My practice solo overnighter hunt

peterk1234

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Oct 9, 2019
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Back from two days in the mountains. This is a new world for me. I'm used to bowhunting public land that is 50 acres in size, flat, shared with six other hunters while sitting in a treestand for hours. Going into tens of thousands of acres, mountains that require 1000s of feet going up and down during the course of a day, still hunting and then crashing for the night; let's just say it is a bit different for this 56 year old dude. This was really not a hunting trip, it was an opportunity to practice, determine what works or doesn't, and to learn.

First off, man this place is steep. 1500 feet of climbing to my campsite, most of it the last mile. Then everything was up from there. now I know why I was the only guy here. But it was my choice. I knew it was tough terrain but it was not far from home. My pack was 34 pounds including tent, sleeping gear, clothes, food, two liters of water, kill kit, first aid, garmin. etc. Add bow, binos, tripod, etc and I was probably between 43 -45 pounds. In hindsight, the only thing I could have left behind was the tripod because the terrain did not warrant it. Would have cut 3.5 pounds.

On the way in I kicked up a momma moose and her calf. Now what she was doing up there is beyond me. About a half mile in I come up on a mule deer. 20 yards broadside, easy shot. Too bad it was a doe and I do not have a permit for it. Well, in my mind I dropped it on the spot (Hey, I'm not picky. I hunt for food). On the way up I found a nice knoll that overlooked a large wooded meadow. Figure it would be a good place to sit, wait and use the binos. As soon as I get to the edge, I hear crashing. It was a muley buck. He got wind of me and bolted. I hung around for a bit then started the tedious climb up. Fifty steps, stop take a five second break. Nice and easy, no need to break a sweat. I found a lot of bedding areas on my way up. I finally crest the little mountain, found a flat spot and set up camp. Had a little lunch, lightened my pack and went on a scouting mission. I know there were some meadows less than a mile away. I got to one of them, sat down and just watched for a bit. After that I decided to move on and explore some more.

So here is where it got interesting. I find some trails that look like they were recently tilled. I couldn't believe it. I follow one them right to a large wallow/water hole. The trails coming and going here made the place look like a spider web. Again, all looking like it was freshly tilled. All I could gather is that there was a sizable herd of elk recently here. I probably missed them by a couple of days. It was quite a site. I sat on the wallow for a couple of hours but nothing showed. So slowly worked my way back to camp, just as it got dark.

My son in law was to join me for a morning hunt. This was part of the overall experiment. I figure I will be doing multi day hunts and he will join me for the weekend part of any trip. He needs to be able to find me. I used my garmin inreach to send him a message with my coordinates. That right there is a pretty slick piece of equipment. I have a love hate relationship with garmin. Their hardware is incredible. Their software blows chunks. Its like they keep putting a bandaid on 25 year old tech. Oh well. My goal during these two days was to use the garmin exclusively, including the GPS, and just get used to it. The gps is spot on and highly accurate. The inreach is incredible, you can communicate with anyone, anywhere. Everything worked perfect. He found me first thing in the a.m.

We hit some of the meadows, still hunting the edges. There was a light drizzle, which I welcomed. It quieted things down. Later we headed back to camp, where I broke down the tent, packed it all up and then started to hunt our way back to the trucks. Hunting with a full load on your back sucks. Lesson; don't hunt with a full pack. While we came across no elk, we were blessed with the presence of some grouse. We both had an arrow with a judo point so we decided to hunt them. We got one. It came home with us for dinner. I need to figure out a way to stop my arrow with flu flus or something. Or we have to force ourselves to only shoot at them when the tree can be used as a backstop. Gotta do some research, or maybe you guys can help me with some ideas. Anyway, this place had a lot of them. Enough where we may hike in Sunday with the 22 rifles. Something special about shooting one with my Henry silver eagle lever action and iron sights. Just sayin.

All in all a fabulous test run. I could handle the weight. This was an unusual amount of steepness compared to the places I will probably hunt most often. Sleep system is wired. I have the food working for me. Goal for one nighters is no cooking. Two or more the stove comes with me. Clothing has been spot on. I was comfortable enough to commit to multiple nights. My legs are pissed, but I'm good with that. Oh, and we get to eat grouse for dinner. Next step is to find places where the elk are at, not where they were.
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