Archery Talk

Wat

 

Sorry to hear

 

Fuck! have I been lied to?

 

Definitely haven’t been Truthed to

 

Sorry man. But whoever told they dont, is very wrong

 

Damnit! Well thank you gents for being kind and respectful in pointing out my ignorance!

 

Well, my rotator cuff surgery went better than expected today. The tear was less than half, so no reconstruction needed. Dr. cleaned up bone spurs and other issues, but did nothing for the torn biceps muscle - almost complete tear - said they do nothing for pro athletes that tear their biceps at the shoulder...will heal over time on its own.

Tomorrow is Ohio's archery opener and even though it is my left shoulder (I'm a righty) and I now use a crossbow I am going to skip the entire bow season. Can't risk a long drag through a thick clearcut alone. I will likely gun hunt with my son - he can do the bulk of any needed dragging.

It is HELL getting old!!!!

Good Luck to all you other guys lucky enough to get out bow hunting!!!

 

Congrats!!

Sorry to hear, I'd go crazy if I had to skip a season. Hope you heal up quickly.

 

I left them. I honestly don't know what to do with them other than toss em in a jar and add to the collection every year.

Chester!

I thought about doing that but idk how well my pack would handle loose meat. The bone gives it structure. I did have the two front quarters, back straps, neck meat and the organs on one pack. Only made it 100 yards or so before giving up on that idea. I've definitely got to do some core strength training or something for next year. My hips start to feel like they want to explode. Fortunately I had two friends help. One road her bike up the closed FS road and made it easy being all down hill for two miles. The other helped hike a front quarter.

 

I started hunting the 14th this year and have hunted everyday since. The first 7 days were discouraging as I hadn't heard a single elk. I busted a few in bedding areas but never heard any cow calls or bugles. Well, the full moon flipped the switch.

I hunted the same area the last 3 days. First day I hiked in 4 miles to some dark timber and heard my first bugle. The wind was swirling in the bottom of the drainage where it was so I hiked up and walked the ridge hoping to find some consistency. I let out a few cow calls and was immediately greeted by the bull screaming at me. Thinking they were deeper in the timber than they were I started working my was down this burn scar with very little cover. Spotted a cow the same time she saw me and that was the end of that approach. Was 77yds from the bull and that was the last time I saw my range finder.

The next day I planned on going back and retracing my steps to see if I could find it. I mean how hard could a camo range finder be to find in a 10 mile hike? Needless to say I did not find it. Anyway on the way in that morning I had a bull whine at me about 1.5 miles in. It was still 30 minutes before shooting light but I stopped and started calling him just letting him know there were elk there. I climbed up the steep bank into some thick forest. 10yds would hand been the furthest shot possible in there. I ended up having a cow on the road above me that caught my movement. This was still the first few minutes of shooting light so it's difficult to see anything. Well the heard slightly changes path and I get back on them. The bull is getting further away so I decide to just try and stalk the cows. Well after 30 minutes of that the bull is coming back to his ladies. 2 of the cows spot my movement so let out a couple mews to hopefully ease the nerves that what they saw move was just another elk. Well that pulled the bull over below me but he lost interest when he didn't see anything. As he's starting to walk away I ripped a challenge bugle and he starts coming back. I'm not in a great setup being that I was stalking these cows, he goes behind a large tree and stops. I thought he'd be there for a few seconds so I try and adjust my feet and what do ya know he takes another step and either caught my movement or my scent since the thermals hadn't switched yet. One more step from him and I'd have had a 30yd broadside shot. I decided to not pressure them anymore and go look for the range finder.

Ended up bumping the same elk from the morning prior. Something I'm not used to is that elk don't really seem to care. I grew up whitetail hunting and if you did that you might not see that deer back there again for a few days.

Went back to where the herd I was on earlier that day. About 45 minutes before dark the bull sounds off. He's about 250 yds away so I start covering ground and making some cow calls. I ended up getting his cows attention and they started working my way rather quickly. I was on another steep hill side without much cover and the tree closest to me had a ton of sticks below it. I ended up standing on those and was anticipating the elk to continue walking straight uphill but why would they do that? They ended up coming in below me. I had fully intended on shooting one of them but then the bull appears and joins there single file line. They're about 35yds away. I go to draw as the bull is coming fast and the lead cow hits my scent and busts. The bull never gave me an unobstructed shot, 5 more steps is all I needed. I put a total of 12 miles in that day, my feet are wrecked.

Head back to the same spot this morning fully expecting a similar result. I only heard one faint bugle up on the hillside. I decided to get up and start walking and cow call along the way to see if anything wants to play. I bump into 3 deer, 2 of them run off and the 3rd is standing there trying to figure out what the others didn't like. I gave a few cow calls to let her know it was just some elk that were near to try and settle her down. I was considering notching my tag on her but heard some sticks cracking behind me, just over the break over. I get down on one knee and can see it's an elk. Finally I'm in a good spot where there is brush between us. She on a path to walk out broadside right into a shooting lane at 20yds. Her head goes behind the rock and I draw. Now I just need two more steps. Well she took those two steps but turned almost 90* away from me. Too much for a quartering away shot. I let out a couple of strange sounds that didn't come out as I intended but she turned her head and took a step to see what it was and have me that perfect quartering away shot. I squeezed the trigger and watched my arrow hit its mark. She took off and crashed about 50yds from where I shot. The arrow passed through both lungs and almost passed through the opposite shoulder blade. I'm pretty happy with that being I'm only shooting 60lbs and 100gr broadhead.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I absolutely love hunting these creatures. This is only my second year and I'm 2 for 2 somehow. Things happen so fast and it's almost impossible to manage everything that needs to go right to execute a good shot.

Happy dog

Dry age for a few days before the processing begins.

Still have deer and bear tag to fill...

 

We needa try some of those wolves

 

I've got a tag and would use it if I came across one. I haven't seen much sign of them though. Anytime anyone asks about the zone I hunt on Facebook everyone bitches that it's full of wolves and they're are no elk. Idk if they are bullshitting and trying to deter people from hunting the area or if I'm just not hunting elk where the wolves are.

Also have a lion tag but I feel like the chances of getting one of those are less than a wolf.

 

Yea dude we just bagged in game bags and tossed em in packs. Didn’t bring rope to hang anything so needed to get it out fairly expeditiously. Pack out was mostly flat but 5 miles.. last two miles I think we were hiking less than a hundred yards before having to bend over and get the weight off our backs and hips. Luckily two of us were former wilderness guides so we were used to decently heavy pack weights.

 

Put a pan of dry-aging salt in there.

 

After eating tag soup in Colorado, im headed home to Texas in a couple weeks for whitetail. I can see the bottom of the deep freeze so things are getting pretty dire

 

A few pics from my last camera check.

 

Nice bucks!

 

Damn you got some wild ass bucks!

 

A few more.