Vanish and FireTiger's 2020 Journal

[vanish]

Welcome to the 10th annual Vanish and FireTiger season journal. This will be my 5th year posting the journal on Hunt Talk. If you've not followed along before, you should waste many hours reading through old journals!

Vanish and FireTiger's 2019 Journal

Welcome back to those of you who followed us in 2018, and welcome to those of you new to joining us on our adventures. This will be my 9th year journaling our season, which I have been attempting to do since we moved to Colorado. The site I have posted these adventures on has changed over the...

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Vanish and FireTiger's 2018 Hunt Journal - Season 8

Aww yeah, Colorado draw results are out and my excitement for hunting has not wavered in the off season. Therefore, I declare it time to start the 2018 journal! If you're new to the site or the Live Hunts forum, you may want to go blow a few hours reading our past journals. If you don't want to...

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Vanish and FireTiger's 2017 Hunt Journal - Season 7

Yes, it is officially time to kick off this year's journal! If you missed it, here's the link to last year's journal - our most successful season yet! Can we top it this year? Who cares! It will be fun regardless. After spending five straight weekends in the Colorado high country pursuing great...

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Vanish and FireTiger's Journal - Season 6

Today is Elk Eve here in Colorado, which mean's we're headed to camp in search of elk. This year will be a little different, as FireTiger does not have an archery tag. She drew an either-sex RFW hunt for December, and picked up a re-issue muzzleloader cow tag for the unit I'm archery hunting. My...

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This season promises to be extra interesting if the trends continue the way they have. COVID-19 has certainly thrown lots of wrenches around. I'll reveal more later, but let's talk about more interesting things for now; tags we've got at this point!

September - Vanish, Colorado Limited Entry Archery Elk
September - Vanish + FireTiger, Colorado Muzzleloader Pronghorn
October/November - FireTiger, Colorado Season's Choice Whitetail ( Take 2 )

If you have any math skills whatsoever, you should be able to figure out the archery tag I've drawn and I couldn't be more excited. This will be my first ever high point draw tag and I will have most of the season available to make this happen. I have two friends that have drawn this tag in the past three years, so I have a fair amount of second hand info to get started with. Mostly, I need to get out there and start scouting these areas in person, but once again we just had snow in the high country a couple days ago. The sad part is my father will not be joining me on this hunt as he is just not up for the physical nature of it. I plan to do it solo backpack style, but we'll see what happens once I actually get to the areas I have marked.

I don't have a deer tag for Colorado yet this year. I'll be watching the reissue list like a hawk. FireTiger's rifle season conflicts with the new CO 2nd season dates, so I think that season is out. I am thinking of trying to grab either the first early season or fourth season tag that's still available at checkout time. This will give me a chance to do some archery hunting in Nebraska and/or Oklahoma ( wink wink @Lostinthewoods ) during the first couple weeks of November as well as help some friends on their hunts.

FireTiger does not have an elk tag. She has some complications during her usual intended hunts this season and will be trying to pick one up for a local unit.

My father did not draw anything this year, so he will be watching reissues as well, and probably doing OTC archery elk. I'm hoping my L/E tag doesn't take the whole season so I can call for him at some point.

We're still waiting on the Wyoming draws, as FireTiger has a good chance of drawing pronghorn this year. I put in for some doe tags in her unit. It is our favorite meat, and my mother's too, it turns out.

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I also owe y'all a recap of turkey season. It wasn't much this year due to COVID and Colorado's travel restrictions, but there was a happy ending.

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Good luck on your draws and your hunts!

 

[WildWill]

Looking forward to following along. When do you think you'll be able to go on the first scouting trip?

 

[vanish]

Hard to say exactly. I'm hoping for end of the month.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Looks like lots of fun this year - enjoy!

 

[TakeABreakAndTouchGrass]

Subbed!

If this is anything like the last journal it's going to be good!

 

[Lostinthewoods]

Subbed and really like the Oklahoma idea

 

[dirtclod Az.]

It's about time you came out of hibernation...
dirtclod Az. following again!

 

[Khunter]

If my math is right I have hunted your archery elk unit and season twice in last 5 years. Fun, fun place.

 

[gouch]

Love your journals. Looking forward to this years.

 

[vanish]

Just got back from a camping trip to find out we each drew a doe pronghorn tag in Wyoming. We're disappointed FireTiger didn't draw a buck tag like we expected, but excited to head back to the windy state later this fall.

 

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Our turkey season was a bit of a mess. COVID-19 was in full force, with Colorado enacting the "Stay At Home" orders. The original order did not include any restriction on travel for recreation, so we did do some exploring.

Opening morning, I headed toward a local spot I had hunted before. The pull off was full so I continued onwards, heading to a different entry way that I expected held turkeys. I did about a mile + 1200ft vertical in the dark before finally hitting turkey territory. My journey took me another 3 miles to some good looking country, but sadly I found no sign of turkeys.

I found plenty of sign of some other animals of note, but this is a draw area.

I headed back to my vehicle, arriving around noon. It is about 3 miles of national forest before hitting private property. On the drive home I passed 54 other vehicles. Now I know not all of them were turkey hunting, but I think this area might be blown out.

 

[vanish]

One day there was a big snowstorm. I was able to get out after work, figuring I could at least find sign of turkeys in the area. Upon gaining the ridge I found that indeed there were a couple birds in the area, but after tracking them for over a mile they hit private land.

 

[vanish]

Another weekend morning we decided to scout some additional potential access points. We drove around a lot of local backroads, but kept running into private roads. After four hours of scouting, we were able to add one location to our arsenal of potential access points. We ended up not hunting it though as it was getting late into the morning, the parking area was full and another two guys were heading in at the same time.

We did see some wildlife, including some road turkeys, but nowhere close to public.

 

[TakeABreakAndTouchGrass]

For some reason your pictures aren't showing up for me (on chrome through my phone).

 

[vanish]

For some reason your pictures aren't showing up for me (on chrome through my phone).

Dang. I am able to reproduce the problem with an incognito browser, so I'll either find a different url or I'm going to have to switch hosting platforms. I'll update the thread when fixed.

 

[vanish]

For some reason your pictures aren't showing up for me (on chrome through my phone).

Coming through now? Looks like I had to switch their file permissions.

 

[TakeABreakAndTouchGrass]

Coming through now? Looks like I had to switch their file permissions.

Got 'em!

 

[vanish]

Using Colorado's Hunt Atlas, we picked a spot to try a more remote hunt. It was a cool area but the only turkeys we found were on the private land nearby.

 

[vanish]

As we'd all been staying away from other people, I took a risk and made a trip out to see my parents. My dad had hunted some early season but with many people not working, his local area was much busier than normal. We did a couple hunts but didn't try too hard. Best we found was sign that indeed at some point there was a tom turkey in this one area. Someone else found him first.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Keep at it,sooner or late ones bound to stumble into you...
I enjoy Az. not having all that private and,but Turkey here is draw only.