brotherjack
10-31-2006, 09:53 PM
So, today, The Wife (tm) and I had a little time, so we took a little drive down to our favourite whitetail area to see about finding her a whitetail big enough to shoot. We saw some mule deer several places on the drive in. Mulies are pretty rare for this spot, but we've seen them down at the watering hole once in a while, so not totally unexpected.
Oh look, a herd of elk back in the trees. Obviously, they've figured out that they're no longer open for hunting, because rather than head for the far mountains like they do during open season, they stand around stupidly and stare at us. We stare back. For a long time.
After a while, some of the herd wanders out into an opening in the forest maybe 80 yards away. As I put the binoculars on what I thought was a little 4 point bull, I did a double take. He's non-typical. I start counting points. Seven. Neat antler configuration too - like an extra large typical 3 point frame, with 4 of these slender spikes sticking out in various places, ranging from 3 to 9 inches. I wish I had seen him back before the 20th!
Anyway, the elk and us both moved on after a while. After the rest of our drive into our spot, I dropped the wife off, and headed down the road. I then made a long slow meandering walk through the timber about a mile back towards her, hoping that I might spook something shootable her way.
No such luck, though she said there was a doe came within ten yards of her just as a random thing right after I dropped her off.
So, making up a new plan on the spot - we hiked back to a spot where I had seen a lot of big tracks in the snow. One set, clearly deer and not elk, were about the size you'd expect from a mature cow elk, with nice little dew claws trailing. I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't a shooter buck (maybe even that truly monster class whitetail I've seen off in the shadows in this area for two years running and never had a clean shot at)
So, we sit down in the freezing cold to see what we can see. The Wife sits about 30 yards up the hill from me, and I lay down with my head on a tree and rest my eyes and hunt with my ears (or perhaps I should say, I started napping lightly, and figured I'd wake up if my wife shot something, or if a big critter came crashing through the bush nearby).
I woke up hearing noises. It sounded like a whole herd of Primos "Hoochie Mamma" elk calls were gathering up for a pending attack. I cracked my eyes, and though I couldn't see most of the herd, I saw enough elk to realize a good sized herd was passing by about 100 yards to my right. Elk elk elk... dang it, where's the whitetail?
I resumed my semi-nap, even though by this point, my hiking outfit was not keeping me at all warm enough to rest comfortably. Shortly after that, an elk off in the bush made a sound that was vaguely like microphone feedback. I figured something had smelled us, and they were leaving now.
Half an hour or so later, I thought I heard something off to my left. I roll my head gingerly to the side, and crack my eyes. Lo and behold, there's a calf elk, bedded down and chewing it's cud, maybe 12 yards away from me. I blinked hard a couple times to see if I was hallucinating from the cold and napiness. Nope, still there. Chewing it's cud, and staring hard at me. You gotta be kidding me!
A few minutes later, after the 'oh, neat' factor wore off, I realize my prediciment: Now, not only do I have to be cold, now I have to be 100% still, so I don't scare that potentially huge whitetail buck away with the sounds of spooked elk. Great - I'm already so cold it's all I can do to control the shivers, and things are starting to hurt pretty bad from being in the same cold position on the ground for too long. I need at least one more layer of heavy fleece for this kind of thing, I grumbled silently to myself. Pretty early in this whole sequence of events, I hear my wife honking on the buck grunt, and figure she must not be able to see the elk from her position.
After a while, the sun well and thoroughly over the mountains and a more serious cold is setting into the valley. By now, I'm too cold to control the shivers anymore. I still fight to keep them from being too noticeable, but of course, at 12 yards, blinking would probably be noticeable - and I'm getting full body quivers at regular intervals. Calf elk stands up, and seems to be getting ready to vacate the area. Then, it starts staring up the hill toward my wife, and begins walking straight at me! I started to wonder if I was going to have to spook it just to keep from getting stepped on. Luckily, at about 7 yards, it decided to head down the hill instead of straight at me.
Before this story gets any more long winded, I'll wrap it up by saying that after what seemed an eternity, and a whole bunch of to and fro on the part of the elk, both the calf and it's mother who decided to make an appearance finally wandered off after barking at me a couple times.
It was prime time for deer, but I took a chance and rolled out from behind the tree far enough to look up at my wife, and she was shaking cold too. Enough of this foolishness. So I head up to her position, and we start getting ready to go.
As we were discussing the events back at the truck, she clued me in that it wasn't her honking on the grunt call - at least not at first. Apparently, there was a buck in the bush somewhere not too far from us while all this was going on - and judging by the bass in his grunt, he probably wasn't a young one (I had thought at the time, that it sounded a little deeper and louder than our little grunt call). My wife had tried to call him in with the grunt call after he made his presence known, but never had any luck getting him to show himself. We're pretty sure he headed out with the elk after all the barking.
Oh well, despite the lack of fresh meat, it was a very enjoyable hunt except for the fact that we were under dressed for the evening cold. And no kill, means no cut tag, which means we can do it all again some other day.
Oh look, a herd of elk back in the trees. Obviously, they've figured out that they're no longer open for hunting, because rather than head for the far mountains like they do during open season, they stand around stupidly and stare at us. We stare back. For a long time.
After a while, some of the herd wanders out into an opening in the forest maybe 80 yards away. As I put the binoculars on what I thought was a little 4 point bull, I did a double take. He's non-typical. I start counting points. Seven. Neat antler configuration too - like an extra large typical 3 point frame, with 4 of these slender spikes sticking out in various places, ranging from 3 to 9 inches. I wish I had seen him back before the 20th!
Anyway, the elk and us both moved on after a while. After the rest of our drive into our spot, I dropped the wife off, and headed down the road. I then made a long slow meandering walk through the timber about a mile back towards her, hoping that I might spook something shootable her way.
No such luck, though she said there was a doe came within ten yards of her just as a random thing right after I dropped her off.
So, making up a new plan on the spot - we hiked back to a spot where I had seen a lot of big tracks in the snow. One set, clearly deer and not elk, were about the size you'd expect from a mature cow elk, with nice little dew claws trailing. I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't a shooter buck (maybe even that truly monster class whitetail I've seen off in the shadows in this area for two years running and never had a clean shot at)
So, we sit down in the freezing cold to see what we can see. The Wife sits about 30 yards up the hill from me, and I lay down with my head on a tree and rest my eyes and hunt with my ears (or perhaps I should say, I started napping lightly, and figured I'd wake up if my wife shot something, or if a big critter came crashing through the bush nearby).
I woke up hearing noises. It sounded like a whole herd of Primos "Hoochie Mamma" elk calls were gathering up for a pending attack. I cracked my eyes, and though I couldn't see most of the herd, I saw enough elk to realize a good sized herd was passing by about 100 yards to my right. Elk elk elk... dang it, where's the whitetail?
I resumed my semi-nap, even though by this point, my hiking outfit was not keeping me at all warm enough to rest comfortably. Shortly after that, an elk off in the bush made a sound that was vaguely like microphone feedback. I figured something had smelled us, and they were leaving now.
Half an hour or so later, I thought I heard something off to my left. I roll my head gingerly to the side, and crack my eyes. Lo and behold, there's a calf elk, bedded down and chewing it's cud, maybe 12 yards away from me. I blinked hard a couple times to see if I was hallucinating from the cold and napiness. Nope, still there. Chewing it's cud, and staring hard at me. You gotta be kidding me!
A few minutes later, after the 'oh, neat' factor wore off, I realize my prediciment: Now, not only do I have to be cold, now I have to be 100% still, so I don't scare that potentially huge whitetail buck away with the sounds of spooked elk. Great - I'm already so cold it's all I can do to control the shivers, and things are starting to hurt pretty bad from being in the same cold position on the ground for too long. I need at least one more layer of heavy fleece for this kind of thing, I grumbled silently to myself. Pretty early in this whole sequence of events, I hear my wife honking on the buck grunt, and figure she must not be able to see the elk from her position.
After a while, the sun well and thoroughly over the mountains and a more serious cold is setting into the valley. By now, I'm too cold to control the shivers anymore. I still fight to keep them from being too noticeable, but of course, at 12 yards, blinking would probably be noticeable - and I'm getting full body quivers at regular intervals. Calf elk stands up, and seems to be getting ready to vacate the area. Then, it starts staring up the hill toward my wife, and begins walking straight at me! I started to wonder if I was going to have to spook it just to keep from getting stepped on. Luckily, at about 7 yards, it decided to head down the hill instead of straight at me.
Before this story gets any more long winded, I'll wrap it up by saying that after what seemed an eternity, and a whole bunch of to and fro on the part of the elk, both the calf and it's mother who decided to make an appearance finally wandered off after barking at me a couple times.
It was prime time for deer, but I took a chance and rolled out from behind the tree far enough to look up at my wife, and she was shaking cold too. Enough of this foolishness. So I head up to her position, and we start getting ready to go.
As we were discussing the events back at the truck, she clued me in that it wasn't her honking on the grunt call - at least not at first. Apparently, there was a buck in the bush somewhere not too far from us while all this was going on - and judging by the bass in his grunt, he probably wasn't a young one (I had thought at the time, that it sounded a little deeper and louder than our little grunt call). My wife had tried to call him in with the grunt call after he made his presence known, but never had any luck getting him to show himself. We're pretty sure he headed out with the elk after all the barking.
Oh well, despite the lack of fresh meat, it was a very enjoyable hunt except for the fact that we were under dressed for the evening cold. And no kill, means no cut tag, which means we can do it all again some other day.