Vanish and FireTiger's 2025 Journal

[vanish]

This next installment is brought to you from a bluff in Wyoming, taking a break from trolling.

Cancel that didnt have enough signal.



I turned to follow the tracks down the hill and the bull was right there, 40 yards from where he had been when I shot!




Analysis showed the entry was a little high but still double lung. The high single hole was the reason for no blood trail. The broken off entry portion of the arrow was loose inside the cavity, so I'm not totally sure what caused it to stop.

I let T know I'd found the bull and my coordinates. While field processing I got confirmation he was on his way, and he showed up right as I finished deboning the last piece.

It was about 3.2 miles to our trucks, and I was toast by the time we got back with the first load. T was in great spirits and excited for the morning hunt, so he elected to do his second trip that night while I would grab the last load in the morning.

Oh yeah ... I remember repeatedly chanting "no rush, you've got days" while butchering, want to keep those fingers in one piece ... and then I stuck myself in the foot of all things! I don't recommend doing that.

 

[Lab]

This next installment is brought to you from a bluff in Wyoming, taking a break from trolling.

Cancel that didnt have enough signal.

View attachment 386679

I turned to follow the tracks down the hill and the bull was right there, 40 yards from where he had been when I shot!

View attachment 386678


Analysis showed the entry was a little high but still double lung. The high single hole was the reason for no blood trail. The broken off entry portion of the arrow was loose inside the cavity, so I'm not totally sure what caused it to stop.

I let T know I'd found the bull and my coordinates. While field processing I got confirmation he was on his way, and he showed up right as I finished deboning the last piece.

It was about 3.2 miles to our trucks, and I was toast by the time we got back with the first load. T was in great spirits and excited for the morning hunt, so he elected to do his second trip that night while I would grab the last load in the morning.

Oh yeah ... I remember repeatedly chanting "no rush, you've got days" while butchering, want to keep those fingers in one piece ... and then I stuck myself in the foot of all things! I don't recommend doing that.

View attachment 386680

Ouch- I started cleaning too fast twice. Once it was freezing and I couldn't feel my hands and Put a knife through my hand the whole way. The other time I had a deer leg up skinning and the knife slipped and went into my leg. That one bled bad. One little lapse and ouch!

 

[Dsnow9]

Nice work! Must have been all the good luck from that sweet hat!

This next installment is brought to you from a bluff in Wyoming, taking a break from trolling.

Cancel that didnt have enough signal.

View attachment 386679

I turned to follow the tracks down the hill and the bull was right there, 40 yards from where he had been when I shot!

View attachment 386678


Analysis showed the entry was a little high but still double lung. The high single hole was the reason for no blood trail. The broken off entry portion of the arrow was loose inside the cavity, so I'm not totally sure what caused it to stop.

I let T know I'd found the bull and my coordinates. While field processing I got confirmation he was on his way, and he showed up right as I finished deboning the last piece.

It was about 3.2 miles to our trucks, and I was toast by the time we got back with the first load. T was in great spirits and excited for the morning hunt, so he elected to do his second trip that night while I would grab the last load in the morning.

Oh yeah ... I remember repeatedly chanting "no rush, you've got days" while butchering, want to keep those fingers in one piece ... and then I stuck myself in the foot of all things! I don't recommend doing that.

View attachment 386680

 

[MNElkNut]

Fantastic! Do we get to hear the story on the rest of the hunt with T?

 

[vanish]

Fantastic! Do we get to hear the story on the rest of the hunt with T?

Absolutely! Dunno if anyone has noticed, but my time to write updates is generally short and far between.

Work has been extra busy and FireTiger is currently working evenings, so I'm usually toast by 9pm.

 

[vanish]

The next day T was up extra early as he was proceeding with the original plan, backpacking in. I would join him that afternoon. I got some extra sleep, then popped in my headphones, zipped up to the last quarter and antlers. I broke the skull plate, damn, but that made them easier to pack out.

It had been pretty hot midday so I made the long drive into town to get more ice, topping off my two big coolers and completely filling one of Ts extra, in case my ice had melted by the time we were leaving. Grabbed some brunch at a local establishment because why not, I had time.

Upon returning to our parking location, I packed four days worth of food, a lot of water, a couple of beverage and my camping gear to make the 3 mile climb to spike camp.

 

[vanish]

I arrived at camp sometime around dinner, don't exactly remember when. Just as I finished setting up my tent, I got a series of texts from T - not verbatim but essentially:
Shot a cow
Can't find her
Found her!

Well, now I was regretting having just carried a full pack in, but it ended up working out as Ts cow was another 2 miles deeper from spike camp.

I made my way to T to find him about 1/3 of the way done dealing with her on an awkward marshy slope.



We got her in game bags and made our way back to spike camp in the dark. It was about 400 yards uphill to start, but it felt more like 2 miles in the dark, navigating deadfall and such .

We got back to spike camp, hung the meat, ate some dinner and next thing we knew it was midnight. But hey, nothing to do but pack tomorrow!

We started the day by retrieving the remaining meat at the kill site, packing that all the way out and then lunch at spike camp.



The second trip of the day was the other quarters plus anything we'd left at spike camp on the first trip, making it back to the vehicles around 4pm.

Burned just a few calories those days!



To celebrate our haul of meat, we went out to dinner and ate some meat.

 

[duckhunt]

Great fall so far, keep it up.

 

[vanish]

I have to write up last weekend's fishing trip, but I doubt I'll get to it (lies) before we leave for WY Pronghorn tomorrow. I pulled my left calf muscle on Monday, so that's annoying. Hopefully can still slowly stalk a couple does.

 

[vanish]

This last weekend FireTiger took DD to a friend's place in the mountains, so I had a pass to do anything I wanted. Trips in June amd July were better than expectations, so I decided to see how things fished in September.



I'd be launching at mid lake again, but this time I decided to boat camp. I had a friend that had to bail at the last minute, poor fella.

Got there about 4pm on Friday and made about a 10 mile run before trolling. Didn't have things dialed and only caught 1 bow, 1 brown and 1 eye before pitching camp.



Continued trolling upstream the next morning and things were looking better, boating 4 while still heating my coffee. Pretty sweet having the stove going in the boat.



Locked in with crawdad patterns by 9am and things got bonkers. I was planning on targeting trout but I also wanted a walleye dinner. Didn't matter, caught both with the same approach. Often would double first hooking a trout and then a walleye when I dropped out of gear to land the trout.





Took a couple hour nap under the canopy while a storm moved through, then cooked up the eyes while I kept fishing. Camping on the beach was swell. Not a soul for miles.







Left about 1pm on Sunday with a total landed 73 bows to 23in, 5 browns to 22in, 22 walleyes.

 

[wolfpup]

Loving it!

 

[vanish]

Friday morning, we finished packing, loaded up the popup and headed north. It felt like we were packing for a month and didn't arrive in our unit until after noon. We were pretty excited though, as it seemed like there were pronghorn everywhere.



I hopped out of the truck to unhook the popup and as I returned to move the truck out of the way I noticed a buck bedded literally in front of us, only 250 yards away. He wasn't a buck FireTiger was looking to take, so we just watched him.

We got the popup set up as Wyoming was being Wyoming. Even inside the camper it took 40 minutes just to boil some water, it was so windy!

Finally, we were ready to hunt. There was a big ridge running right through the section we were camped on, so we decided to look on the Lee side of it before heading to an HMA we had been to in years past. As we made our way over the lip, a buck was spotted right away and FireTiger went into stalk mode. So much for window shopping.

DD and I got to watch part of the stalk, but it involved FireTiger dipping off the ridge for awhile. We still could see the buck, and what she couldn't see though. Another small buck came out of one of the draws, followed by a bigger, but not nearly as big as the one she was stalking. Meanwhile, the target buck did a hard hook to the right, taking him pretty close to us. As FireTiger regained the ridge, she came out within shooting range of the middle sized buck, assumed it was the one she had been after and it was all over.



She was still happy as it's been tough getting in the field with a 3 year old. ( yes the orange hat was taken off for this photo, it's in her left hand )

I began the work of processing while she found the ziptie to attach the paperwork. DD got to learn where meat comes from. I really wanted a better photo wearing this hat but it never happened



Part 2 this afternoon...

 

[vanish]

After getting her buck broken down and on ice, we debated whether to head out looking for does as a family or have the girls stay at camp. DD chose camp.



I headed to the area we originally planned to hunt and immediately saw a herd along a fence line in what looked like a stalkable position, but before I could turn around to park I passed another hunter set up on a different herd. I didnt want to drive by again and mess with his chances, so I put that stalk in my pocket.

If you remember I strained my left calf on Monday, so I was looking for easy opportunities and when I passed a small group bedded in some rocks on a hillside only 200 yards off the road, I knew this was one. I drove over a hump, parked and looped around behind and above them.

As I closed the distance, I finally could see the bucks ears and horns, but no does. He eventually caught me peeking and stood up, so I got on the rifle in prone position expecting the does to stand.

They eventually did, giving me a perfect shot opportunity. I wasn't able to pull off a double, but one tag was filled.



As I was only 200 yards from the truck, I decided to gut and drag her out and keep hunting.

I pushed deeper into the property and found another group I thought I could stalk, but they caught me and didnt allow a shot opportunity.

It was dinner time, so I headed back to camp but found the fenceline group still there so decided to give it a shot. There was some sort of water diversion thing giving me a place to park out of sight, and a nice ditch to hunch walk to the fence, and the sun right at my back. When I got to the fence, I move post to post until one of the closest does was on to me. 227 yards, so now was as good as any, and with that my tags were filled. It was just about sunset and I wanted to get back for dinner, so no picture. You can have one of a different buck I saw.

 

[jeremy.b]

Kiddos sure have a knack for forcing us (moms especially) to shift priorities. Those years are worth the sacrifice though (at least for us they are!)

 

[MNElkNut]

If that is the hat I think it is, I really like it!

 

[vanish]

If that is the hat I think it is, I really like it!

 

[MNElkNut]

Yep, I really like it!

 

[vanish]

FireTiger is out looking for a doe pronghorn in NW Colorado. She managed to snag a reissue tag a couple weeks ago. Along with her is a friend who just took their hunter's safety course but has never been hunting before. They also plan to scout for first rifle elk.

 

[vanish]

 

[J_Brew]

Congrats on the animals this far. These are great write ups! Looking forward to following along the rest of the season.