull talking back as I was calling. The bull had gotten up and was getting irriated at us and was making an approach.

Everything seemed to be going great, then the bull (and cows) started responding less and less and eventually it was clear they had moved off. During calling I had felt the wind shift at least once, not directly too them, but enough for them to catch us. The bull had closed to within 70 yds and was JUST over the ridge from Josh. SO close!

We hiked up to the main ridge system and found plenty of recent bull sign.

We decided to drop back down to the wallow we found the last time. Again, we waited for the swirly wind to calm down and later in the afternoon started working down to the wallow. A couple hundred yards down from the ridge a bull bugles just 60 yds in front of us. We had not really been calling much so it caught us both off guard. It also fairly thick and the wind was going right at the elk, so we didn't get to make any kind of play.

On down to the wallow for a short sit, but it was clear nothing had been using it recently, and as the day closed out we dropped back down to the road and got back to the truck.

Overall good day though, and a sweet moonrise on the drive out.

 

[jeremy.b]

I'll sum up the next couple days of hunting fairly quickly: the elk shut down and we started looking for new country!

I spent one more day in the same area and did run into a herd of cows, but no bugling was going on and I didn't find much in the way of recent bull sign.

Still lots of sign from a few weeks earlier though!

We jumped over to an adjacent ridge system but didn't find any significant sign.

We did find an old wallow and a decent sized whitetail that had shed before it died.

We made one last attempt at the area we had gotten into the elk on the 10th, but found nothing. We popped smoke and started covering all kinds of country.

In generally all we found were camps/rigs parked at most places we were interested in.

We DID get into one sweet spot that had potential, but no recent sign. Had some of the biggest Doug firs I'd seen in a LONG time!

 

[jeremy.b]

My wife and my pronghorn trip was quickly approaching at the end of Sept and Josh and I made one final trip out to an area that I had spent a decent amount of time in 20+ years ago.

It was Saturday the 24th so there were plenty of folks out in the woods. Our first potential spot was well populated so moved on, eventually stopping at a gated road that dropped into some recent cutting units.

It was a spectacular morning to be out in the woods!

We worked down into the cutting units, jumping a small bull moose along the way, and eventually getting into a decent amount of elk sign that was only a couple days old.

On the final stretch of cutting units we heard a bull touch off about 1/2 mile away, unfortunately right in the direction of a active set of roads. It was definitely a bull though so we took the chance and started cutting distance to see what we could do.

Along the way we found recent day beds and a unused wallow. As we worked to over the last major ridge we heard another person bugling from the roads, and unfortunately the bull responded. The other hunter went after the bull so we stayed back to see what happened. Ultimately the bull and hunter kept moving off so we bailed and headed back to the truck.

The remainder of the day we cruised some of my old stomping grounds, but didn't get a chance at anything else. We did spectacularly flub an attempt at a couple grouse while trying to dig Josh's shotgun out of the truck though!

We do have additional chances with rifle, muzzleloader and archery as the fall progresses. Josh and his wife are expecting kiddo #4 in early Nov so i'll likely be hunting some of those later elk seasons solo or with a highschool buddy.

We DO have plans to sneak in some day trips for deer later in Oct, so we'll see how that goes!

 

[jeremy.b]

Pronghorn!

Hope and I had set aside 3 days to chase pronghorn with our tags in southern Idaho, with the potential to add a 4th day if we needed the time.

We had really good intel on the area as my BiL Brian and my buddy Andy had been chasing pronghorn in one of the archery seasons just a week or two before we headed down. Brian even managed to bring one home with him!

Hope and I hit the road last Wednesday morning (9/28) for the full day drive down to our unit. This would be our first multi day trip WITHOUT kiddos!

Andy had dropped his vintage camper trailer in the general area they had been hunting and we made it to camp just at sunset. We did jump one medium sized buck on the drive in but we were not quite in "jump out of the truck and shoot it" mode just yet!

The sunsets are sure beautiful in the desert!

I had a rough night trying to sleep. No good reason, other than not really having a firm plan for the next day. BUT that's what mid-day naps are for!

 

[jeremy.b]

The next morning we got up and moving, drove up to one spot to glass just outside of camp, not turning anything up.

At this point it became VERY apparent that we have to get Hope a set of binos for our next trip!

We made plans to go out and hike into an area where Brian and Andy had a blind set up during the archery season. On the way over to that spot Hope notices 2 does and another medium sized buck just 250 yds off the road. We continue past, park the truck of out the way and sneak back to see if we can get a chance at them.

We managed to pick them up before they saw us and started maneuvering to get Hope setup. Unfortunately one of the does did see us and got nervous. The buck was in rut mode and kept cutting her off if she tried to move off. They did move out of Hope's comfortable range of 300 yds and we let the do their thing and headed back to the truck and on to go hike in and check out where the guys had their blind.

The hike was fairly uneventful. We looked over country, found where the blind had been set up. As we got back to the truck Brian rolled up in his work van. He was going to join us for the next couple days, and Andy would also be coming out the next day as well.

We headed back to camp to drop off Brian's van, and along the way he picked up another couple does and a buck bedded in a drainage that Hope and I missed.

Out we go to put a stalk on them, which turned into 3 different approaches that ultimately fizzled once the antelope got on their feet and worked away. We burned an hour and some change trying though!

After dropping the van off we headed out a 2-track to do some glassing from a nearby ridge for the afternoon. On the way out the 2track drops into a big shallow drainage and we turned up a good sized group of does and a yearling buck. We got out to the ridge, did some glassing (and napping!) but didn't turn anything up and it was getting on to late afternoon. Andy had sent us another spot to check out a fair ways away so off we went. We didn't turn anything up in THAT spot either other than 3 ft deep tumble and deep grass that we prayed wouldn't catch file on hot exhaust. Having successfully NOT caught the desert on fire we made the treck back to an area near where the blind had been setup for the last little bit of daylight, but had no luck turning anything up and returning to camp for the night.

We made plans to hike over to a large drainage in the area to see what we could turn up first thing in the morning.

 

[jeremy.b]

After a much better night of sleep we headed out and hiked over to the drainage just at day break.

Sun rises are as nice as the sunsets!

Pretty quickly we turned up several groups of pronghorn (and several bucks) down in the bottom of the drainage and across the drainage.

There was one pretty decent sized buck in the groups, but no easy approach for Hope and/or I.

Andy showed up and him and Brian turned up a few scatted does that were closer, but no other bucks.

We headed back to the truck and just as we're getting ready to move on we spot a group of does and a medium sized buck just 600 yds off the road. We head out and are able to drive to the back side of the ridge they are on.

Andy and Brian head down the ridge to glass more country while Hope and I start easing our way toward the herd. I manage to pick up the bucks horns above the grass and we're within 150 yds. I take a couple steps forward and Hope says "she can see us", at which point I pan over and there is a doe standing right next to the buck staring at us. She wasn't there before I moved so I'm sure they were bedded and she heard me take those couple steps.

We get Hope setup just to practice getting settled and the antelope take off and run towards Brian and Andy. Unknown to Hope and I at the time they had seen another group of does and a buck on an adjacent ridge. As soon as our group took off THAT buck came running over to see what was going on. Thus confirming that antelope anytime near the rut are kinda crazy critters!

We pull the plug head back to the truck and work our way back to camp but don't turn up anything else. A quick nap (and coffee for Hope!) and we go check a couple areas and then head back to the area we had seen the large group of does with the yearling buck the day before. We park back away from the valley and ease over, turning up one doe and the yearling buck. They are in fairly approachable cover, so off Hope and I go to see if we can get her a good setup. Yeah, good but NOT great cover means crawling for 400+ yds. Thank God for Sitka knee pads!

We closed the distance to about 370 yds when the buck and doe (who had bedded for a bit) got up and started working away. We made a vain attempt to flag them over with a white shirt but there was no interest. Back up to Brian and Andy who had been watching the whole time. Andy comes husting over and him and I go look at a different group he had found that were bedded 1/2 mile away. Unfortunately they were not in a great spot for a stalk and the wind was pushing hard enough that I didn't want to mess with an extended range shot.

We decide to leave them for the morning and go do one more drive back through the core area in the last hour of so of day light. Hope and I drop Brian off to go glass the big drainage we started looking over that morning and Andy heads down an adjacent ridge on a 2 track to look over other country. Hope and I are on our way to go glass a couple big sage flats when we see Andy flying up the road (we have crap for cell service!) I execute a 30 point turn quick like in the rocky sage 2 track we were on and hustle back with Andy. He had picked up a group tucked back in a little draw very close to where we had busted the group earlier in the day.

Hope was pretty well done for the day so I jump out with my stuff and start moving in towards where Andy said they should be. Hope and Andy head back down the 2 track Andy spotted them from to watch things unfold.

I make it a couple hundred yards from the road and pick up the buck and a doe over the top of the sage. He's no monster but I'm not feeling picky at this point, and pronghorn is delicious!

I try to get a range on the buck, he looks like he's fairly close but I get one range over 300 yds. I decide to ease forward a few steps, keeping low and just as I do that the buck takes off. I can actually HEAR him running through the grass and sage so he was WELL under 300 yds, likely closer to 100-120.

He pops out on the other side of a shallow draw and starts feeding. He probably heard me, but didn't get really that spooked.

I get a good range on his position at 315 yds but he's facing away. I get setup and am able to get completely stable. At this point if I had pretty well decided that if I get a solid shot I'd take it. It doesn't take long and he eventually turns. I settle in and touch it off. I hear the hit, he stumbles a couple steps and down he goes! I can hear Andy wooping from the ridge. Hope was able to watch the buck go down, which was pretty sweet for her. They head over to help out, and not long after that Brian comes over the ridge he was glassing on and makes his way over too.

We get to work and finish breaking him down in the dark. It was a lot of fun having everyone there, with plenty of good natured ribbing going on from Brian and Andy (with Hope piling on at strategic times too!)

Back to the trucks we went. Andy headed back home, to join us in the afternoon the next day and we headed back to camp for a late dinner, celebratory beer and a good nights sleep!

 

[jeremy.b]

The next morning we decided to go see if we can pick up the buck we had left the afternoon before.

We park right at day break a ways back from the area and ease our way over the valley and finger draws. As we work closer to the valley I pick up the yearling buck from the day before, but he's alone at this point. A bit later I pick up a couple does and then the bigger buck. I'm able to get a good range on their location and they are dang close to Hope's comfortable range. We start easing forward and working on a game plan when 3 different groups of coyotes start going off around us. The pronghorn do NOT like that and the whole batch of them take of and head over a distant ridge. Off we go back to the truck and go work through our core area again.

We don't turn anything up close to the road so Brian and I decide to hustle over to the big drainage from the morning before. We turn up 2 small groups that are tucked right up near a nice draw that would make for a really easy approach. Back to the truck we go and on up the road to make our approach.

Just before we hit the side road we planned on using to start the stalk Hope picks out a big group of does with a buck just 500 yds off the road. They happen to be right over on the ridge we were going to start on so we park, grab our stuff and start slowly working down the ridge.

We only make it 100 yds from the truck and we pick up a couple does. They are a bit over 400 yds out so we get low and make up some distance, eventually crawling and closing to 370 yds. As I'm working out a route to close more distance I pick up another couple does at a similar distance but seperated from the first group. Shortly after that I pick up a single doe MUCH closer, right around 250 yds out. We hold our location and I pick up more does with that closer do and not long after that I am find the buck with them!

I get a decent look at him and he's definitely bigger than any buck we've been close to up to this point. I try to keep my excited noises down so Hope can't hear me. The buck and does, while closer, are tucked in a little ripple in the sage and its hard to see much of them. They were feeding towards a decent opening though so we get Hope setup to see what unfolds.

The does and buck keep on course and emerge from the sage out into the opening. I actually didn't notice the buck move out until Hope says "I'm on him".

I get a final range at 270 yds, make a quick adjustment to her dial and settle in to see what happens. The buck, like mine from the night before was facing away. The does were to his right and Hope, anticipating that he would turn towards them had settled in on where she expected him to finish his turn and was rock steady.

He turns and I barely have time to think about when she might shoot when BOOM!

I see and hear the hit, but buck rears back a little, stumbles a couple steps and down he goes! I start yelling, Hope works through the emotions (all good ones) of it and Brian comes up with our stuff and off we go to look at him!

He is a great buck, especially for her first pronghorn and big game animal!

On to work we go breaking him down and made the short 500 yd walk back to the truck!

We head back to camp, clean up, pack up and head out. We got word to Andy and are able to connect with him and his dad on their way out to go pick up the camper. We got to share the story and get one final set of thank you's in for their huge amount of help.

From there Brian and us head on up to Hope's mom's place near Boise for a night of visiting and sleeping on a real bed! We make the treck home the next day with coolers full of antelope and an awesome set of memories to hold on to.

In way of reflection on the trip, I had only one goal for Hope on this trip (and pretty much zero for myself other than filling the freezer), which was to get her on an animal in a situation she was 100% confident in being able to execute a shot. We had done a bit of practice and she did get to do a few setups and dry fires on the blown opportunities earlier in the trip. I had to do zero coaching when she setup on her buck, and she was at that 100% confidence level when he turned and her shot was there. I am SO proud of how she did the whole trip and topping it off with such a clean shot just made the whole thing so satisfying!


Deer season is around the corner now though! I like a little bit of rainy wet weather for earlier season deer hunting, not looking promising yet but we'll see what shakes out over the next few weeks!

Also we have plans to do our regular annual deer hunt in central Idaho again this year in Nov so we'll see how things shake out when that gets closer.

 

[jeremy.b]

Snuck in a morning whitetail hunt on my off Friday.

Getting reaquatinted with some country I hunted in 2012 ish, even have a glassing spot!

Just need the rest of the leaves to fall and some snow for this spot to be more of a go-to.

Had a deer blow below me but no change at picking it out of the timber.

Worked over some bluffs, to another angle on the area.

All good stuff, dropped into an adjacent basin, found fresh deer and elk sign, then worked up through the basin through some really cool open timbered benchy ridges.

Found a couple different wallows and elk sign from September.

Bailed out, but not before a elk hunter tried to call me over .

Overall a great morning hunt, will definitely be back as the rut approaches.

 

[jeremy.b]

Finally got some rain end of last week.

Headed out Saturday morning early, had a rig beat me to my plan A spot (literally pulled into the spot as I drove up behind them).

Plan B was to head out to check a chunk of country I had hunted with Andy during spring turkey season.

Glassing wasn't much of a thing..

Nor was staying dry until I started a fire and waited for the fog to burn off a little.

Eventually the goop burned off but no critters to be found.

Dropped into a timbered basin, cut one set of decent buck tracks headed down near private property. Left them, found a wallow in the basin, wandered back towards the truck.

Had a (probably) doe blow at me as I worked back up to the main ridge. Cut over to a major saddle, bumped 6 hen turkeys and setup over the saddle for a bit (aka tried to repeat my experience last year when the nice whitetail woke me up from a nap).

No luck so slogged back through brush and wet back to the truck and thoroughly soaked but in great spirits. The Gortex is officially shot on my boots so that'll be another item to budget for this winter!

Tomorrow is the first day of my (short) rifle season for elk and it rained/snowed most of today (yay more soggy feet!) but looks clear for tomorrow. On a high note I have some solid intel on where some elk are holed up so we'll see if I can get lucky!

 

[jeremy.b]

Headed out with my dad and a fist-full of his neighbors to try our luck getting into elk at a spot fairly close by.

I was a cold and windy morning, I worked up through a chunk of heavy timber, jumped two does right at the edge of legal shooting light and came out on top but no elk sign found.

Worked down from the top looking to cut tracks, no luck though. Bumped into one of the neighbors who was coming the opposite direction and he had not had any luck either. Got a text from dad that he had cut fresh tracks. Eventually ended up at the meeting saddle glassing for a while.

I've bumped deer in some of this country so I'll be back later in the season!

No other luck from anyone in the party. There are elk in the area but they are holding to a couple really tight basins that are a giant PITA to get on them in (hence why they are there!)

Dad and some folks will probably go back in and see what they can do later in the week. I have a spot I've been itching to get back to from archery season so I'm planning to hit it on my off-Friday this week, we'll see how it goes!

 

[jeremy.b]

Hunted a spot we turned up plenty of whitetail sign during archery elk season. There IS a chance there are elk around too and have a couple more days of my rifle elk season left. But to be completely honest I'm actually more focused on a later muzzleloader cow season, so I'm not trying to squeezing everything I could out of this short rifle elk season...

It was just under the snowline but had enough in places to pick out tracks. Nothing right away from today/yesterday but definitely plenty of deer sign from the day before (when the storm rolled through)

Worked down to a couple open(ish) ridges that let me look over the ridge that had the bulk of the sign in Sept.

Jumped a lone doe from her bed and watched her cross over to the open side.

View was limited and could only sit still for so long (and I did legit have to get back to civilization by 5 if possible). Crossed over and slogged back up way too much elevation to the truck and made it back into service just in time to get my couple important calls done.

Eventually I'll figure out that hunting downhill from the rig is just a bad idea!

Plans are forming up with my crew of buddies for our 2022 whitetail camp in central Idaho. If things come together as planned it'll be the first time we'll have the full crew including my BiL Brian in one camp.

 

[jeremy.b]

Well that was a productive 18 hrs... Lots of meat in freezers!


Details to come later.