MinnesotaHunter
Well-known member
Well, after a relative absence from the site I am finally getting back to what I enjoy. Last fall the Army saw fit to reassign me just as the hunting season was winging up. As a result, I did alot of hunting and working, but had little time for anything else.
I thought I would share the story of our hunt from last fall a little late, maybe it is a good time since people are planning there hunts for this coming fall now.
Last year about this time I contacted the usual suspects about planning a trip, and when doing so had a few others decide they wanted to give it a shot. Most noteworthy was my Father-in-law. He had never hunted a day in his life, but over the last 12 years of hearing about my hunting adventures, he decided to give it a shot at the age of 60. I was impressed and was very excited about getting him out there. Additionally, the previous year my Dad told me on our walk out of the backcountry that he was probably done backpacking in 5-6 miles and camping out of a pack, unless he had the right tag in his pocket. These two things caused me to change my plan a little bit for the 2012 trip. This year we were going to brave the BLM circus, but this would ensure that everyone would get plenty of opportunity and we could get antelope tags as well.
I did a lot of looking at maps and made a trip out during bow season to see what was running around. We saw some really nice deer during our scouting trip, but I had a suspicion they would have disappeared come gun season onto private land, or into some of the nasty canyon country, that I wouldn't be able to get into with our hunting party.
We arrived a couple of days before the season opened to get in some last minute scouting, and were pleased to see some descent goats running around, but the muley bucks were pretty scarce already. We saw a few 120-140 4x4s scouting, but nothing that was going to cause me to pull the trigger opening day, but my Father-in-law was pumped to be seeing bucks and goats, so I was focused on getting his tags filled. Opening day our group took 3 goats around the 14-15 inch range, and the second day my Father-in-law got his first animal, a nice 13.5 in goat, with his 30-06.
It was an awesome experience getting him on this buck. I am certain from that moment forward he was hooked.I also got him on a little muley buck a couple of days later, that he dropped in its tracks. By that time we had all the antelope tags filled and we made a move to try and hit some areas that were a little tougher to get into, but we only had 2 days left to try and find some bigger deer. The first day up there I found a 130ish 4x4 that I knew my buddy (my first sergeant from my Infantry Company command). Once I bedded him down, I went up and got my buddy, and we were able to stalk within 95 yds of the group of deer and he hammered it. It is a pretty nice first muley in my opinion.
The next day, me and another Army buddy got on a group of deer and we both shot little 3x3s for the freezer. with four of us it took about 3 hrs to pack them out the 4.5 miles.
We finished of the trip with burgers and beer at Sanford's in downtown Sheridan.
We had an awesome trip. 4 descent goats, No big muley's, but a ton of memories, 3 new western hunters. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed fighting the masses down in the lower country on a general tag, but this trip was a blast.
I thought I would share the story of our hunt from last fall a little late, maybe it is a good time since people are planning there hunts for this coming fall now.
Last year about this time I contacted the usual suspects about planning a trip, and when doing so had a few others decide they wanted to give it a shot. Most noteworthy was my Father-in-law. He had never hunted a day in his life, but over the last 12 years of hearing about my hunting adventures, he decided to give it a shot at the age of 60. I was impressed and was very excited about getting him out there. Additionally, the previous year my Dad told me on our walk out of the backcountry that he was probably done backpacking in 5-6 miles and camping out of a pack, unless he had the right tag in his pocket. These two things caused me to change my plan a little bit for the 2012 trip. This year we were going to brave the BLM circus, but this would ensure that everyone would get plenty of opportunity and we could get antelope tags as well.
I did a lot of looking at maps and made a trip out during bow season to see what was running around. We saw some really nice deer during our scouting trip, but I had a suspicion they would have disappeared come gun season onto private land, or into some of the nasty canyon country, that I wouldn't be able to get into with our hunting party.
We arrived a couple of days before the season opened to get in some last minute scouting, and were pleased to see some descent goats running around, but the muley bucks were pretty scarce already. We saw a few 120-140 4x4s scouting, but nothing that was going to cause me to pull the trigger opening day, but my Father-in-law was pumped to be seeing bucks and goats, so I was focused on getting his tags filled. Opening day our group took 3 goats around the 14-15 inch range, and the second day my Father-in-law got his first animal, a nice 13.5 in goat, with his 30-06.
It was an awesome experience getting him on this buck. I am certain from that moment forward he was hooked.I also got him on a little muley buck a couple of days later, that he dropped in its tracks. By that time we had all the antelope tags filled and we made a move to try and hit some areas that were a little tougher to get into, but we only had 2 days left to try and find some bigger deer. The first day up there I found a 130ish 4x4 that I knew my buddy (my first sergeant from my Infantry Company command). Once I bedded him down, I went up and got my buddy, and we were able to stalk within 95 yds of the group of deer and he hammered it. It is a pretty nice first muley in my opinion.
The next day, me and another Army buddy got on a group of deer and we both shot little 3x3s for the freezer. with four of us it took about 3 hrs to pack them out the 4.5 miles.
We finished of the trip with burgers and beer at Sanford's in downtown Sheridan.
We had an awesome trip. 4 descent goats, No big muley's, but a ton of memories, 3 new western hunters. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed fighting the masses down in the lower country on a general tag, but this trip was a blast.
