Vanish and FireTiger's 2020 Journal

[vanish]

A little trip pre-planning today. One dozen homemade breakfast burritos.

Dozen eggs, pound of deer/pork breakfast sausage, pound of hashbrowns, one onion, one green pepper.

Throw them in the pot of water or eat them cold. A little pocky is good on them, too.

Tomorrow I am doing similar with fajitas, burgers and rice/bean/meat burritos.

 

[duckhunt]

Looks like you are really getting after the fish. I'm a bit jealous since my fishing has been really slow so far this season.

 

[vanish]

Four ( I ate some ) pronghorn fajita burros and Ten pronghorn steak/rice/bean burros sealed and frozen. I went to larger tortillas for this batch.

Today, I am getting all my gear together so I can load up quickly on Wednesday as well as see just what I can load in my SO Peregrine.

I am mostly going to be truck camping on this trip, but I might spike out a night or two.

 

[vanish]

I leave later this morning and will be camped at 11k+ feet in my elk unit this evening! Scouting and fishing to be had.

I am curious if there will be signal. I will check in if there is. Otherwise, lots of posting upon my return.

 

[vanish]

I'm back! I am a bit torn on what to post. I've never been the type to be tight lipped and am always willing to help my fellow hunters, but I worked hard for the information I garnered on this trip, and while the tags are limited in the unit, its not like its unit 2. I don't care who has this information AFTER the season is over, but I'd prefer to not bring additional people to these places on the off chance they read my journal. Its not like I saw 360 inch bulls either, but I liked what I saw. A lot of the best details and photos from my trip would unfortunately give away where I was located.

 

[Dave N]

Shhhhh....

 

[Pucky Freak]

Love that skyline pic!

 

[vanish]

TLDR: Location A had several cow herds but didn't turn up any big bulls.

Wednesday

I arrived at camp after a loooong drive. It had been off and on raining throughout the trip. A portion of it involved some bumpy road and I learned a valueable lesson ... secure your fuel containers! The cap was broken from jostling and spilled about 1/4 gallon of gasoline all over my bed. Boy, did I feel like an idiot! I put everything out of the truck as best I could when it wasn't raining. I had to sleep with the back completely open, when I was at the truck. It took about 3 days for it to evaporate enough to not be noticeable. I probably lost a few brain cells.

I don't think I quite realized just how far this unit is from home. Its definitely not going to be a weekend hunt destination! There were a couple other vehicles parked at my location, but they were just there for the day and left shortly after my arrival. I tried some fishing, but the cutties seemed very pressured and difficult to catch. I finished off the evening with a glassing session on a great knob not too far away, but I don't believe I saw anything that evening.

Thursday

I took it pretty easy in the morning. The weather was still quite unstable. An early morning glassing session turned up a couple of bucks and a small herd of cow elk. The cutties continued to be uncooperative.

After lunch, I backpacked in for the night. There were several basins I wanted to glass. Upon approaching the first of those, I immediately saw elk. I also saw the storm building not too far away. It was very early in th afternoon but I decided to throw my tent up as it seemed I might want a place to retreat to when it started raining. My tent only takes 5 minutes to set up, but I didn't make it. It wasn't that bad but I decided to wait it out and read for a bit, mabye even had a nap.

During breaks in the storm I snuck out to glass the elk. I found three different herds from that location, but it appeared to be almost all cows with the occassional spike or raghorn.

Eventually, the rain passed and while the clouds did not leave I was able to get back to hiking. I found a few more groups of elk, but nothing terribly exciting as I made my way to a particularly interesting basin where I planned to set up for the evening. The weather chimed in just as I got there, so it was back to book reading. I had a chance to glass the basin before hiding in my tent and was surprised to not turn up a thing!

Friday

Early morning, I made the other half of my loop right from spike camp. I didn't turn up anything new. As I was returning to my tent later that morning, a herd of elk was coming over the hill and walking right past my tent! I hid nearby and watched them file into the basin next to my tent where I had been surprised to find nothing the night before. Still, they didn't stick around.

Packing up my tent, I made my way along the ridge back toward my truck. I had a couple of young mule deer hanging out in the willows up high with me, but I'd had all my gear packed up for the return and they'd had enough of me by the time I got the digiscope set up.

I'd pretty much covered everything I could reach from this particular access point, and I hadn't seen any larger bulls. I returned to the truck and decided, regardless of the incoming storm, to head to location B. It would take at least a couple hours to get there.

 

[vanish]

Friday afternoon

It was an adventure just getting to my next spot, with a rainstorm upping the ante even further. Getting to (or moreso, out of!) places like this is the reason I own a 4x4 truck, and more than anything I was VERY glad to have the beefy tires we put on a few years ago. I don't look forward to driving it again, but I will!

As I approached my intended base camp location, I found another truck parked there already. The are was plenty big enough for the both of us, but before I even shut the truck off I could see two guys coming off the hill. They looked like my kind of folks so I waited for them to approach before throwing out a jovial intro, and asking if they minded me parking nearby. Sure enough, they were scouting as one of the guy's has a tag for the same season.

The storm was still threatening, and I was a bit beat from the drive in, so I declared it nap time. Let's just say I got a LONG way through a book before popping out again. The other guys were glassing from camp, so I decided to join them. We spent the next couple of hours calling out elk and deer to one another, which seemed to break the little bit of tension. I was really impressed with just how many elk I could see right from camp, though they weren't exactly close.

 

[vanish]

Saturday

The morning was much the same as the previous evening. After some breakfast burritos, I decided it was time to get my butt in gear and hit the mountain. It would take a couple hours at least to get to where I wanted to be for that evening.

I couldn't believe it when I finally got to where I wanted to glass from, there was a perfect flat spot for my tent. What a luxury, being able to glass from not just my tent, but my sleeping bag!

It took approximately 7 seconds after setting up to find my first elk. From that point on, it was elk bonanza whenever I wanted to watch some, with more appearing every minute as the evening progressed. There were uncountable numbers of cows, as well as 28 different bulls in this one area alone. Three of them are ones I'd probably like to see again during season. I'm a terrible elk judge, so I'll put up some videos later. Help me!

 

[vanish]

Sunday

The morning was much the same, with the elk slowly disappearing as the sun got higher. The cows guarding the calf groups ( there would often between 15+ calves all together in little clusters ) seemed to prefer the open terrain above treeline, but the bulls, especially the larger ones, disappeared first. I did not find any "new" large bulls.

I packed out before lunch time and moved my base camp to a new location not too far away. I probably could have backpacked in again that evening, but decided to return to the truck to sleep.

That afternoon was a gruelling climb to a new perch with an amazing view. I wanted to be near one of the basins I could see from here because there were two bulls I had seen from 3.3 miles away that looked BIG. I was really hoping to turn them up again.

The rain was threatening as usual but I'd decided it was always going to be like that and if it rained, well, I had my rain jacket and I'd just work on my mental toughness. Mother nature allowed me to do just that several times that evening.

I was not able to find those two big bulls, but I did find 11 bulls and 4 bucks as well as more basins containing more elk way off in the distance. Just more things to scout! There was also several bulls having a bugling match not too far away, but I could never lay eyes on them. I was graced by a raghorn walking by at less thirty yards just before I was intending on heading out. He gathered the attention of some cows nearby, which made my exit exciting.

 

[vanish]

Monday

I spent this morning road scouting. You couldn't get close, but with the spotting scope I could get a good idea if there was a good bull around.

I also fished a bit in the mid-morning, something I had intended to do more of on this trip. Between the rain and the numbers of elk, fishing just wasn't a big draw. I caught enough that morning to make up for it, though.

I decided I was going to drive out a different way. It would be longer to get home but I wanted to know my options for getting home. It would be longer, but it would also put me headed toward my parent's house, who I hadn't seen in a few weeks. There's a chance my dad will come just to hang out at camp, so I wanted to be aware of what it was like to go that way.

There were more fishing opportunities on the way out, but I also seemed to pick the wrong place to stop.

 

[vanish]

I got video of four of the bigger bulls I saw. The one up against the bluff never stood up, so I never got a chance to get footage of him. Chime in with your thoughts!

6x6 with short right 5th
I feel like this bull is nice, but younger (than the following 7x6) and thus smaller bodied, making his antlers look bigger than they really are.

 

[vanish]

7x6 with short 5ths/6th
This bull was the last to come out the one evening, and he came out from an area no other elk had come from. Watching the video, I feel like he's got good 3rds that are hard to see because they're very curved, as well as a wide-arcing curve to his frame that makes his beams look shorter than they really are.

 

[vanish]

Two big bulls at 3.3 miles.
These videos suck but I am pretty sure the lower, hard to see bull, is the biggest one of the trip. His dark antlers just didn't show well. The upper, light colored bull is no slouch either, just a skinny frame. I tried to find them again from closer a couple days later but was unable to locate them. Watch the video 50 times like I have and you'll start to see the lower bull's antlers ... or maybe you're just imagining them.

 

[vanish]

We're prepping for leftover list madness day. FireTiger sees a tag she wants. I have too many I want. We know that it is a long shot to get any on the first day, but we've pulled it off before. The big question is a deer tag for my dad. It would be ideal for us to get the same tag, but the chances of that are almost zero. I put out a couple very different options and he's interested in both.

Dad is also said he'd like to be camp host for my elk hunt. He's not really fit to help hunt at 12k feet but it'll be good peace of mind to have someone nearby.

 

[vanish]

Bank account is lighter, but I didn't want to break down deep in the elk unit. New balls joints, tire balance, rotation and alignment. It's also a lot smoother ride for that 9 hour one-way!

 

[vanish]

Spent a few days fishing and napping/reading with FireTiger. You can really only boat this lake in the morning and last light, as it is with most Colorado park reservoirs. Even fishing during the afternoons is risky due to yuge winds and hail.

We had some pretty good fishing, but broke off the biggest fish, naturally. I could swear I replaced the line on our rods just last spring. Had one big brown that must have come 4 feet out the water nearly into the canoe before breaking me on his second jump. Guess I didn't bow to the silver king.

This is one thing that can happen if you don't honor mother nature up there.

And yes, I had helped them rescue stuff before taking the photo.

 

[vanish]

Did pretty well with reissues this morning. FireTiger will be returning to the NW corner with a cow tag in first rifle. I got a MD/WT archery tag for a plains unit. Unfortunately, failed to get my dad a tag, but maybe that means a better one will be in store for him when the rest of the reissues appear.

 

[vanish]

I spent a night doing a quick recon mission for my newly acquired deer tag. I've been in the unit several times before, but never hunted it for deer. Hank and I spent most of the day bumbling along deer trails as well as bumbling along in the middle of nowhere where nothing lived. I learned a lot about where deer DON'T live in the unit, and a little bit about where they do travel and bed.

It was freakin hot so we did some road scouting between hikes and marked all the agriculture we could access or next to the public property where we might be able to catch deer moving to and fro.

That evening I set up to watch one of the pivots as I had actually seen some does feeding in it around noon. Not sure what it is, maybe clover?

Sure enough, deer were already out there by the time I arrived. I started to lose count as they passed 30 deer. There were a couple little bucks, and then finally one of interest appeared, but too far to get a good look at with my binos. As I assembled my spotter, a thunderstorm that had been threatening finally unleashed and ended the evening glassing session an hour early.

On this trip, I hadn't thought to permethrin my clothes ahead of time, so I used some organic tick repellent a friend of ours had left with us. I won't make that mistake again. I pulled a couple off myself and a dozen or so off Hank, but worse was that they hadn't just hung on to us, but also were crawling around the car. I hate ticks, and twice I woke up to one crawling around in my hair. ( As I'm writing this later, we've since pulled eight more off Hank, killed two in the house and another found its way on me! )

I had a couple places I could place a camera, but I only own one ( Its more for curiosity than scouting ) so I decided I would try to find where those deer had been entering the field. It didn't take long once I was in the general area to find where the majority of them were heading through. If I manage an early October trip this will be one of the areas of interest. My camera is watching that gap in the trees on the left.