My Favorite Time of Year

Apples, pumpkins, change of color, hunting season. 

A close second is dogwoods, redbuds and turkey season.  We'll talk about that in the Spring.

This weekend, Dave was off to Michigan and Joan was off to FL for Kristen's shower.  Luckily, Creigh was available to come keep me company for my first archery hunt of the season.  Dave had been out last weekend for the opener (while I was in Utah) and he saw a few deer but didn't have a shot.

This was Creigh's first time out for an archery hunt.  We got to the farm Friday afternoon about 3:00.  The weather was not very cooperative - raining, blowing and in the 50's.  After taking a few warm up shots, Creigh went to the barn stand and I decided to hunt the ground blind by the orchard.  The apples are pretty irresistable at this time of year.  Sunset was 7:17 so we figured that we could hunt until 7:45.

I sat and shivered in the ground blind for a couple hours.  Eventually, I gave up and walked in for a some additional layers.  Creigh was dressed a little on the light side and I was imagining him shivering out there in the wind and rain.

At about 6:30, the rain stopped, the wind died down and the sun came out.  I still didn't see anything until 7:25 (after sunset).  Two does came out in the field to eat oats and soybeans.  I watched them as the light disappeared and then decided it was about time to go in.  As I packed up to sneak back to the barn, two deer busted me and I didn't even know that they were out there.  All I could see was big bodies and white tails bounding down below the driveway.  The two does in the field didn't even move.

When Creigh came in, he was pretty pumped.  At 6:30, he was leaning back on the stool holding his phone and he looked up to find the "high 8" buck standing off to his left at 25 yards.  He took some photos and then he spooked and moved out into the middle of the clover field.  He wandered around for a while eventually coming back to the treeline on the right, walking out toward the 100 yard stand, turning up toward the firepit/orchard and stopping with his nose in the wind.  My guess is that he got a wiff of me (northwest wind) and he turned and headed down below the pond.

Creigh also saw 3 does, a small 4 point buck and another "medium" sized buck.  He got a few shots with his phone but not with his bow.  Most of the deer seemed to follow the same path as the "high 8" down toward the 100 yard stand and then up to the firepit.

Creigh's phone shot (above) and trailcams of the same buck (below)

These are some of the does that  Creigh caught on his phone camera.

On Saturday morning, I went out to the driveway stand and Creigh went back to the barn stand.  I didn't see a thing and Creigh had a young buck out in the field.  After the morning hunt, we had breakfast, checked all the cameras (most needed batteries) and then harvested some pumpkins.  While touring around the trails, we pushed a number of deer including one buck that ran down the trail in front of us.  A friend of mine from work stopped by and we loaded about 20 pumpkins up for him to take to his Dad's place for a Fall festival.  There are still alot of pumpkins to harvest and some of them appear to still be growing.

Creigh left in the afternoon to head back for social engagements.  I decided to hunt the ground blind again.  At 6:30, the "high 8" showed up under the apple trees on the other side of the the fence (at about 25 yards).  He ate a few apples and then seemed to spook. He ran to the middle of the soybean field and stopped to graze for awhile.  I tried to take his picture since he was out of bow range (not a very good shot).  He ate there a while and then moved to the main field to eat clover.  He stayed out there until dark (another hour).

At about 7:15, a 4 point and a button buck worked into the orchard field.  They seemed to prefer the oats.  I was hoping to see the bucks that busted me the night before but I never did.  As light diminished, several more deer worked into the orchard field but I couldn't tell what they were.  The button buck worked his way under the apple trees and ended up standing 15 yards in front of me.  He never did bust me and he wandered off.

On Sunday morning, I headed to the barn field stand.  As usual, I was a few minutes late on the walk out. 

I only saw one deer and he was a little 4 point all the way up by the sunflowers.  When I got down from the stand, I walked down to the pond and that 4 point was grazing near the remains of the hi-rise stand.

I did chores most of the day.  I worked on a second batch of jerky (started the first batch the night before), picked more pumpkins, picked apples (I'm late this year - they're almost gone), put the tape back up around the prizewinner pumpkin, cleared some trails, checked the camera that I got working again, got my Utah stuff unloaded and put away, and loaded up the Expedition.  I got stung by a bee on my pinkie finger as I was scooping up hunting clothes from Utah.  I'm not sure why a bee thought that was a good place to be.

At about 4:30, I decided to head out to the driveway stand.  As I left the barn, I saw the 4 point and the button buck in the pond field.  I started up the driveway and then I noticed a deer standing in the driveway plot.   I kneeled down and watched her for awhile.  She seemed very focused on the woods behind the stand.  Eventually another large doe joined her out in the field.  At this point, I gave up on getting into the driveway stand and headed back to the ground blind at the orchard.

There was no real action until after 7:00 when I noticed two bucks at the far end of the main field.  One of them was a 4 point and the other was the "mutant buck",  It has a large nice rack on the right side but a vertical forkhorn on the left side.  This is a trailcam shot of him.

They stayed on that end of the field and at about 7:20, three does worked into the orchard field from the firepit area.  They grazed on the oats and brassica until one of the does became alert looking almost directly at me.  I realized that the doe was watching something coming up out of the weeds below the pines.  It turned out to be the "high 8" and it was walking right in front of the groundblind at 15 yards.  I reached for the bow and he immediately busted me and started squawking and running.  I never came close to getting a shot.  He ran to the main field and stopped to pose for me.  He really is a very nice looking buck and he has been within bow range of a hunter during daylight for each of the last three nights.  Tempting fate.  Or skeptical of the hunter's skills.

The bucks are all out of velvet but there's only a little evidence of rubbing.  Something (coyote or raccoon) decided that it should mark the territory right in front of the porch.

I miss my old truck sometimes.  I loaded as much as possible into the Expedition.  Half were unloaded at home and the other half will go to Lexington.  Next week, I should have a similiar load.

Utah Elk Hunt

Day 1 (Wed 9/21)

This was my first time travelling on a commercial flight with a firearm.  I didn't have any trouble checking in at the Delta counter in Cincinnati.  The agent told me that TSA had implemented a new policy and I wouldn't need to open it for them.  Sounded great and I headed out thru security to the Sky Room.  Shortly after entering the Skyroom, I was paged and they told me they wanted me to come back out to the front to open the gun case for them.  I told them the combination for the locks and they were happy to open it without me. 

I arrived at SLC airport, picked up bags (no trouble with the gun) and got a rental car.  Drove to Morgan, UT in less than an hour.  Couldn’t believe it – one minute in suburbia near Ogden and the next minute over a pass and at my destination.  There is a Browning factory outlet store in town and I stopped there for a look since I was arriving early.  I got to the lodge about 1:00pm and Jim arrived a few minutes after me.  He and his wife, Teri, drove out together from Cincinnati.  Teri was spending some time in SLC while we hunted.  Jim had received an email from Bob that he had a bull elk down.  He was in a deep hole so they were going to have to pack quarters out to a vehicle.  It was going to be awhile.  Included in the email was this picture of Bob's bull elk.  Bob had arranged to start and finish his hunt early so that he could get home for his wife's brthday.

While waiting for Bob to come in, Jim and I met up with Justin Richins, the outfitter, and he took us out to his range to sight in our guns.  His range was about 15 minutes away and had a shooting house with targets at 270 yards, 400 yards and then every 100 yards out to 1600.  We shot off a bench and Justin had me raise the zero on my gun so that it was shooting 2” high at 270 and about 5” low at 400.  Justin said I should be able to hold directly on target at any range to 400 yards and still be in the kill zone on an elk.  Since we were in early and the guide was available, Justin told us that we could hunt this first night (our hunt wasn’t supposed to start until the next morning).  We were introduced to our guide, Calvin, and made arrangements to head out at 5:00.  Calvin's father , Ken, also helped out by spotting for elk and helping to recover them once shot.

Shortly after meeting Calvin, Bob pulled in with his bull.  It was a very impressive 5x5 that he shot at about 20 yards.  His guide cow called and it charged out of heavy cover directly at him.  Bob shot it in the chest almost point blank and then followed up with several broadside chest shots.  They skinned and quatered the bull where he fell in heavy cover and then carried the meat out to the jeep.  The hind quarters weigh about 120 pounds so it wasn't an easy task.  Bob made arrangements to get the meat to the processor and he ran the head to the taxidermist.  Here's Bob with the cape before leaving for the taxidermist.

Jim and I headed out with Calvin and hunted a property literally adjacent to the Snowbasin Ski Resort.  Calvin’s Ranger was in the shop for repairs so we took the truck out and hiked a little bit.  On this first night, we saw some mule deer does and heard a few faint bugles but we didn’t see any elk. The weather was quite warm and I hunted in shirt sleeves.  Once the sun went down, I needed a jacket.  When we came in, we had lasagna for dinner and celebrated Bob’s bull.

Day 2 (Thu 9/22)

We had breakfast at 5:30 and then headed out to hunt.  The temperatures were in the 40’s so it was a little chilly.  We walked in during dark and set up on a high bluff overlooking a big valley.  We expected the elk to be moving thru this valley after feeding on alfalfa all night on an adjoining property.  The bedding cover was across the valley.  We glassed for more than an hour before we saw our first elk.  Then we started to see more cows working into this valley at about 1000 yards.  At one point, Calvin spotted a bull running thru the valley (I didn’t see it).  Eventually we decided to move and get closer to the elk that we were seeing.  This involved hiking down to the valley bottom and up the mountain on the other side (a mile or two?). The Ranger was still in the shop.  We heard some bugling and were getting responses to cow calls.  We eventually zeroed in on where we thought the bull was bedded on the end of a bluff in some thick cover.  We spotted a cow bedded out in front of where the bugles were coming from.  It was now late morning, the weather was warm and the elk were bedded down.  We decided to come back to the same spot in the evening because there really was only one way out from where he was bedded – sheer drop offs on three sides. We hiked down to a road probably a couple miles from where we had left our truck.  Calvin had his Dad, Ken, come pick us up and drive us back to his truck.

We had lunch and ran into Morgan to the Browning outlet store where we did a little shopping.  At about 5:00, we headed over to the property and parked the truck.  Calvin had gotten the Ranger back from the shop so we rode in on it for a few miles to get back to the spot where the bull had bedded down in the morning.  It was starting to get a little late and we really needed to get into position before the bull got up.  Ken and Bob were set up over a mile away with a spotting scope and he was watching the area where we told him that the bull would be.  As we were approaching the base of the mountain where the bull was located, Calvin attempted to cross a creek in the Ranger.  It was covered in vegetation and didn't look very wide or deep but it actually was both.  He stuck the Ranger deep in this mess and could not move it.  The water was up onto the floorboards.  He made the command decision to abandon the Ranger and head out on foot to get into position before it got too late. 

Jim had taken the first shooter position for the first 24 hours so, starting with this hunt, I was up to bat.  Calvin and I lead the way and climbed up the mountain side.  As we got near the top, Ken called and said the bull was up - were we in position?  Of course we weren't so we hustled toward where we believed the bull would be.  It turns out the bull left his harem of 8 or so cows and headed down into the valley for a drink of water.  Calvin and I headed over to look over the cliff and we spotted him walking up the valley.  Jim was trailing just behind us and could see what was going on.  The bull was already in front of us and walking away from us.  Calvin picked a spot and I sat down and set up shooting sticks.  Calvin lasered the bull and came up with 385 yards.  This is a distance much longer than I'm confident with but I had hit the 400 yard target the day before.

The bull was walking away and Calvin stopped him by using a cow call.  I put the scope on him and squeezed the trigger. I heard the gun go off and then it seemed like seconds later that I heard the whack when the bullet hit.  I thought I made a good shot and hit him but the bull just sort of looked a little confused.  Calvin later told me that he could see thru his binoculars that a dust cloud came off the bull's chest when the bullet hit - he had dried mud on him from wallowing.

Anyway, the bull started to walk away again and Calvin told me to hit him again.  I rushed a shot and Calvin said hit him again.  I shot again.  The bull then walked into the middle of a mud puddle and Calvin said to wait (he didn't want to deal with an 800 pound animal dead in a mud puddle).  By this point the adrenalin was rushing thru me and I was literally shaking.  We moved up the ridge to get closer to the bull and set up again.  Calvin had me take a couple more "finishing shots" and I don't think I hit him (still on adrenalin rush).  The bull laid down but his head was still up.  We got closer and set up again.  At this point, I couldn't find anymore bullets since I had blown off about 7 total.  Jim caught up to us and he handed me another one.  As we watched, the bull's head went down and some cattle that were in the area came over and walked directly up to the dead bull out of curiosity.  I didn't need Jim's bullet and I gave it back to him.

We climbed down the hillside and walked up to the bull.  To me, he looked huge.  Here's some of the numerous pictures we took as we were losing daylight.

This is where he fell and as we walked up on him.

A happy man who has recently recovered from a case of the adrenalin shakes.

This photo was taken standing at the bull and looking back up to where I was when I shot it.  I was up on that hillside on the left edge of the photo.  I first hit the bull when he was standing about where that steer is on the left.

Here I am with Calvin who guided me to the bull, set me up, gave me the yardage, and tried to calm me down after I hit it.

Jim and I posing just before Calvin started work on skinning and butchering him.












So now it was about dark.  We had an 800 pound animal down a couple miles from the nearest road.  The Ranger was stuck about a mile away in another drainage.  The work was really just beginning.  Luckily, the Ranger was stuck beside a dirt farm road.  Calvin called Ken and described where he left it.  Bob was with Ken and the two of them took some chains (dropped off by Ken's wife) and went looking for the Ranger in the dark.  They eventually found it, waded out to it, used the chains and the winch on the Ranger to yank the Ranger back out of the creek by hooking onto the pickup truck (there were no trees in the vicinity).  They drove both the Ranger and the pickup truck up to the blacktop road and dropped off the truck.  Now in pitch darkness, they tried to find a way down to us at the animal.  On the way down, they almost got the Ranger stuck in another creek.

While the recovery efforts were going on, Calvin started work on the animal.  When we shoot a whitetail deer, we gut it and drag the whole carcass.  An elk is too big to move even with the guts removed so they don't bother gutting it.  They just skin it, quarter it, remove the backstraps and tenderloins, and cape it (remove the head for mounting).  Here's some shots of Calvin at work.

He's starting the cut in the hide for the cape - taking the front half of the hide off with the head.  The elk hide is amazingly tough. This process dulled a bunch of knives.

Skinning the front quarter after removing the hoof.

This is the carcass that's left after removing all of the good meat.  It becomes a feast for the coyotes and other scavengers.

This is the recovered bullet.  It is a 180 grain 30-06 bullet shot from 385 yards.  It went thru the hide, thru the entire chest cavity, and didn't have enough energy left to break thru the hide on the exit side.  We found it as a lump under the skin.  The only other evidence of a hit from all of those follow up shots was a broken hind leg below the ankle.  It appears that the first shot did the trick and they are such a tough animal that it took awhile before the bull knew it.

As each chunk of meat came off, it was put in a big cloth bag and thrown in the Ranger.  It was about 10:00pm when we were done butchering the bull and now we had 5 guys, 500 pounds of meat and elk head, rifles and packs all about two miles from the trucks.  It was pitch black and we had one Ranger that could hold 3 people (but that was quite a load with the meat too).  Calvin made one run up out of the valley with Bob, me and the meat and then he headed back down for Jim and Ken.  We managed to find a reasonable crossing of the creek and didn’t get the Ranger stuck again.  We got back to the lodge sometime after 11:00 and we were really surprised to find Angela, the camp cook, still waiting dinner for us.  Calvin and Ken hung the meat and head in a tree to cool overnight (in the low 40’s at night).

Day 3 (Fri 9/24)

We slept fast and were back up for breakfast at 5:30.  Now we were looking for a bull for Jim.  Jim has taken something like 4 bull elk in the past and he really wanted a 6x6 or greater.  He had several 5x5’s already.  The elk have a pattern of coming down out of the hills to feed in farmer’s alfalfa fields during the night.  As it starts to get light, they head back up the mountain to find cover where they bed down during the day.  The plan was for Ken to drive down in his truck to the farm and take a look at the elk in the field at first light.  I went along with Ken and Bob went with Jim and Calvin to get in position for the migration.  As the light started to break, Ken and I could see over 20 elk in the field.  At least two of them were bulls and one of them looked to be a nice 6x6.  We were glassing them in low light from the road (1000 yards away).  As the sun came up, the big bull rounded up his harem of cows and they started up the hill by entering a valley.  It was exactly what was expected and we could see Jim, Bob and Calvin working their way into position on the hill above the valley that they had entered. 

This is the edge of the alfalfa field.  The elk stopped for a drink at the little puddle in the center of the picture.  Then they headed up the valley on the right and looped around the ridge.  We saw Jim and Calvin up on that ridge clearing.

 The big bull kept chasing off a “satellite bull” to keep him from getting close to his cows.  This whole parade of elk disappeared from our view as they went up the valley and disappeared around the peak where Jim was.  After about 30 minutes, we got a call from Calvin who said that they had a bull down. 

Ken and I drove the pickup truck up some dirt roads and got to the hilltop where we had seen them earlier.  The Ranger was parked there and we left the truck and took the Ranger down into the valley where we saw Jim.  When we got there, they had a 6x5 bull down in a small clearing with a creek.  There was some trees on the other side of the creek.  Apparently they had spotted the cows coming up the valley and worked their way down the hill.  They were hearing bugling from two bulls.  They got in position on one side of the creek and they were hearing bugling from the woods on the other side.  Calvin snuck out and put up a cow decoy and they got set.  The bull was in the woods beating up a tree when Calvin let out a cow call.  The bull bugled and came charging out of the woods fixated on the cow decoy.  He came charging right at the hunters closing from 30 to 20 yards.  Jim shot him several times at 20 yards.

 Bob, Ken, and me with Jim and his 6x5 bull.

Jim's bull had long and interesting brow tines.

Calvin at work.  The exit wounds at 20 yards were more substantial than from 385 yards.

This is the tree that the bull was beating up when Calvin called him out with a cow call.

Bob at the top of the hill above where Jim's bull was down.  You can see the ski runs at Snowbasin in the background.

The Ranger hauling the meat and head up to the truck.

Jim decided to go with a European mount so once we got back to camp, they removed the hide from the skull.

Jim and I with our capes before I headed out to the taxidermist.

This is the lodge where we stayed.  It was adequate when accompanied by great hunting.

View from the lodge down on an alfalfa field.

Some general terrain shots of the land that we hunted are shown below.

That concludes the story of a great hunt.  I'm expecting the meat to be shipped from the processor in 7 to 10 days.  The shoulder mount from the taxidermist will be shipped in 7 to 9 months.  I've added another blog post on the time spent after the hunt until our flights home.