Idaho, DIY, OTC, public land-2009.

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Can you imagine having a fish like that come off just outside of reach with the net? And on camera?

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It”s happened a few times off camera!

To say I like forward to archery season is an understatement. Looking forward to archery elk season, pretty much unbearable for me.

Prelude to the hunt.

I have been training, planning, shooting, and overall preparing for this hunt for over a year. The plan for this hunt is to be a 16 day, pack in camp on my back, pack out elk on my back, rugged country Idaho elk archery hunt.

July 2009-

Working out like crazy, running, advanced conditioning, boot camp, cardio at the gym and some weights. Shooting daily.

Buying gear like a madman, trying to find the lightest, most durable, efficent gear that I can, yet trying not to break the bank.

August 2009-

Shooting daily, really fine tuning the gear, still working out, but really watching what I do, I don’t need an injury now. Utah elk kills starting to come in, excitement level is pretty much off the charts, as Stan would say. Did I say shooting daily?

September 2009-

I am done working out. It is now time to let my body rest, and be ready for the 20 day marathon, I anticipate it going through. Still shooting daily. Gear is now packed and sitting in the living room, waiting to be loaded.

In the coming days I will recount the days’ happenings, as I recorded daily in my journal, as they happened. I have pictures I will add as I go. I hope the thread bears intrest for you, as I read the stories of others’, it just fuels the fire for next year.

Good luck, hope you have a great hunt, and some trophies in the truck at the end.

Just to help you along to get in the mood

Good luck

Jeff

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Just to help you along to get in the mood

Good luck

Jeff

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Is anybody looking…..THWACK How would you like to wake up to that every morning.

This trip also would have been impossible without my wife holding the homefront down, and my parents’ for installing the love of the outdoors in me. Thanks again, to you all.

Originally our departure date was to be Friday September 11th about 4:35 p.m. You guys all know how it goes, with the excitement level building, it became midday friday. By Wednsday the 9th, the truck was loaded, and we knew we would be on the road within seconds of my kids getting on the bus, on thursday the 10th.

After a pretty much sleepless night, on Wed., I was up by 4 a.m, mulling over things, hoping to have not forgotten anything. With tearful goodbyes, my son and daughter were on their respective buses, and my wife was on her way to work. 8 a.m, the Dodge Diesel hit the road. We knew we would spend the night in a hotel somewhere in Montana, who knows what town though!

For the last year+ I have forgone most indulgences in my lifestyle change, while preparing for this hunt. From these pics you can tell, I’ll be eating choclate, popcorn, a few other not-so-good for one’s body, and probably some ice cream even on this trip!

This pic was taken at 80 mph, on the first day of our drive. Biggest cow I have ever seen! Sure some of you have been past here. We arrived at a motel, somewhere in MT around 11:30 that night, after calling them to find out how much a two bed, nonsmoking room would be for the night. Once arriving, the price was as she had quoted, she just neglected to tell me there wasn’t any nonsmoking rooms available for the night. At midnight, I didn’t think it would matter too much, as we wouldn’t be smoking in there. Man was I wrong. 4 am, couldn’t come soon enough. Over night all gear and clothing stayed in the truck. Except the shirt and skivies I wore to sneak into the room. The next morning, after showering, I dressed with my clothes being just taken out of a clean garbage bag. As soon as the bathroom door opened, I sprinted outside. The old shirt, and skivies, that were in the room all night, got the heave ho, I can’t stand the smell of Cigeratte smoke. There mishap number one out of the way.

I’d never been in MT, so we decided to go that route. I’m hear to tell you that is one wide state, seems like it took forever to cross. We crossed in the Missoula/Lolo area, headed through Lolo Pass, and then spent the next 90 miles in some of the prettiest country one can imagine. After that we headed South West to Boise City. We got to the area, where we needed to turn off the main road, and head up to the trail head around 4:30. I wanted to stay at the truck that night, and then be ready to head out right at daylight. My partner wanted to stay in a hotel one last night, before heading in. So we ended up heading up to the trailhead, and finding it. We then headed down the mtn, and to the hotel. Knowing now what we know, we should have stayed at the trailhead, our hunt may have turned out much differently. A couple of final preparations were finalized and we were off to sleep. Tune in as we head in tomorrow for the beginning of the journey.

After much debating (some heated) at the motel, on the evening before, we decided to arrive at the trailhead at 6:00. We didn’t have any idea what time it got light out, and I didn’t want to be late, and my partner didn’t want to sit in the truck, when he could be laying in bed sleeping. We awake at 4, got our last shower in, and hopped in the truck. After a 90 minute drive we were there, and sitting in the truck at 5:45…….in the pitch black. Well better safe than sorry right? There was one pickup and pull behind parked at the trailhead, which we had seen the evening before. We knew there was an hour time change from Wisconsin, but at 6:30, it wasn’t even beginning to lighten, and the camper was still dark, what the heck time does it get light? At 6:40 a bugle rings out below is in the valley, a 1/ mile away. A bull answers, and then a second. Wow, three bulls within about a 1/2 mile of the truck. I want to get walking, as we know where we are headed, but my partner wants to shoot his bow one last time, before we head out. So at 7:10, we are headed up the trail. I am completely loaded for 16 days of hunting @88#. My partner about 65# for 7 days of hunting. We’re off. While finishing our preperations at the truck, the sole occupant of the travel trailer, has exited, and started his way down the road towards the three bugling bulls. We wonder how his hunt will go this morning. Our first leg of the trip was pretty steep a few hundred feet of elevation in climb in the first .25 miles. Then it leveled out (for Idaho, anyways), and we sidehilled the next 1.75 miles.

We shed our packs for the first time that day at 10:00 a.m. This is a picture of Sam relaxing for about 15 minutes, before we saddle up and head out again. We’re feeling pretty good about our situation. We are about half way to our destination, and only been traveling about 3 hours, we will most likely be able to hunt tonight, after arriving and setting camp.

We have heard the occassional bugle to our North, but walking in this country, makes it hard to hear bugling. As we are sitting in the above picture, @ 10 a.m, we hear two bulls bugling just through the saddle and down around the mtn to the north in this picture. I’m looking at Sam, and he’s like, no-don’t even think about it. Oh well, but they are in the back of mind.

The next 1/2 mile is going to be easy, slight downhill grade, no downed trees, Yeah. We cover that quickly, then come to about a 300′ descent, or should I say basically a wall. Our first attempt, ends without getting to the bottom. We loop around a little out of the way, and find an area that is grassy, and we are able to hold trees and roots, and get down to the bottom. Now the sun is getting higher and we stop about midway through a 500 yard section, in the bottom of this saddle. There is a little shade behind some big rocks, so we settle in for another 15 minute break. At this point, I have gotten past the excitement of taking pictures, and now just want to get to our predetermined camping area, and get set-up. There will be no more pics until day 2 (Sunday). After our rest we traverse the remaing couple hundred yards of the saddle. Standing at the bottom looking up, WOW. It didn’t look anywhere near that rugged, from above, and looked nothing at all like that on Google Earth. Today has become a real learning experience in more ways than one. We know we are less than a mile from our destination, it’s 12:15 p.m. It’s going to be brutal getting to the top of this, but it only looks to be about 200 yards, before it settles out. It’s time to gut it out, and go. 45 minutes later I get to the top of the 200 yards. Oops, not the top just a little bench, then more up. I find a reasonable spot to sit with the pack on, and take a short breather. From here the terrain starts getting a little easier, still harder than everything else we have done to this point though today. After a short break, the GPS shows we are .35 miles from our destination lakes. At 2:00 we arrive just in front of the lakes. We drop our packs, and decide to take a look at the lakes, and see which way will be the best way to get around them, and then get reloaded on water. Its almost like a race to get there, and see who is going to see the lakes first. Wow what a beautiful sight is the first thing I think, nanoseconds after that I look at Sam, and he is looking at me, both with that look on our face like…..

….what the hell did we do. We move closer to the edge, peering around. The lake must be about 250 vertical feet from us, and only about 30 feet straight ahead of us. It is sheer rock walls, except for one possible opening to get down to them. Now bear in mind, we didn’t cross any water at all on our trip. We have planned on making these lakes our water supply for the next two weeks. We decide to go back and get our filters and water storage containers. As we get back to the packs, I tell Sam I don’t think we can get an elk out of this area, when we do kill one, much less two of them. He is in agreement. We decide to fill up on water, and head back to the truck. As we get about 1/8 of the way down the “hill”, its just getting steeper and slipperier. I tell Sam, I don’t think it’s worth the risk and energy expenditure, to get down there and get the water. He agrees although he is down to about 10 oz of water, and 4 of the mini-cans of coke. I have about 18 oz of water. It will have to do. We hike up to our packs, pull out the maps, and double check to make sure we are not missing an easier route. We are not, pretty much go back as we came in.

with the day shortening, and knowing we had a ways to go to get out, our stop was only for a half hour, to relax, have a WA bar and gel. Then it was go time, round 2. Pack back on. We could save a little time on the way out, because we knew the route, what we could and couldn’t do, and where we could shave off a little time/distance. In a short time we were back to the edge of the steep saddle, although this was hard to come up, it was much harder to get down to the steepness, and all the down trees. Without trekking poles this portion of the trip could have been bad, as it was we both took a little ride, neither of us got hurt. You guys know all them pines have all those branches, well when they burn most of the branch burns off and just leaves tons of little stubs on the tree. Sam wound up straddling the tree with a 65# pack on, found out him and the boys from Brokeback Mountain, probably wouldn’t get along real well. Once to the bottom I traversed about 1/2 of the distance across the flat, and stopped in pretty much the same area as earlier in the day. It was time to the boots off again, and switch socks and let the feet dry out.

After a nice break, I hear Sam passing below me to the North, so I know its time to get the boots on and saddle up. By the time I am moving and get caught up, he has passed the bottom, and is close to the other edge, this would be the last true test of the day. This was steeper than the previous side, but at least didn’t have all the blowdowns, it was just an open grassy “crawl”, literally to the top. As I caught up to Sam, he is laying in the grass in the shade. I can’t write here, what all he had to say. I know he did mention something to the like of this was in the shade, it was “level” (if you’ve been to Idaho, you know there really isn’t anything that is level), and it was grassy, basically a good place to set up our tents. It was now 5:00, I told Sam if I could get up this next climb, by 6:30 at the latest, I could be back to the truck by 9:00 at the latest. Even though that would mean an hour of hiking with the headlamp. Then I told him about the big mt. lion track at the waterhole, about 30 yards away. Again I can’t repeat what he said…..Knowing that he was kidding, I started for the base of the climb about 150 yards away. When I got there, I looked back for Sam. He must have been still resting. This climb was truly a test, at times it was literally on hands and knees, grabbing and pulling roots and trees to get it up, all the while with an extra 90# trying to pull you back down, now is not the time to slip. At 5:40 I reach the top. Now I know I can make the truck. I turn back, Sam isn’t coming up the hill yet, I use the binocs, he is nowhere to be found. Dang I thought he was kidding, by now he must have his tent up, and really be relaxing. We are both prepared to hunt alone, so I continue on.

After covering about 150 yards, my quads start to cramp. They get so bad, I have to physically lay on my side, pack and all on, for 25 minutes. After thinking I may be able to go, I get up and start at first they come back a little, and they do every time I stop. As long as I keep moving they are sore, but don’t cramp. With just over 1/2 mile to go, I come across a nice rock that allows me to sit, without taking my pack off. After a nice 10 minute sit, I get up, for the final stretch. After crossing about 100 yards, I hear something behind me. Turning I see Sam, heading my way. I stop and wait. Once he catches up, I ask him if he seen me sitting on the rock, he says yes, he could see me when I sat down. He walked the whole time, and was about 50 yards away, when I got up and started walking, he wasn’t overly impressed with that! Boy did I laugh when he told me that. It’s around 7, we still have an hour of light left, so we decide to shed the packs, and rest a bit. As he has been going nonstop since he hit the top. 2 mini cokes, and 15 minutes later he continue on. We make it back to the truck right at dark, 13 hours, 8 miles, thousands of feet of elevation change, 8 blisters, bruised hips, shoulders, tailbone, collarbone, and wore out trapezoids-later. Wow, it was nice knowing that once we took the packs off, it was the last time for the day. Now we had to find a level spot, and get our tents set-up. Once that was finished. It was time for a jetboil cooked MH meal of Beef Stew for me, and Chicken Ala King for Sam. Even though it has been a brutally hard day, I still have a hard time falling asleep. With the mesh screen tent wide open, I am afforded one of the most beautiful views one could ask for. Thousands of stars everywhere I looked. What will tomorrow bring?

here is a pic of where we ended up setting our camp that night in the dark. The tarp, is set up in case of rain, we can go somewhere to sit, and not be in the tents.

After just a few short hours of sleep, my watch alarm goes off. Finally after a year of waiting, its time to hunt. I arise, very stiff, and definitely not in a good way! Fire up the jetboil to cook a quick Oatmeal, while that is brewing, throwing together the needed items, into the daypack. Along with some WA bars, and some water. I hear rustling in my partners tent, as I turn and look, I see his face peering out of the sleeping bag, “what are you doing?”, he asks. Ah, going elk hunting, is my reply. #$%^ that, is the reply from the tent. I down the oatmeal and am off. The wind is out of the South, so this allows me to go South, and hunt a drainage, that has seen sucess before.

Elk hunting involves a lot of choices. After applying for many states, and not drawing tags, I was left with the choice of Colorado, or Idaho OTC areas. I ended up going the route of ID, as I hoped there would be fewer people, although I knew that meant, there probably wouldn’t be the numbers of elk also. After getting tips and ideas of what to look for, we had picked an area, and it looked good, via google earth, etc. Well after getting more advice and tips from people who have “been there, done that” we decided to change areas. Still the same unit, but a few miles away. This is where in hindsight, we did the right thing. The area where we hunted, was rough. The first area we were going to go, I think we would have had to have hangliders to get in there.

I started South, and was to the top, right about daylight. Now those elk that were bugling the day before were silent, they should have been to my West about 1/4 mile, but nothing. Funny how that one hunter, who didn’t have much elk “sense” was able to blow that herd out of there in one day. Oh well, I just kind of waited, and did some cold calling at the top of the drainage, until the thermals switched. Once they headed up, I started working down the drainage. Every now and then, I would check the GPS, and make sure I was on track to hit my waypoint. As I got within 100 yards of the waypoint, I recognized the area from pictures I had seen.

Pretty much a normal looking area right. Well, in 2006, I have a friend who happened to spend a little time in this exact area. Check out the rock on the right in the photo above, along with the log, with the brush leaning up against it. Then compare that too the picture, in this picture. That is the portion of the arrow that remained in the bull, along with the jaw bones, of the gutless cleaned bull from ’06. Kind of amazing how through the passage of time, and all the miles, two people are able to experience the same exact place, doing the same thing. A lot of days when the phone is going crazy, I get sick of technology. This is one of those times, where you just sit back and go, COOL!

That is a very cool picture/story!

After spending around a half hour here, I figured it would only be right, to give a bugle. After getting no response I headed SE, about a half mile, scouting/still hunting. I crossed to the East, into the next draw. Being a little over 2 miles from camp, I figured I would work these meadows, and thicker areas back to camp. This would have me covering a good portion of the area South of camp and would get me back around noon, time for lunch and then to prepare for the afternoon hunt. I started North, giving the occassional locator bugle, and watching for sign. In this new drainage, there was lots of sign, from years gone by, but very little fresh sign. In the days to come I would find out why. I arrived back to camp a little before noon. Here is a pic of one of the two rubs from this season that I found that day.

After getting a few things straightened around camp, it was time to check the maps, and formualate the evenings hunt. I know I am going to go North, and scout a drainage that had some bulls bugling the day we went on our “pleasure walk”. As there was nothing talk south of camp this morning, and the herd to the SW, was gone, Sam also decided that going North was a good idea, and was going to come along. If possible, we were going to set up side by side, about 100 yards apart. Or closer, depending on what the situation dictated. If it was one of those deals where we had to have one person set-up to call about 100 yards behind the shooter, then we would do that. I suggested we do odd/even to make it fair. It was odd, Sam had the first chance to shoot in a shooter/caller setup. By now we’re pretty excited to get going.

We get about 100 yards from camp, and the descent begins. Basically the next 1.5 miles are down. It was a little rough going, in spots, but there was a small pack trail. It definitely is way easier than yesterday was. Once we got down to the bottom of the drainage, our excitement was tempered by the fact that we still had the marginal wind, which we had back at camp. There was a real nice green patch, on an East facing slope. The morning before they were bugling on the Easstern side, which didn’t have a lot of cover, and was pretty burned in most areas. We kind of figured them to be on the, West side now. We progressed as far as we could, with the wind out of the SE, it would be blowing into the the big patch of cover ahead, if we went any farther. With the wind really being borderline, I set-up back of Sam about 100 yards. With this being more of a scouting trip, than a hunting trip, we elected to sit for about 1/2 hour, and just see what happened.

Within minutes a bull bugles, right where he was yesterday morning. Not only is it game time, its a whole new game. For whatever reason they were on the East side of the drainage, up in just a little chunk of cover that kind of wrapped around making it North facing. Seconds later, the second bull bugled, answering the first. With the SE wind, I had to move, and do it quick, as they were near a open area, and only 1/4 mile or so away. I cover the 100 yards over to Sam in no time, we are ready, and we have the wind. We are talking back and forth, about what the heck they are doing up their, in the sun, when all of a sudden I spot an elk about 400 yards away up the hillside. I throw the Swaros up, as he moves through a 10 yard opening. I get just enough of a glance to know it is an average bull, and he has whale tales. So I tell Sam, “bull, looks like a 5pt”. His reply “what do we do know?”, as the bull was going into a patch of cover. Get hid, and get ready I said, as I moved to Sam’s right about 10 yards. I was behind a little chunk of a big rock. At this point face mask is on, arrow nocked, release ready, and binocs waiting for him to emerge.

Which he did for only a second, than he was back in cover, but I could see his rear end. Then I could see a little poplar tree start shaking. He worked on this tree for about 30 seconds, then he moved forward a few yards, out of sight. However it was at that time I could see a pine tree start to shake, and bend, and twist, and on and on for 17 minutes. I wonder what that tree looks like today? After the pine tree quit shaking we weren’t sure what he was doing, as he was in a good chunk of cover. It was obvious, though that he was a little worked up, and would be coming down the hill to our drainage. With the distance he had covered, it would be within about a 100 yard gap where he could make it out down to the bottom we were in. Here is a pic of the route he traveled to get down to us.

Picture a V, with the bottom legs of the 4 about 100 yards apart, and us set up directly in the middle, about 75 yards back from the edge. Since we are now in a situation, where we can set-up in line, we pick a pine in front of us. If it goes left, Sam shoots, if right, I get the shot. I’m busy looking at landmarks and ranging them. I know it is 74 yards, to where he will step into the open meadow. Right out in front of me is a rock, its 29 yards away. You can see the rock on the left side of this pic. It’s the one in line with the pine tree, and the pine is 74 yards.

From here things kind of run together, and I’m sure I don’t even know everything that happened. The bull is now done with the rubbing, and seems to be on a mission. He is sidehilling back and forth, down the hill. At one point he has passed Sam, and passed me, and is 100 yards past us, and 200 yards above us, but he has to come back to the “V”, its the only way he can get into the meadow. As he makes what would be his last turn to make the meadow, he is now going from right (me) to left (Sam), and quartering down the hill towards the meadow (us). Here is a pic of where I was set-up. I was a little behind the rock on the right, and in front of the stump, from the broken off tree. This pic is taken from the bull’s perspective, Sam would be off to the right a few yards in this pic.

In the picture that shows the rock and pine @ 74 yards, he emerged to the left of there about 10 yards. I was able to see him emerge, but then he was hidden by the pine, it isn’t in any of the pics, that we had decided would be the splitter. At first it wasn’t a big deal that I couldn’t see him, he was still 75+ yards away, and he was walking in Sam’s direction. After about 30 seconds of not seeing him, I knew he was either feeding, or walking towards us behind the pine, as he hadn’t come out either side. At that point I figured I had better be drawing, if he was walking towards us, and decided to pop out on my side from behind the pine, it would be wide open between us, at a range of 60 yards or less. That would be trouble most likely. About 20 seconds later, I see tines coming out from behind the pine at about 55 yards, on my side of the tree! Yikes, I’m about to see if 12 months of work paid off. As he totally emerges from behind the tree, I am lining the pin on his front half. He is steeply quartering towards me, this is no shot, but the pin is close in case he turns. He feeds towards me, 50 yards, 45 yards, 40 yards, almost straight on now. Still feeding, but the wind is strong in my face. 35 yards, 30 yards still quartering, although now there is probably a shot, as he is almost broadside, but he is still moving. If he had been 100% broadside, I would have taken the shot, as he was moving extremely slow. A step, a nibble, a step, a nibble, etc. BUT with the slight angle, and the movement, I pass that shot, and wait at full draw. At that instant, his head comes up, and then goes back to the ground, and literally you can see in his eyes, something wasn’t right. The wind was still slapping me in the face, so there was no chance it was that. All of this flashes through my brain, but now he steep quartering to again. In a heartbeat he steps to his left, my right, and back a 1/2 yard. My pin is swinging in, and settling down the leg crease, and I remember his head going to the ground right as I thumbed the trigger on my release. I don’t shoot well from a kneeling postion….