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DapperDraculaDeer posted:This was definitely a good experience in general and I learned a lot. This reminds me a lot of my experiences early on bowhunting. I realized I had the hunting skills to put myself into archery shot situations pretty often but then I realized that getting to that point was just the beginning with archery tackle whereas with a gun it was all but done in the same situation. I’m at least glad it was a clean miss, I lost some animals early on and it’s not a fun experience. I’m not sure what to say with archery gear other than to keep up your shooting and really keep after it. I know I stalled out in becoming a Bowhunter probably right when I was on the cusp of doing it successfully on a consistent basis. I don’t know how you even manage to deal with that level of brush in the summer time. Just going out in TN to set trail cameras last week it was so ridiculously overgrown. Hunting that for a pig height critter would be challenging.
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Jul 20, 2020 19:57
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Boliver_Shagnasty posted:So I'm a brand new hunter; planning on going out for the first time this fall to hopefully bag a white-tailed deer. No one in my family or anyone I know well hunts. Where I'm planning on hunting is kind of mountainous(not Everest, but definitely some inclines). I was wondering what some people would recommend as far as the best way to get a hypothetical deer out of the woods. I've done a lot of reading about it; some people use tarps and paracord, some people invest in sleds or what are essentially hunting hand trucks, and a lot of what I've read says to just butcher the deer in the field, pack it in those white mesh game bags and pack it out like that. The last option seems like the most appealing to me and just making as many trips as it might take. I'm strong, but dragging a gutted deer for miles up and down hill just sounds awful, but I don't know poo poo. So I was just curious what methods y'all use and why? Break it down in the field and backpack it out (if legal) is the best way by far. I use the quick quarter gutless method. For deer I like the Kuiu boned out meat bags but I’ve also used the Alaskan game bags and Ovis sacks too. 1 Large Kuiu bag is often enough for a deer, 2 is definitely fine. https://www.kuiu.com/shop/packs/game-bags/kuiu-boned-out-game-bag/96002.html?dwvar_96002_color=White&cgid=pack-gamebags The backpack you use matters a lot. Ideally you have a meat hauling hunting pack like an Exo, Stone Glacier, Mystery Ranch or Kuiu pack where the meat can go between the pack and frame.
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Jul 21, 2020 03:52
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Boliver_Shagnasty posted:The backpack I use isn't specifically for hunting. I'm planning on using the pack I've used for backpacking for a few trips here and there over the years. It's just a basic internal frame that's pretty big with separate compartments. I didn't want to invest too much in gear right off the bat. By all means use the backpack you have but realize most REI type internal frame packs don’t really handle that weight all that well. Good hunting packs can easily help you pull 100+ lbs out of the woods in one trip. Extracting a midsized buck is usually ~60 lbs quartered plus the gear you have and a 10 lb rifle. It’s not unusual to need to do 90-100 lbs to pack all that out in 1 trip. I used my old Lowe Alpine pack the first time I field quartered and it just does not work nearly as well. For legality ask your game warden or read the regulations closely. You can get tenderloins out fine with gutless frame behind the last rib. It’s maybe not as clean of a finished produce but it’s worth the reduced hassle.
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Jul 21, 2020 04:12
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iammeandsoareyou posted:Hi other hunting thread! After years of being on the fence I’m jumping into hunting this year. I’m in Florida and my intended game is going to be wild pigs and deer. For a cooler the sweet spot is probably around 65-75 quarts for deer sized game. Meat is the same density as water and is right around 2 lbs/quart. They general rule is that you want 2x as much ice as meat to cook down so with a 75 quart cooler you have the capacity to cool down about 50 lbs of meat. Boned out deer bigger than those in Florida go 50-60lbs of meat. I’m vary aware of the exact weight because I’ve checked quite a few for airline flights. If not boned out the length of the femur generally limits you on smaller coolers. Time to get meat on ice depends on the temperature and the size of the game. Just make it a priority to get the skin off or empty the body cavity ASAP for best results. You do have longer than you think coming from a lifestyle built around refrigeration but don’t mess around in hot conditions. Public land etiquette is to not crowd people within reason. If you get beat to a spot move on. What that spacing means is so area dependent. Don’t hangout in the parking lot and ask people a bunch of questions. That’s about it really. Bowhunting in thick cover isn’t so much limiting in pure range, but rather what shot opportunities you should take. There is a lot of nuance to that. I wouldn’t recommend bowhunting from the start.
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Jul 25, 2020 00:13
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Burn Zone posted:Great intro post OP. I identify with this part. My father is a life-long hunter, and I hunted with him until I lost interest around 15-16 years old. I'm getting back into it now, and I'm excited. Applied for a few local quota hunts on federal land as those hunts occur before regular season opens. I'm going to ask around and see if I can find out what the etiquette is, but I'm assuming I can hike pretty far out and be good for the most part. One of the areas allows for overnight camping, so I'm considering going out the day before and setting up camp. I need to get a good pack and a new tent. I've been eyeing KUIU's stuff, but I feel like there might be better options out there. What state are you hunting? I’m currently living in TN but have also hunted in Northern AL as well. I don’t think the camo pattern matters much at all. If I had to pick one Fusion is the best all around pattern I’ve seen for varied environments. I’m pretty partial to Subalpine personally as well. Elevated is fine on the ground as well as in the air. Elevated 2 fixed the first generation issues. Valo is definitely the better late fall and winter camo pattern from Kuiu. Verde is too green and Vias doesn’t have quite enough micro disruption with too much contrast. One thing to note is of the 3 companies Kuiu is the only 1 without a Whitetail hunting line of clothing. Of the 3 Sitka is the most athletically cut and First Lite is the most relaxed fit. Kuiu is somewhere in the middle. Sitka is the only 1 of the 3 you can find to try on in store anymore. I like Sitka and First Lite the most. I have at one point or another had at least half dozen pieces of gear from Sitka, First Lite and Kuiu. I’ve returned, sold or given away the most Kuiu gear of the 3. I really feel like First Lite has really improved over the last 3 years or so. I also think First Lite is the most economical way to put a system together with General pieces. I would say First Lite has a more straightforward line up to navigate than Sitka and Kuiu. I feel First Lite has the best rain gear of the 3 companies. First Lite has good sales at Black Friday and intermittent smaller sales on seasonal gear. I’ve probably kept the most First Lite pieces so far of the 3 companies. Kuiu was supposed to be cheaper than Sitka, it was started by the cofounder of Sitka after his non Compete was up to be consumer direct only. I don’t think it’s been less expensive in quite a few years. To me Kuiu seems like it’s lost it’s direction a bit, it’s now been 2 years since the founder died and he was a cult of personality love him or hate him. Kuiu is supposed to be minimal and lightweight. It will definitely have fewer pockets and gizmo’s than Sitka. Kuiu doesn’t put poo poo on sale anymore. Also don’t buy a Kuiu pack, I know from experience. I DO use some random Kuiu gear like their boned out meat bags, those are the best going for deer. Sitka makes hands down the best pants of the 3 brands IMO. They just have the knee pad thing figured out. I probably have 150 days on my Timberline pants and they are amazing as are the Apex pants. Sitka some times over does their features and makes some hyper niche products. Sometimes I think it’s brilliant like the integrated face mask on their hoodie and sometimes it’s dumb when they put a grunt tube holder specific pocket mid calf. Sitka has the warmest Treestand and Waterfowl gear going hands down. Like set you on fire warm. Sitka is pricey but it’s on sale January thru March. The biggest issue I’ve had with Sitka is buying redundant pieces of gear because they have too many options. Also their packs suck too and their rain gear is mediocre. Watch Hunt of the day and camofire for Sitka closeout sales. One thing to consider with southern deer hunting is that it feels pretty cold the first 2 hours of the day until the sun breaks and then it’s flat out hot. For this reason plan around layering rather than relying on a single layer of really warm gear.
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Jul 28, 2020 03:35
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Outrail posted:How much of difference is a novice hunter realistically going to see with solid color vs camo? If they're wearing slate grey/coyote/tan (depending on terrain) is that going to have significant if any effect with rifle hunting? The camo is going to make very little difference but in the instance of stand hunting I’m not sure I know of any company making a technical, heavily insulated set of bids with a quiet brushed fabric besides hunting brands. Can you replace FL Corrugates 1 for 1 with Prana Zion’s for active mid season hunting absolutely. Can you buy a goretex late season duck hunting parka equivalent from marmot, not so much.
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Jul 28, 2020 04:16
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Burn Zone posted:Weather is kind of the same here in Tennessee. I ordered a KUIU jacket to use through the fall, and I'm eyeing Sitka / First Lite for cold weather gear. Depending on where you are in TN, Binks lodge in Franklin is by far and away the best Sitka dealer I’ve ever been too. Bass Pro and Cabelas definitely have it but the selection varies wildly by store and season. I have the First Lite Sanctuary bibs and they are definitely overkill for TN, really they are for the Midwest where I had lived up until recently. Depending on how far you are going you may want to look at First Lite Uncompadgre Puffy pants instead of bibs. They thing that sucks about bibs is that they are huge and usually need to be rolled up on the outside of a pack. I’m interested to hear about your tactics and experiences hunting in TN. To be honest getting away from people in TN hasn’t been all that productive for me because it usually means trading off for worse habitat and lower deer density with bigger timber blocks instead of more broken terrain. Personally I’d rank TN as about a C+ hunting opportunity wise but I’ve also been spoiled to have hunted a dozen other states. I’m pretty confused by it because their seems to be a lot of pride in TN hunting and fishing by the locals and I don’t get it.
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Jul 28, 2020 21:21
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CarpenterWalrus posted:Money, partly. If I'm going to spend the money on a compound bow, I might as well get a rifle. I also want to develop the skill and physical strength a recurve requires. Honestly, if I can't pull of hunting with it, then at least I'll have it for target archery. Like you run into rabbits in the woods you can hunt or see them in your yard because those are very different things. I spent almost a decade hunting in northern IL and never felt like I ran into very many rabbits while hunting. Illinois in general has decimated nearly all its upland small game habitat with road to road fields with neatly mowed ditches and it’s small game participation has plummeted over the last 3 decades. I have heard a lot of aspiring hunters wanting to start with archery and often trad gear because they think gun hunting is too easy before they have tried it. The reality of it is in most cases the learning curve for even gun hunting is really steep especially if you don’t have a mentor and don’t have access to a bunch of sweet private land. If you don’t want to spend a bunch of money to small game hunt go buy a cheap shotgun. Otherwise if you are concerned about keeping hunting as an inexpensive past time I recommend looking elsewhere. If you are serious about trying hunting in Illinois look up the Illinois Learn to Hunt program. They host a lot of workshops, match people with mentors and have a growing library of online resources to get started. I volunteered with the program while I still lived in IL and the guys and girls running it know what they are doing.
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Aug 7, 2020 03:32
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With regard to archery hunting I think that the specific pursuit is a bit over romanticized and I think a lot of people do it for the wrong reasons. Namely extended seasons in most cases without putting in the time shooting while minimizing issues around wound loss. I love archery as a shooting discipline and I enjoy the hunt quality but I really do not like the efficacy of killing animals with archery equipment. I’d consider myself a casual bow hunter but I’ve taken deer and a turkey with a bow and I’ve bowhunted in 4? States. There is just no getting around how perfect a shot setup needs to be with a bow and the discipline required to wait for that opportunity otherwise it’s gets pretty ugly pretty quickly. People don’t talk about that part enough. I think anyone who wants to take up bow hunting should take bow hunters education regardless of whether it’s required or not where you are hunting. What’s crazy is how variable bowhunting advantages are place to place. When I hunted Mark Twain national forest in MO I could go all fall and see one other person during bow season in a place with 50 trucks at a trailhead during gun season but in NW Illinois bow season pressure was nearly worse than gun season. Where I am in TN now there is next to no reason to bow hunt because all you really get is October which is 90 degrees still and solidly prerut with gun seasons running November-January. Two Firearm elk tags I’ve drawn in AZ and WY are actually harder to draw during archery than rifle season. It’s all over the place and archery/muzzleloader seasons aren’t really a statistical advantage in a lot of cases anymore. Please don’t recommend Cameron Hanes as a bowhunting resource in the same vein as John Dudley. John Dudley is a wealth of technical knowledge and Cameron Hanes is just a social media ego comparable to that of a Kardashian.
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Aug 10, 2020 03:48
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iammeandsoareyou posted:So for those of us who live where cool weather is a relative concept and winter is not guaranteed, scent control is obviously an issue. I ran across this guy's system of "smoking" his hunting gear as a method of scent masking. According to the article he does his hunting in Florida and N.C. Has anyone tried this system? I think scent control in hot weather is nearly impossible if you aren’t walking very short distances to a fixed stand. You really have to resign yourself to hunting the wind IMO. I do think it helps to wash your clothes in scent free detergent after every trip in hot weather, but that’s as simple as using sportwash. You will be more definitively busted by smell if you can smell your own clothes. Regular washing your hunting clothes often causes a few seconds of confusion long enough to get a shot.
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Aug 20, 2020 20:34
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wesleywillis posted:What about storing your hunting clothes in a bag with some pine or cedar boughs? For me cover scents are the equivalent of spraying on axe body spray after sweating at the gym instead of showering. I will just say as a general warning to everyone, I’m not sure any aspect of hunting gear or knowledge has more snake oil than scent control products. I can tell someone that spending money on better optics or a better backpack will improve their experience but I don’t think the same can be said for scent control stuff on the whole. Opinions on scent control vary wildly if you ask eastern whitetail guys or backpack hunters that don’t change clothes for a week. If you ever listen to Wired to Hunt podcasts you will hear some insane scent control strategies by really successful hunters. Guys will go so far as to have a hunting clothes only washer and dryer, store all their clothes in activated carbon, use only in scented shampoo for all or archery deer season, etc... Western hunters tend to wholly dismiss scent control stuff because it’s completely impractical even if it did work. Having done a lot of both types I would say situationally both are generally correct to some degree. I do think washing your gear regular with unscented soaps and wearing rubber boots can definitely help lessen your scent and result in a shorter scent dispersion pattern when practical. To me that requires having daily access to a shower, washer and dryer and walking short distances to preexisting stands. If you are sleeping in the bed of your truck and carrying a treestand 1 mile back in daily there is no stopping sweating a ton. Regardless of scent control anyone deer hunting should have a wind indicator of some sort whether it’s a powder bottle, milkweed or a feather and use it often. I do think it’s noteworthy that none of the 3 best hunting clothes companies use scent blocker technologies besides the properties of Merino wool or Polygene on synthetics. While all of those are western hunting companies both Sitka and First Lite have full dedicated whitetail clothing lines without scent control. There have also been quite a few false advertising lawsuits with varying outcomes around scent control products so consider it all with caution.
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Aug 21, 2020 14:54
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Tias posted:Taking my permit here in Denmark in 2021. Pretty stoked abt it! It varies state by state in the US but we have to take a hunter safety class that’s roughly a 1.5 day class with a test and a field day taught at a 5th grade level (at best). Most states age exempt people from hunter safety somewhere between 40-60 years old or for military service. Once you have it in one state you are good to go in all 50 states. The only exception is for archery hunting some states now require a separate bow hunter safety class. Hunter safety in the US teaches gently caress all about hunting and is mostly about not shooting your buddy crossing a fence with a loaded gun. Lots of states are reworking their programs right now to focus on teaching people how to actually learn to hunt. Our current hunter safety basically assumed your dad would teach you how to hunt and you lived in a rural area. Actually getting a license to hunt is quite variable and is controlled at the state level. Some places you go buy a license at a gas station or Walmart the night before the season that is good statewide whereas others you apply in a lottery 8 months before the season for a chance to draw a tag from a limited number of spots in a specific geographic area.
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Sep 19, 2020 13:59
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Tias posted:That is.. worrying. In Denmark you take extensive firearm safety (hunting permit being one of the only legal ways to bear arms, it is safe to assume most of us who take the tests haven't used a gun before), courses in hunting laws and also game and bird recognition - as well as instruction in how to hunt so as to maintain population welfare and obey the hunting season restrictions. It’s just very American. From a safety perspective it does work, it’s way more dangerous driving to go hunt than the actual hunting part. As far as serious injuries falling out of treestands and hypothermia much more likely to hurt/kill hunters than gunshots. There are a lot of very knowledgeable hunters in the US with regard to everything you are tested on but the knowledge transfer is much more tribal.
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Sep 19, 2020 15:42
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EvilJoven posted:Question for waterfowl hunters. I only own one suitable shotgun at the moment and my wife and I are both doing more hunting. When we can't borrow a second shotgun I'm using a borrowed one with a stupidly short barrel, 12". I know I have to shoot extremely close in order to get a tight enough pattern to not just piss off or injure a bird, but any idea on just how close? I've only been out with it once and the few opportunities I've had that I would have definitely fired with my long barrel I held fire because it wasn't a close enough pass for it to feel right. Barrel length isn’t ballistically the issue as much as the choke. The barrel length is a problem for ergonomics but has somewhat less effect than the constriction of the choke. Waterfowl is typically hunted with a modified choke, often a bit tighter for geese or pass shooting ducks. In those cases you are talking about holding a 30” pattern from 30-40 yards. I’m betting a 12” barreled, likely cylinder bore, shotgun will only hold that 30” pattern to 15-20 yards. One option would be to get Federal flight control wad ammo like Black Cloud as those patterns are more independent of loose choking. You should go pattern the gun if you really want to know. That said you should go get the correct tool for the job which is a 28” barrel with interchangeable chokes.
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Sep 19, 2020 15:50
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HamAdams posted:Long post warning: Just got back from my first elk hunt and it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. One of my brothers drew an archery elk tag for NM unit 50, so three of us piled into a truck and drove straight thru. Congratulations. Killing an elk DIY with a bow in 4 days is pretty remarkable all things considered. If you start looking at average western states it’s like 30 days on average hunting to kill an elk. Hell just drawing a tag in NM as a nonresident is goddamned near impossible without an outfitter or buying a landowner tag since 3% of tags go to non residents without a guide. I’ve never drawn a single Tag in NM either elk or antelope and I have been applying for 5 years or so for both. As far as 50 being the toughest unit in NM, uhh not so much. Most of the unit is 6-7k elevation and the deepest canyons aren’t over 1k elevation difference. If you look at a unit like NM 45 you are up into 13k elevation like most any southern Colorado unit and it’s nearly all wilderness. 50 is a pretty standard terrain for most NM and AZ elk units and would rank on the less intense side once you consider the northern Rockies. That isn’t to say you didn’t kill an elk in a hell hole within the unit just that you are describing a pretty run of the mill western hunt exertion wise.
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Sep 27, 2020 03:09
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Outrail posted:The day after a few days of heavy rain should be better or worse for deer activity? My guy says better as their stretching their legs and trying to stay in the sun to dry/warm up. Maybe going into higher ground as there'll be more surface water to drink? I think that in the case of deer they cloud cover and lower light makes them more comfortable to move later in the morning and earlier in the evening with rain. I also think in areas with hunting pressure the deer know that guys don’t hunt in the rain as often and feel safer. I’ve had some great days deer hunting in light rain.
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Sep 27, 2020 03:14
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Piss Meridian posted:probably better not to kill the herd bull, no? Why? The Bull to cow ratio in that unit is 38 bulls per 100 cows which is pretty good. There are likely 3-4 satellite bulls for every herd bull in that unit if not more which can cover the breeding demand just fine when you consider elk are harem breeders.
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Sep 27, 2020 03:57
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crazypeltast52 posted:What apps do you all use to check trail camera pictures when you are in the field? I have the actual Apple SD to lightning connector and it’s even spotty to use at best with the Apple photo import app. It seems to depend on the SD card and the latest IOS screw up as to whether or not it works. I hate wrestling trail cams. Good luck!
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Oct 5, 2020 19:26
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So if you have followed these threads for a while elk hunting has been my white whale for a while. This problem is I committed to doing it DIY on public land and am a nonresident of any state with a huntable elk population. I short I’ve spent the last 5 years applying in multiple states, hunting on leftover/OTC tags and while I got close, I never managed to kill an elk. This year I drew a Wyoming elk tag after way too many years of applying. I was in limbo between getting a good limited entry unit and had too many points to burn on a general tag. I ended up splitting my points with a friend and we drew elk tags in the Bighorn mountains. These are basically the least desirable limited entry units mostly because they tend to have some weather issues. As a point of reference Randy Newberg was towed out of this same unit by a game warden after a blizzard so it seemed like the logical place to go right? 3 of went out to Wyoming with 2 elk tags and 4 antelope doe tags this year. We took Charliebravo77’s truck and towed a trailer provided by the other hunter. Needless to say the trailer was a huge pain in the rear end and the lights didn’t work initially on CharlieBravo77’s truck before we even left the 60 degree clear Chicago suburbs. A trip to autozone and we were West bound and down. Prior to the hunt we had pretty good weather in the forecast. We could hunt Thursday until Friday of the following week if necessary and there was only 1 day of snow in the forecast. Needless to say that forecast went to hell while we were driving out there and suddenly we had snow expected most days. We were tent camping on this trip and knew mobility would be limited. Upon getting to the unit there was maybe 2 inches of snow at 8,000 ft so we proceeded to drive up to 9,600 ft and go to the far end of the unit where we would ideally hunt.  It was in the 20’s but the wind was blowing 40 mph and drifting snow. We passed a few camps and eventually hit a point only ATV’s were going down the road and snow was drifting up. Eventually 2 miles from the far end of the unit we buried the truck into a foot of snow that was drifted across the road……  We managed to back out though that’s a huge pain in the rear end with a trailer in tow. We changed clothes in the truck and glassed a basin from the windy side.   We saw little sign but it was also midmorning. We realized we couldn’t get down off the finger ridges with the truck where the ATV’s could go and headed down the mountain. It was snowing lightly at this point but drifting really badly where the road bed was below the adjacent terrain. While going back up the spine ridge to the high mountain the truck started losing traction and we had to backup. This repeated a few times and eventually it ended with us stuck in a snow drift with a trailer jackknifed on the downhill side of us. We sheared off the tool box from the trailer hitch as well. Some locals came buy on ATV’s, saw the IL license plates and asked if we knew what we were doing. Luckily we had recovery boards and got out of the drift on the second attempt. From then on we knew it would only degrade up high and we moved back down the mountain and setup up camp at 8,400 ft at a walk in TH. Somewhere along the way in the process we also knocked off the trailer license plate, the 2x12 across the back of the trailer bounced out and we lost our folding table………We were very happy to disconnect that trailer. Scouting that evening we split up to cover more ground. The other guy with me spotted 5 cow elk about an hour before dark but in the time it took to get the spotting scope out the snow and fogged rolled in and limited our visibility to 400 yards or so. This would continue for the next 1.5 days this way. Like Ray Charles, we couldn’t see poo poo.  Opening morning we decided to go down a flat trail to where we saw the elk the day before. We were beat to leaving by a bunch of really old guys but we passed them a little ways down the trail. We split up to cut off the elk feeding back into the timber from a large meadow. There isn’t a lot else to say than that half of the unit had the same idea and old guys and whole families came thru our spots all morning, some stopping to make campfires. Opening morning was a bust but it taught us we were going to need to do more to get away from people. The evening of opening day CharlieBravo77 dropped us off at a TH where it was 18 degrees and snowing intermittently. The visibility was rendering my 15x bino’s and spotting scope useless. 2 of us moved around a basin and eventually jumped a calf elk at 30 yards, I initially thought it was a mule deer but we cut the track and it was an elk. We followed the track and it met up with 2-3 other elk and moved into some blowdown timber before looping back. It was a fun 1.5 hours following those tracks and glassing into the thick cover. There was sign in there heavy, though that could be said of the whole unit. The number of rubs in this unit was off the charts. That evening was fun at least feeling like we were in the game. At this point the 7 day forecast was starting to look pretty bad. We had snow showing most every day but Friday was at least supposed to be clear and less windy in the evening. We figured at this point we would take any elk we could get because there was no way we wouldn’t be snowed out within a few days even though we had 8 more potentially to hunt. Friday morning, hunt day 2, CharlieBravo77 dropped us off at the bottom of a mountain where we would climb 1,000 feet in less than half a mile. It was basically straight up in 6” of snow in the dark.  At the top the wind was whipping badly and we moved back down a few hundred feet into a relative calm spot. We started glassing up elk getting bumped left and right by road hunters in an out of the Regenerating timber. This unit has a lot of logging and the elk like the THICCKKEE stuff. About 20 minutes in we spotted a group of elk down our ridge half a mile that dropped into the Regen. We ended up running in their general direction but never found them. Around this time I looked at a ridge 3 miles away right below the snowline (at this time) and saw 20+ elk feeding. There wasn’t a clear bull in the group but they were undisturbed and 2-3 miles down a foot trail so we knew we could likely get on them in the evening. Locating that small meadow on the maps was a chore. On the way down the hill we spotted 4 more elk including a raghorn bull across a rather deep canyon.  We took note of that spot but they were moving not feeding so we opted for the distant cows in the evening. We left camp around 2 pm and quickly ran into another group of 3 local hunters on the trail. We were going way faster than them but they wouldn’t let us pass them. Ultimately we basically walked 6 feet behind them for a mile and went for a pass on an uphill. Needless to say they didn’t like that but whatever they could also get in better shape or let us pass. Unfortunately in the chaos of dealing with the trail dicks we took a wrong turn and did a mile detour. It was cool though because we cut a very fresh black bear track in the snow and a bobcat track. Eventually we got on the right trail and found no human foot prints leading to our elk from the morning. We setup on the meadow against a log and could only see 120 yards or so with a few hours of shooting time left.  We sat there for maybe an hour and a herd of elk fed out in front of us exactly where we though. The problem was they were feeding over the hill out of view very quickly and we decided to both shoot on a 1,2,3 count. We had a few false starts because they overlap each other a lot. Eventually we both were clear and shot nearly simultaneously. The shots felt good and the herd charged off. After 15 minutes we walked over and didn’t find any obvious blood but started following tracks. We quickly found a cow elk after 30 yards or less dead in the meadow. Upon walking over to her we realized she had 2 bullet holes in her not 4” apart……….yeah so out of 20 elk we both shot the same elk…..  We decide the other guy would tag that elk and I would keep hunting. We would split that elk meat anyway. In this area they want a 14 ml blood sample from any elk to test for Brucellosis.  We quartered and skinned the elk in the dark while a bull was bugling 200 yards down the ridge. We both loaded up our Exo packs for the 3 mile pack out in the dark and snow. At camp each pack weighed 76 pounds with a rear ham and our respective gear. We didn’t get the meat hung and eat dinner until 11pm or so.  We slept in on the morning of day 3 after the late night packout. It snowed ice balls all night and we didn’t figure we would have good weather to glass. We ended up going into town that day for lunch to get gas and drop off the blood sample knowing we would hunt the evening again and pull the last load of meat. While in town down at like 4k elevation it started snowing and things were getting bad up high on the way back in. The 4 day forecast showed 14-32” of snow expected at elevation and all the locals with ATV’s and horse trailers were departing the high country……..    We left a little early to go pull the last load of meat. Around 2 miles in we cut some really fresh tracks and I had my rifle ready. About 400 yards later a spike elk busted across the trail in front of me followed by some cows. I managed to get my scope covers up and shot a cow elk broadside at 40 yards in the 10 foot wide opening. We moved up quickly because it was starting to dump snow and saw good lung blood. About 20 yards down the trail we bumped the cow elk and a few more shots were fired to end things quickly. She was totally dead from the first shot but those elk are hard to kill and have HUGE chest cavities to fill with blood. We marked her location and backed out to get the meat further down the trail.   Luckily nothing had gotten into the elk and we loaded up that meat. CharlieBravo77 was summoned by Inreach to come haul a load.  He ran into some locals at the trailhead who thought we were nuts have 2 elk down 2.25 and 3 miles down the trail in the winter wonderland (snowpocolapse). This was around 4 pm and dark is 6:20 pm. We broke down the 2nd elk quickly and started shuttling meat for the next few hours. Some how we got all the meat back to the trailer by 8 pm. It then took 3 hours to drive off the mountain in Sheridan where they still had 6” snow in the valley we did have to use a run away truck ramp on a switchback once in that snow storm. We got into Sheridan around 11 pm and got a hotel, pizza and beer. On Sunday and Monday we drove south into our antelope unit and undertook 2 of the hardest days of antelope hunting I’ve ever done. We punched 2 antelope tags on those days but we also hiked ~22 miles to get those antelope does. All in all it was a hell of a hunt. It was really rewarding hunt in hard rear end conditions. As much as I would like a bull we made the most of the situation since we had so few decent weather days. In total we hiked 60 miles during the trip and I took 5! backpack loads of meat 2.5-3.5 miles each.  Boning our meat to meet CWD interstate transport requirements in a La Quinta Inn parking lot. We’ve all been there.
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Oct 22, 2020 17:00
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Outrail posted:That's awesome. Also a huge amount of hiking, how many meters/feet in elevation did you gain? The elevation change was relatively chill on this trip. Both elk were killed at 7,800 and 8,000 ft with a pretty smooth trail to 8,400 ft over 2-3 miles. This unit had roads at 8,400 and 9,600 feet so we would rarely have to make big efforts up and down like in some CO units I’ve hunted where you park at 8,000 feet but elk hunt between 10k-12k elevation. This unit was strictly midrange physically if you remove the snow. We actually were doing more elevation change in our antelope unit because we were constantly gaining or loosing 100-200 feet every 1/4-1/2 mile across coulees. I would absolutely not elk hunt solo again. I have done it and it’s not a good feeling when you finally find elk 7 miles deep in the wilderness and it would take 4 days to pack out solo. Elk hunting should be done in multiples of 2 hunters ideally with only some of you holding tags. This is for both packing, calling and glassing. An elk is like 3-4 backpack loads so however far you are in multiply by 7 for total packing distance if you have a load shelf, times 9 with a pack frame at the vehicle.
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Oct 22, 2020 18:30
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alnilam posted:Man elk are so huge. I happened to find elk sign in my deer hunting spot this year but I still don't think I'll be hunting elk this fall because I need a partner, or at least a better plan for extraction. Goal for next year I guess. Honestly it wouldn’t be as hard if I were hunting within an hour or two of home. Then you can just get some friends to help pack and for a share of meat that don’t have to be hunters at all. It’s way different 27 hours driving from home when you need to find people with the vacation time, money, fitness, hunting skill and determination to be productive elk hunting and packing. Also there are a lot of public and private lands that will let you drive a certain distance to retrieve an elk or will open a closed gate for 1 extraction trip.
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Oct 22, 2020 18:49
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Crosspost: Random Thoughts on my 2020 gear changes. So in general I need nothing new to go on my usual hunts but I'm constantly trying new gear and I'll sell it if I don't like it. Here is a list of things I tried in 2020. First and Foremost I switched rifle scopes this year for elk hunting. I had been running a Vortex Viper HS 2.5-10x44 on my 7mm mag since 2017. Its a great scope, especially when you buy them for $250 but I wanted to try try something else a little better. This year I switched to a Swarovski Z5 2.4-12x50 BT 4W with an outdoorsmans custom turret lasered for Barnes TTSX. This gives me wind holds on the reticle but elevation by dialing out to 750 yards which I generally prefer. The clarity an low light on this scope is absolutely top tier with any scope available and the low end field of view is very good with adequate magnification on the high end for shots to 600 yards. It worked well but I didn't really have a chance to push it hard as my shots this year were at 110 yards and 40 yards. I will say for the quick shot at 40 yards the low end FOV is amazing. That said the swarovski SLP lens cap on the front really sucks, its magnetized to stay closed and pops open easily. Also the engagement tab is tiny. This thing should basically be perfect for $110 and its like a 3/5 star product. I ran an AADmount scope cap on the rear and it worked pretty well especially since its $50 but it still isn't perfect. Overall the Z5 is a great scope and a great value, I know this is hard to say of an $1100 scope but its glass rivals stuff costing 3x as much. They only thing I would say is that part of me wishes I might have spent a more to get a Nightforce NX8 2.5-20x50 but I worried it would have required a stock cheek piece riser and it weights almost 1 lb more than the Z5. On my muzzleloader I swapped out a Nikon buckmasters 3-9x40 for a Vortex Razor LH 1.5-8x32mm. I got the razor for $375 or so and its great glass and has a huge FOV on the low end with a good BDC reticle. Last year the buckmaster really let me down in low light with a doe standing in CRP grass. Basically I could see it no problem in my Swarovski SLC 10x42's but I couldn't find it in the scope. This year the upgrade paid off because I was able to take a 251 yard muzzleloader shot with 10 minutes of shooting light left across a beanfield. The BDC hits perfectly at 200, 250 and 300 with my currently load. Not glass related I refinished my blued muzzleloader barrel with Duracoat Aerosol and it is a huge improvement. It rusted like crazy last year after 2 days of rain in colorado and I have mostly solved that problem. For $50 the duracoat aerosol is a great way to weather proof any weapon. For spotting scopes this year I retired my Leupold Ventana 15-45x60mm for a Vortex Razor 22-48x65mm spotting scope. Admittedly I haven't had a ton of time behind this spotter but it did help us locate elk at 3-4 miles that I have first noticed in my 15x56 SLC's so it definitely did its job. Mostly we had poo poo atomospheric conditions in Wyoming this year and couldn't push its limits. I think I should have spent more money on a Kowa 553 as it optically is as capable at half the weight but I couldn't swallow another $600 at the time when I hate spotting scopes to begin with. If you get a Razor spotting scope I would recommend buying the first gen model over the gen 2. The glass is the same but the weight is lighter and the street price is $300 less. The gen 2 looks better but thats about it. In general for the last 2 years I have quit buying new guns and spent all my fun money on optics above all else. For clothes this year I got the first lite chamberlin down jacket and it was amazing in the Wyoming blizzard. That whole hunt was 15-35 degrees f with snow and I never was really cold at any point. I will be using this for a long time in cold weather. It is so packable for the warmth and is so well designed. I also got the first lite fingerless gloves in blaze orange this season. I would say pass on these unless its 40 degrees or warmer and you don't expect them to last more than few days before they wear thru. For a tent this year we used an MSR Habitude 6 which was my first family tent ever after 2 decades of backpacking tents. It was great and is warm and strong for its size. I think this will serve me on hunting trips and family camping trips for a decade or 2. For sleeping pads I got a Thermarest MondoKing which is 4" thick and has an R value around 8. These are great in general but they are huge when packed and suck to store. I would have bought and Exped megamat but they were out of stock. In the past I've just had backpacking pads that were 2" thick with an R value around 3. I think the pad R value is maybe the most critical thing in cold weather camping. For boots this year I ran La Sportiva Trango Cubes which are pretty stiff mountaineering type boots. They were a pain to break in over the summer and took like 50 miles to break in but then they were amazing in the snow and rocks once broken in. For the prior 2 seasons I had run Tecnica Forge S boots which were less stiff but were custom molded to my feet. They were good fitting but lacked traction in mud and snow pretty bad. I'll probably get some more flexible La Sportiva's for 2021 in addition to the Trango Cubes. On packs I used my K2 Exo 3500 primarily all year. I sold my NICE frame Mystery Ranch Metcalf because it wasn't getting used much. I did use a Mystery Ranch Pop-up 18 during turkey season and for TN deer. In general its a great pack for eastern hunting to haul out a quartered deer if its warm enough you don't need much storag for clothes. The downside of the popup frame is that you need to extend the frame for a sitting height shooting support but I generally have it folded down to not snag on branches in TN brush country. Also the side pockets aren't stretchy enough and I lost a nalgene bottle out of the side during turkey season. Really its a continuation of Mystery Ranch's downfalls in organzination and fabric choices. I forsee a switch to a 2nd gen pop-up 28 in 2021 as likely. I sold my Lone Wolf Assault Treestand and climbing sticks this year. I really don't treestand hunt a lot and I like my summit climber. In TN the trees around field edges often have brush up to 15-20 feet and you really need 4-5 climbing sticks to make a hang on stand work well. I feel like tree saddles are replacing hang on stands for mobile deer hunting when you don't need a shooting rest. I tried a Jebs Head Hunter Turkey Choke 0.655" with TSS loads. To be honest it wasn't any better than my Mossberg XX-full 0.670" and it should be for $90. I think this year I'll try an Indian Creek 0.660" to keep my money in Missouri and they run well in my dad's SP-10 and SBE2 with TSS. I'm selling the jebs now. I tried a minimalist turkey vest, the knight and hale RNG 200 and needless to say it sucked. Luckily I sold it and got almost all my money. There is no good turkey vest available to date. In 2021 I'll probably run the FHF gear chest rig for turkeys with a frame pack. Admittedly I'm a pretty huge gear junkie but I've found if you buy good quality gear on sale and don't like it you can get 75% of your money more more back selling it. One think I've learned the from my dad is to get rid of your hunting gear you don't use or in 3 years it will take over half your basement.
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Dec 2, 2020 18:43
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