2012 archery season is underway

You are a machine Lucas , that is an awesome buck with character! Very good story and hunt, but now what are you going to do to get your outdoor fix? Congratulations and best of luck in South Dakota.

One word ” AWESOME ” You are a animal man … Congrats on a great start to the year

Very nice Lucas looks like you are living the dream

Another awesome hunt Lucas! You are an animal. 3.5 hours to sit for 1.5. You my friend have an addiction, a great one at that!

Looking forward to seeing you in November for a story tellin’ session.

Thanks for the positive comments and I’m glad you guys enjoy the updates, I enjoy sharing them. Montana has been good to me so far this season. I still have a couple tags in my pocket (antelope, turkey, wolf and numerous doe) to get me through until it’s time to head for South Dakota and chase whitetails.

Today after work I’m heading out for the weekend with a couple buddies and were going to see if we can find them an elk. Sunday is the last day of archery season so they aren’t going to be very picky. Should be fun!

Good luck to the rest of you!

Great deer with a great story. To me, one cannot replace hard work and dedication to make a hunt successful. Doing that AND taking a great animal time after time… puts you on a whole other level! You really have me wondering why I live in Wisconsin and not out west! I can’t get enough of the pictures either! Congratulations!

So much fun to read your stories and see great pictures! You sure know how to make a guy wish he was somewhere else! Life itself though, is good back here in WI. If I lived out west, I’d miss the fishing I have back here. So either way, I love where I am…… but sure wish I was where you are sometimes!

Congratulations on a GREAT buck! You EARNED it!

The past weekend of hunting went as good as we could have asked for. Two buddies that I hunt with a lot had hunted hard all fall, but still had unfilled elk tags in their pockets. They had passes some pretty good bulls throughout the season hoping for a chance at a big boy. They never did seal the seal with a big one so this weekend was their last chance to put a bull on the ground and some meat in the freezer as Sunday was the last day of season. I didn’t have a tag, but I went along to help out. I knew it was going to be fun since they only had two days of season left and their standards had dropped considerable. The object was to get a bull on the ground no matter the size and fill the freezer.

Jason was the first to get a bull on the ground. The bull was spotted late in the morning as the bull made his way across an opening in the timber with his harem of 15 cows. Jason made a stalk on the bull and executed a perfect shot. He hunted pretty regular over the past 6 weeks so finally putting a bull down in the last few days of season was awesome. To say he was excited would be a huge understatement. He had earned this bull.

Kiley was the last one in camp with a bull tag so we decided to go different directions hoping to increase our chances of finding a bull for him. I went to one of my favorite spots that morning and the only bull I found was a freak bull with a club antler on his right side. Not a big bull but big enough for the 2nd to last day of season. I followed the bull most of the morning and had a pretty good idea where he was going to bed up for the day. I backed out of the area and hiked back to camp. Shortly after arriving there Kiley and Jason showed up and I could tell immediately they had success. Turns out they had found a 6X6 shortly after first light and watched him until he bedded down. They formulated a plan for a stalk and Kiley was able to get within 40 yards of the bedded bull. One arrow later the bull was on the ground and the celebration began.

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing the bull out. Spirits were high the rest of the day as we had all tagged out for the season. Pressure was off, freezer was full, now it was time to enjoy it all!

All in all it was a great season for us. We didn’t kill any giant bulls this year but the season was a blast! We had great weather, a few encounters with some big bulls, some good laughs, made some mistakes, learned some lessons and made some memories we’ll never forget.

I suppose you boys standards are a bit different than mine, but I’d be very proud to hang either of those bulls on my wall. Way to go boys!!

Here is the club bull that I seen the last day. Sorry the picture isn’t the greatest, I took it with my iphone

Reminds me of the bull you shot late in the season a couple years back. Crazy what their horns do.

Awesome Great pictures

I guarantee that both of those elk would be on my wall if I had shot them with a gun let alone a bow.

Congrats on the nice work.

You Guys know how to get it done Congrats on some great Bulls

Don’t get me wrong they are nice bulls, but we seen a few that were much better. However, for one reason or another we weren’t able to get them on the ground this fall. The chances of killing a really good one is what keeps us coming back each fall. You just never know…sometimes it does work out. I hope you all have a chance to chase rutting elk at some point!

Thanks again for all the positive comments.

Archery deer and elk season closed last Sunday here in Montana and gun season does not open until this Saturday. So that means this whole week there is no season open for elk or deer. With that said I decided to see if I could find a turkey this week.

I knew where there had been some earlier this fall so I hiked back to the area. I had a pretty good idea where they liked to feed and where they roosted at night. So I setup a blind in between and hoped to catch them going back and forth. The first night I sat there they came by but were out of bow range. After it got dark I moved the blind to where they came through.The next evening I sat there they never showed up. On the third evening they read the script perfectly and walked within 15 yards of my blind. As they fed past the window in my blind I took the shot and I’m having turkey for supper tonight!

Great bird. Did you have the pup hunting with you?

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Great bird. Did you have the pup hunting with you?

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He just likes to be in the pictures.

I don’t have a buck tag left in Montana but I couldn’t just sit at home all weekend so I decided to go to my usual mule deer hunting spot and see if I could shoot a few deer with my camera. Friday after work I made the 4 hour trek to my spot and setup camp for the weekend. Here are a few of the bucks I found

Great shots Lucas. A couple dandies for next year too.

That last buck has a pretty big neck

I wrapped up my 2012 season in South Dakota this year as I made the annual trip back there over Thanksgiving. I was really fortunate to take this buck on the trip. I had been seeing him for the past 4 years and managed to find 5 of his sheds. I don’t have a lot of ground to hunt there and last fall he often was on one of the neighbors places and I thought for sure he would not survive the rifle season. But much to my surprise he made it through the season.

This year I was fairly certain he was 5 1/2 and in his prime so I had my heart set on him. I got a few trail cam pictures of him in late summer/early fall so I knew he was still around. After more than half a dozen close encounters he finally made a vital mistake and I was able to get a good shot on him. The years of history I had with him and the dozens of photographs I took of him makes the deer pretty special to me. By the time I put an arrow in him I knew him like a friend. I knew his personality, I knew which bucks he liked, which bucks he hated, where he went to check for does, where he liked to bed, where he fed and where he drank. Knowing all of that and I still had a hard time getting him in bow range. He isn’t my biggest buck but he’s definitely the one I’m most proud of.

Picture I took a few days before I arrowed him

Very cool!!!!

WOW!!!!

Mark

Nice buck, way to do your home work on him.

you are the man!! What a season to remember. I could only imagine having all the time to chase all fall. I’m happy to hunt 3.5 miles from my house, let alone 3.5 hrs. What did the SD buck score? He is a beauty.

Congrats!!

He scores 155. Really not much bigger than the previous year (maybe 2 or 3 inches). And only 14 inches bigger than 2 years ago.

I’m not complaining but I thought he would put on a few more inches than he did. I’m quite certain he was 5 1/2 this fall so I thought he would grow more between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2. Regardless I was tickled to get him.