The Family Adventure 2012

[Darksith]

Well today is the day before I depart on our annual hunt. We try to get out every year for a couple weeks, and by we I mean myself, my dad, and any of his brothers that want to join us (he has 5, 1 or 2 always attend). Last year we went exploring up around pink mountain, and all we managed to kill was time. The year before we went to 6-02 and again only killed time. This year we are venturing to a little spot that I hold very dear to my heart in 3-29. This is in my back yard and I am very confident that we will manage to kill more than time this year. I have had my t cams in the area for several years, I know the area well and there are lots of both white tail and mule deer as well as moose around. We are really hunting for spike forks, and while doing that will take any deer of opportunity that presents itself. I know the spike forks are an elusive species, but I have pulled one out of the area in years past, and I was watching a few calves last year hoping they didn't succumb to wolves over the winter. Anyway my truck is loaded up with camp (gotta like it when you can load your truck in a hour and basically have camp ready to head out), I just gotta pack my clothes, buy some liquid entertainment, pack the coolers, load the Rhino and I am off. The next 2 weeks will be a lot of fun, and hopefully they will involve a few trips to the butcher, which will give me a chance to come visit the little guy as hes not quite ready for hunting camp...hopefully by 4 he will be able to join me. I'll be updating my adventure periodically and hopefully have some good pictures to toss to HBC. I will be attempting to document the trip with video, and hopefully get some good quality kills on film, and or even some close encounters with moose, even if they aren't the elusive spike/fork. Last year I had a cow calf withing 20' on more than 1 occasion, so hopefully I can repeat this year with video.

[kennyj]

Good luck and have fun.
kenny

[TIKA 300]

Have a great time,sounds like fun......:mrgreen:

[Grousedaddy]

Good luck to you and your fam ive been out alot this year and its been very slow in our area i hope you guys get something , slowest year around kamloops for me to date but atleast the excersise has been good for me lol

[Spy]

Good luck & have a safe trip, hope to see some pics of dead critters !

[swampthing]

3-29 used to be in my backyard too. I will hunt it a bit in november. Next year at 4 your young hunter will be ready to go. My sons mother raised my son until he was 4, then he became mine.

[Darksith]

Myself and a friend headed out sunday morning to begin setting up camp. As we drove out to our site we put up some signs to help the out of towners find their way since there were a few tricky turns. We were glad to find that no one was in our first choice location, and we began the long process of setting up a camp that would be our home for the next 2 weeks. As we were setting up camp several other hunting parties showed up and quickly left. It never even occurred to us that seeing other hunters in the area would be an sign of things to come. Heres our camp.
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i472/GNalleweg/010.jpg
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i472/GNalleweg/024.jpg
We were almost done setting up when we heard another vehicle rolling in, and the timing was about right for my buddy to show up so I started to walk down the road in anticipation of seeing my best bud. Sure enough it was Reagan, and I handed him a beer and welcomed him to camp. We quickly unpacked his truck as it was getting late and we needed to get rolling if we wanted to get our first evening hunt in. The 3 of us piled into my Rhino and we headed out. I was the only one familiar with the area, so I gave them the tour and we went around checking on my trail cams. Not really any pictures to mention, and no game spotted the first evening so we headed back to camp.

[Darksith]

The next morning we headed to my moose hole before light and came up with a plan. Me and Reagan would hunt the valley, and our other buddy would walk down to the blocks at the end of the road and check out that area. We found a good spot to watch my secret swamp below us and sat down waiting for light. When day came so did the ravens and we were absolutely amazed at how many scavengers were around. I was a little dissapointed thinking that someone else knew my spot and had already bagged something in there when all of a sudden a huge wolf howl came from right across the valley. I immediately jumped up and said to reagan, lets go predator hunting.

[Wrayzer]

Sounds good so far...keep it coming...

[Darksith]

The wind was wrong so we devised a plan to circle around and hopefully catch some lazy wolf chillin by his kill. As we were going down the side of the valley all of a sudden the entire pack of wolves erupted in howling and snarling, but they weren't where we had heard the first howl, they had already moved off and were too far for us to catch up to them. A little pissed off and a little curious we decided to hike up to where the ravens were to see what they had taken down. Along the way we heard the pack a couple more times and it was obvious they were moving away from us down the valley, which was towards our camp and main hunting area. When we got to the kill site we found a spiker mulie stripped to the bone. We figured the place was spooked and we didn't have a hope of seeing anything in there when all of a sudden we hear a shot from the direction our buddy had gone. We headed back to the truck to get the radio to see if that was him shooting and if he had something on the ground. We got to the truck and I grabbed the radio, but of course the batteries were dead and I didn’t have any spare batteries. So wait we did until the planned meeting time of 11am, if he didn’t show by then we were gonna go for a drive to look for him.

11am rolled around and so did our buddy, we asked him if that was him shooting and he said no it was another guy that was planning on going to the same spot I had sent him. Damn we both said, then we proceeded to tell him of our wolf encounter and the dead spiker. He then told us about how he was walking down the last leg of the dead end road when a truck had rolled up behind him. The guy got out and told our friend that he was planning on going down to the same spot he was headed, and he was obviously a bit disappointed that he was late to the party and that there wasn’t really any other road or area to hunt right there. He took a leak, then backed up 100m to the intersection and drove up the last 200m of road to another block before leaving the place. That’s where he found the 2x3 standing there and shot it. As we were driving home my buddy kept going on about this guy and his 2x3 so I said “oh well, just another small deer out of our way so we can find the big buck” and he said “deer? It was a 2x3 moose!” Damn, we had both thought he was talking about a deer since we had been talking about a dead spiker mulie. So my spot did have an immy hanging out in it, just not exactly where I would have guessed and someone else had lady luck shine down on him even though he was late and didn’t get to hunt his spot. Congrats to him.

[Piperdown]

type faster :)