Vanish and FireTiger's Journal - Season 6

vanish · Sep 7, 2016

I dropped down on the back side of the ridge to see if there was any sign on the north facing slopes. Very little ground had been covered when I came across a waterhole / wallow ( pic below ). As the weather was still threatening, I decided to carve out a little hole under a pine and sit here until I couldn't handle sitting any more. The rain rolled through a time or two, and it thundered and gusted the whole time. After about 3 hours, I decided I needed to explore some more. It felt like a good spot to wait out a bull, but its just not my style.

...

vanish · Sep 8, 2016

I continued to work my way higher, and finally hit fresh sign. The ground was completely trampled, not a plant left standing. If there had been a cow pie in the area, I wouldn't have been nearly as excited, but for as far as I could see, there were only elk droppings. Regardless, I did not find any live elk until just before dark while making my way slowly back. At first I saw a calf, then an older cow, then a very large cow. They were at 90 yards, but I elected to let them be.

Yeah, she's in the middle of that photo...

vanish · Sep 9, 2016

I didn't get back to the car until late, but I've been trying out the vacuum seal meals this year, and lasagna was the ticket that night. YUM.

Sunday morning, I was determined to be up in the area I had seen the elk the night before, but at daylight. This was going to require being up pretty early, but hey, I'm here to hunt. I started out about 75 minutes before daylight, and after half am hour in, with my body grumbling a bit, I realized my released was not on my wrist! UGH! I dropped my gear and made the round trip to the car and back. That was a waste of 45 minutes.

I was still in huntabe terrain by daybreak, but not quite where I had wanted to be. As I closed in on a hidden meadow where I missed a shot at a bull last year, I heard a huff. With authority. I slowed my pace, finally picking out the bull moose I had caught off guard. He really did not want to leave, so I attempted to skirt around him. He must have liked my smell, because no matter which way I went, he was there. We worked our way right into the middle of a bachelor group of nice bucks, one of which I really hope to encounter again in a few weeks.

Alas, I reached the upper saddle and still found no elk. It was 8am, the thunder was booming all around, and the wind was awful, so I decided to just park it for an hour.

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vanish · Sep 9, 2016

That hour flew by, and not much had changed with the conditions, so I thought I would see if perhaps the thermals were in my favor on the other side if the saddle. I slipped down a game trail and sure enough, the wind was blowing in my face.

I made it maybe 1/4 mile when my eyes detected something not fitting in with the rest of the colors. Can it be? Pulling up my binoculars, there's a bull laying in the middle of the big aspens 90 yards below me. A LEGAL bull! He has no clue I am here.

Its this point where I usually over think things and blow it. I took a breath and til myself ... just slip in and kill him. No calls, no decoy, just go shoot him.

Well, I made it about 10 yards when I saw his buddy, a spike, in between us. This would complicate things, but the spike was feeding up a small draw. The sun moved, hitting the legal bull, so he joined the spike feeding. Now they're both quartering to me! They go behind a slight rise between us, and this allow me to cut 30 yards off, putting the legal bull at 50, with the spike at 40. I'm slightly above them, and just want the bigger bull to get to 40.

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vanish · Sep 12, 2016

Finally, the bigger bull was broadside at 40 yards. I came to full draw, and somehow, the only plant stalk in the area got tangle in my bottom limb. I finally freed it and got settled, but the spike had turned around and stepped right in front of the vitals! The bigger bull started quartering away up the other side of the dip, and the spike was finally out of the way. As I started to settle again, I felt the wind hit my back, and the bigger bull lurched up out of the draw.

Are you kidding me?! The elk trotted away, over the next ridge. I tried to catch them but they picked up the pace, eventually making it to private land.

That was up there with my best encounters. I spent somewhere between 5-10 minutes watching those bulls before I finally had my opportunity. Usually, I've called the elk in thick pines or they are on to me, and its over quick. It was still great to watch them, but I can't believe the wind chose right then to gust through.

I hunted that evening and the next morning with no more signs of elk. Had to leave at lunch time on Monday as I had a plane to catch very early Tuesday.

vanish · Sep 12, 2016

This past weekend was mostly a bust. I saw one elk butt at 60 yards and that was it between the three of us (Dad joined us to scout for deer). I'm not sure if it was the weather or what. The elk weren't even on the private land. No fresh sign in the whole area. I should have moved for Sunday, but I didn't want to mess with Dad's plans.

Four mule deer bucks were seen, with one an incredible 6x6. Hope he sticks around for my deer tag. Oh, and lots of pronghorn! I've got a bunch of video to edit. Here's one of the pronghorn bucks.

vanish · Sep 13, 2016

FireTiger has just left for 3.5 days of muzzleloader hunting before I join her on Friday.

matt meyer · Sep 13, 2016

Great thread. Thanks for doing it

vanish · Sep 13, 2016

[video=youtube_share;8uGgVHDveKQ]https://youtu.be/8uGgVHDveKQ[/video]

vanish · Sep 13, 2016

I guess I should have checked, but somehow that was only the second half of the video...

Video is fixed!

vanish · Sep 13, 2016

FireTiger just called with her evening update. She was scoping out some new territory when a herd of 20+ crossed the road behind the truck. She got her gear together and hunted there the rest of the evening. The bugles were echoing all over the place, and she called in 6 different bulls ... but of course has a cow tag. Apparently its very thick, and though she could her cow calls, she could not find them.

She advised I take a vacation day.

Unfortunately, I just can't do that right now as work is having its busiest month ever.

High hopes for the morning!

vanish · Sep 15, 2016

Well, it was a bust. Dang. The group of elk she was working the night before had quieted up with the 30+ mph winds. She heard a few bugles, but wasn't able to get back into them. Only saw 2 does the whole day.

duckhunt · Sep 15, 2016

Patiently waiting for more updates.

MT_elk · Sep 15, 2016

Congrats to your Dad on his cow elk. Looking forward to the rest of the story.

vanish · Sep 15, 2016

FireTiger is still out there. She's moved locations but hasn't come across any live elk since Tuesday.

I'll be heading up tomorrow after work. Not sure which spot we'll be hunting. I have a feeling she wants me to try calling in the location she got into elk on Tuesday. I'm a little leery as I haven't been there and time is running down, but I like it when elk come to calls!

vanish · Sep 19, 2016

I headed out to meet FireTiger on Friday night. One might say I was in too much of a hurry, as I nearly forgot my clothes, and I DID forget the dog food. Being just over at the gas station when I realized I didn't have it packed, I trucked it back home. It was a darn good thing I did, as I had left the garage door open! Oi ... my brain was frazzled and this stuck around most of the weekend. Finally got on the road about 45 minutes later than I had hoped.

A friend had called and said he was hunting in the area I was headed. His family was heading home, but he still had some time, and so we made a plan to meet up. I found FireTiger's truck 5 minutes after he did, but she was out already. Throwing on my gear, we headed in to an area neither of us had been for a short 2 hour evening hunt.

Other than a couple of does, there was no excitement. We headed back to camp in the dark, talked elk over some pasta, an our friend continued on his way.

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vanish · Sep 19, 2016

FireTiger seemed to think the elk had moved out of the area we had hunted the night before, as it was dead quiet and she didn't find any fresh sign that day. We made a plan to try another local area on the same mountain, and arrived 15 minutes before dark. As I was ensuring I had everything in my pack (my bugle mysteriously disappeared), a bull bugled not 400 yards from the car. Game on!

We quickly got into the most likely position to intercept him, when we heard a second bull bugle. This one sounds a bit farther off, but it made our target light up, too. There was one small problem ... the bulls were both on adjoining private land. We mirrored them as best we could, finally setting up on a finger and trying to call them in. At one point, we could hear the cow calls of the herd of the closer bull, who was angrily chuckling at us to get over to him.

If we could have snuck in on him, something would have died. But, alas, we could not call either of the herds across the fence, and they continued toward the mountain through private land. This whole encounter lasted almost 2 hours, and it was after 8am before we knew it.

This area is kind of weird, as their is public low, then private land, then public again, so we had to drive around to the next access point, which is way higher on the mountain where we expected to find the elk. We explored up much higher on the mountain all afternoon, but, while there was plenty of week old sign, there was no fresh sign.

After a quick nap at the car, it was back down to the lower section to try to intercept the elk on their way to feed. We jumped a mule deer, and heard some thumping from another single animal, but the elk never showed up down low. Let's blame that enormous moon.

...

vanish · Sep 19, 2016

Oh, I forgot to mention. There was whole pile of pronghorn in the adjacent sage. I elected not to photo them, even though some were within 100 yards of the road. I'm sad that I didn't take the time, because the wind kicked up to the 40+ mph range in the afternoon, and they pretty much disappeared for the rest of the weekend.

vanish · Sep 19, 2016

Sunday morning was completely uneventful. FireTiger was beaten, as she hadn't physically seen an elk since that magical Tuesday evening. She packed up and headed for home to get ready for her muzzleloader pronghorn hunt (she leaves Tuesday night). I stuck around to put on some miles exploring this new area, dropping over the backside of the mountain to what I hoped would be elk paradise, but I knew it would be a major undertaking to haul an elk out of there, as I dropped about 1000 feet.

The terrain looked like great elk country to me. It was alternating pine and aspen benches. I found several wallows and waterholes as well as one (recovered) elk carcass from probably a week ago. While working my way back, I busted something that sounded like an elk out of a very thick pine patch. Unfortunately, the sign was similar; there had been elk here, but mostly, they weren't here anymore.