Tag Soup How Many Have Had It

My grandfather drew a bighorn tag 3 times in Colorado and never filled any of them. On his last hunt, he decided to hire an outfitter but fell and hit his head early in the hunt and had to get airlifted out, affectively ending his bighorn dreams.
 
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Didn’t get a shot on 10 day Dahl Sheep backpack hunt in Brooks Range, Alaska, August 2020. We studied this ram for over 2 hours. He was close but just not full curl. Disappointed after that hunt but life always works out for the best. (Never one to quit - I am already rebooked for Alaska 2025 hunt with same outfitter and unit.)

Luckily, I drew and killed this Arizona desert bighorn sheep, pictured below, this past December 2022, Unit 45C, Kofa NWR. So blessed, grateful, and thankful, TheGrayRider.

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What a stud desert sheep. Congrats man!
 
Ate a AZ strip archery tag in 2021 and an AZ bull bison tag in 2022. No shot opportunities on the bison hunt. The strip tag was an easier pill to swallow. I had shot opportunities but was holding out for Big Hank.
I've eaten lots of other tags but those two were very low odds draws so they stung a bit more!
 
Ate a AZ strip archery tag in 2021 and an AZ bull bison tag in 2022. No shot opportunities on the bison hunt. The strip tag was an easier pill to swallow. I had shot opportunities but was holding out for Big Hank.
I've eaten lots of other tags but those two were very low odds draws so they stung a bit more!
You should share the story from your bison hunt even though you weren’t successful.
 
AZ cow bison
Co Archery bighorn
Both the above were max effort lengthy hunts that ended in a of bitter bowl of tag broth.

filled two bighorn and 5 moose and 2 mt. goat tags. So not all bad on the majors.
 

Tag soup this year?

No worries. Brush yourself off and get back on the mountain next year. [Please take a minute and read the below quote from Teddy Roosevelt's speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, France on April 23, 1910.]

Never quit! Happy hunting, TheGrayRider a/k/a Tom.

To The Man in the Arena

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 
As I posted earlier, I've had moose tag soup on hunts in Newfoundland and Alaska. Three weeks ago, I was on a Canadian moose hunt in northern Alberta. I think that we were too early for the rut, and by the 4th day of a 7 day hunt, I hadn't seen a moose. So with those thoughts in my mind and the fact that on the second day I had fallen in some heavy down timber, twisting my bad knee, I shot the first moose that I saw.

His antlers are smaller than either of the Shiras moose that I shot here in Montana so I just did a wall plaque of his antlers. I had driven to Ft McMurray and brought two large 120 quart coolers, so I brought over 200 pounds of meat home. It feels good to now have it all in little white packages in my freezer.

But with my freezers full of this moose meat along with some meat from previous years, the elk and deer tags that I have in my pocket will probably turn into this year's tag soup.
 
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