Tuesday as soon as Chris got off work we were packed and waiting to head to the cabin. Wednesday was the opening of the muzzle loader hunt. Now normally every year I do the muzz hunt and Chris hunts rifle.. but with him starting a new job not too long ago and not having a much flexibility and vacation this year I decided to be nice and rifle hunt with the 'boys' aka Todd, Hunter and Chris. Well with all the new changes, less tags, different regions and areas this years draw for tags was really interesting. Me, Todd and Hunter ended up drawing Cache rifle tags and Chris didnt. We had to scramble and get him a Cache muzz tag so he could still hunt. After all that we still had to have to different hunts.. hurts my feelings and all getting to go out for the hunt for two seasons hahaah. On the way up right before you hit Hardware there is a flat thats always full of animals. This had a good 20 fawns.. and probably at least 10 doe. We rounded the corner and saw about 20 turkeys.. ran across a few doe deer and a moose on the way into camp
That night we went to bed nice and early. Listened to the moose paw the ground outside. The weather forecast sucked and called for cold temps, rain and snow. About 2 am it started raining HARD for about 2 hours. I wasnt sure we were going to be able to go in the morning. We got up at 6am and were hoping to be out the door around 630. It took longer to get light than we planned on. There was a lot of cloud cover.
We ate some breakfast.. muffins and bananas
Finally it was close to the light we needed. We drove over to the spot and sat in the truck for a good 20 minutes still. Glassing the area and waiting to see if anything was sneaking across the area. Nothing showed and it was light enough we could get out and go to the over look
We looked around for a little bit and put Kennedy on this over look. Her job was to watch for deer coming up and down the canyon or on the hillside
It was so strange for me to be out hunting and not have a rifle or shotgun on me! I dont think Ive ever done that before!
Chris came over to sit by Kennedy and glass across the hill. She says to him after a few minutes "Dad I just saw some coming in and out of the trees down there" He said where? She pointed and sure enough two doe and a 2pt buck come out
Its hard to see in the picture but they are right by that lone green bush/tree in the middle of the hillside. About 150 yards away. We could have easily snuck up on them. They didnt care we were there. He was a little 2 point, it was opening morning and we sill had a whole day and weekend to go so Chris decided to pass on him.
We went and explored a few more places. Didnt really see much at all. Miss K couldn't stay awake for the ride! She put her hat over her face to keep the sun out and was gone
After spending some time up top and a few other places we went back to brush out the gate hole where we had the deer come out that morning. Chris sat on the hill, Kennedy waited in the truck because rain was coming in (the truck was parked really close to where we were at and she could see Chris) and I went down and around the hillside and up the draw. It was BEAUTIFUL in there. The leaves were all over and so pretty! Here are some fall shots for you mom
I heard some deer scamper in when I first went into the trees. Not much later I kicked out an old cow moose. Her back knees were all white and she had white freckles on her butt. If you look close you can see her in the trees. I was actually really close to her when I first kicked her up. Like 10 yards maybe. Moose are usually really territorial and normally if you see a mom shes pissed and stomping and snorting to get you out of her area. I did have my pistol with me.. no way was I going off on my own with out it. Thankfully we just looked at each other for a minute. I told her I wasnt going to hurt her and she looked at me and walked off. She stayed ahead of me most the hike giving me glimpses on and off
We didnt have anything come out to shoot. About half way through the rain started coming down hard. I hiked up the hill back to Chris and we went to the truck. Had some soup at the cabin and took a nice nap. Kennedy watched a Goofy Movie. About an hour later she woke me up to take her out to the bathroom. It was snowing!
There was a cow moose going across the property for the trees in the storm. We went back inside and waited out the storm. A little bit later we went back out hunting. The moose that spent the night pawing while we were sleeping and the one who was headed for the trees now was camped out about 30 yards from the outhouse. She didnt care we were there. She was super mellow and just watched us the whole time.
This next time out we saw a TON of doe and fawns. Almost every one had twins and a lot of the twins had little nubs of antlers poking through the skin. Good sign! You can see a mom and fawn below.
The doe is right at the tip of Chris's binos. We sat and watched these two for a minute because the fawn kept looking back behind . We could tell something was coming up right over the ridge and then we saw a deer butt hauling into the trees at a dead run. A truck came right over the ridge behind it. We are pretty sure it was a buck. Normally the doe if they run stop at the treeline and then turn back to look. This one took cover as fast as it could.
We saw a bunch more doe..
We passed up two spikes that night. They were just little bodied. So opening morning we let a small 2 point go, two spikes, and another 2 point Chris that was small bodied also and it was getting dark fast. Its not so much that they were just two points but more that they were little young bucks who had small bodies. Maybe the last night of the hunt for meat.. but not on opening day. We left camp that night and got home about 9pm. Hopefully this weekend will bring better luck! We had a lot of fun though. We saw moose, deer, and a big herd of antelope.
