Who was more scared?

[Ragnarok Forge]

Deer Season opened up Monday a week ago and the first chance I had to hunt was this weekend.  I decided to take the wife out and hunt the Bear River Unit ( 681 ) in Washington.  The wife came along and brought her compound.  This is her first big game season and she was really excited.

We get in to camp really late 11:30 pm ( long boring story there ).  We woke up before first light, ate breakfast, and headed out to hunt some deer and scout for elk in the process.  Well after a bunch of hiking and finding elk and bear sign everywhere but little to no deer sign in the area, we moved to a new spot on the north end of the unit.  

After hiking in 1.5 miles past tons of sign we get down along a creek bottom and have three cow elk in the brush at 30 yards.  Tricia was really pumped over seeing them that close.  We watched for a while and listened to them moving around.  We crossed the creek and started working upstream into the wind.  We had gone about thiry yards when Tricia spotted a pair of ears movig in some tall swamp grass about 40 yards out.  She looked at me and whispered she had spotted a deer.

I motioned for her to move ahead and see what it was.  The wind is flowing from right to left at this point and she put on a great stalk.  She got to 20 yards and was just stepping past two large old growth tress.....  when a sleeping 6 X 6 bull elk caught her scent.  He grunted once and launched out of there like a rocket, crashing and making a huge racket.  

She turned around looked at me with huge eyes.  I motioned for her to go get the deer!.  She shook her head no and whispered the bull would come back and stomp her.  I insisted and whispered that he was gone and wouldn't come back.  It took her a couple of minutes to calm her down so she could restart her stalk.  

In the mean time the " deer " was still feeding just ahead of her.  The bull ran out about 70 yard behind some brush and started barking at us.  I blew a couple of mews at him with my cow call and he started talking back.  About the third bull mew he winded us and let out a really deep bark.  This brought the animal in front of ust to full attention and I could tell it was a yearling elk.

The elk saw her and moved up to where it could see her really well.  It was just under twenty yards out and stood there for 10 seconds and slowly moved away.  If elk was open her tag would have been filled right there.    In the mean time the three cows had moved across the creek about 60 yards upstream.  We decided to back out of there and leave them be.  This was Saturday and elk opened on Tuesday.

Needless to say Tricia was totally excited and still a bit unsettled by being that close to the bull.  I let her know that short of killing on that was probably as close as she would ever get to a live one.  She is massively excited for this next weekend to get back out and hunt for elk.  

Stay tuned to my continuing elk saga.  Lots more to tell...................

[Featherbuster]

Ready to here the rest...

[Benny Nganabbarru]

TTT...

[Tom]

Good luck to you both with your hunting.

[Aeronut]

Cool.      Waiting for the rest.

Dennis

[BUFF]

good stuff

[Ragnarok Forge]

Here is the second installment of the first weekend of deer seasons first weekend and elk pre-scouting.  After the bull elk launched 20 feet away from Tricia and she couldn't shoot the yearling ( elk was still closed ) we backed on out of there and still hunted our way back to the car.  Seeing lots of elk and bear sign all the way out.  

It was getting late so we headed back to camp for dinner and making plans for the next days deer hunts.  

Well we woke up at 4:00 am to a deluge and thunder and lighting so we slept in and woke up every hour or so to more of the same.  Finally around 10:00 am Tricia called it and we headed back to Vancouver so she could take the daughters shopping.

We saw a bunch of Blacktails in the lowlands on the way home right on the highway on private property where we couldn't hunt.  We got home, I showered, ate lunch, napped and then headed back out to the coast. I was almost to the top of the pass when I spot a her of 20+ elk with three bulls in it off the highway about 400 yards.  I hit the next Hancock timber gate and hike up the gravel road and drop down a ridge to check them out.

On the way down I run into another small herd cows and watch them for a bit. I decided to head out and not disturb them.   I headed on back to camp for the night.  Tomorrow is Monday and the deer hunting will continue while the scouting for elk goes on.  I am starting to see that the deer hunting while looking for elk may not be such a good idea.  

I eat dinner at camp and drive on up to radar ridge where I have cell reception and can call the wife to tell her about my day.  On the way up I have a yearling doe run across the road in front of my car.  It gets me really excited for the next mornings hunt.

Stay tuned - more elk hunting to come.

[Ragnarok Forge]

SO I wake up at 4:30 am and gget ready for the day.  I swun over to Davis Creek and hike in past a Hancock Timber land gate.  After hiking in about a quarter mile I start seeing fresh droppings and tracks from elk. It has become very obvious that the deer are not running the same areas as the elk are.  I run into a compound hunter sitting and waiting for his hunting partner at a trail connection for three roads.  After chatting with him for 20 minutes I head on down the left fork and drop down onto a power line.  As I started working the edge of the powerline cut I start to hear cracking of twigs in the trees to my right.  

I pull out my bino's and I can see shadowy elk forms about 40 yards inside the tree line.  I keep working my way slowly around the tree line downhill to another road looking for deer sign and watching the elk from different angles.  Icount 12 cows and three raghorn bulls inside the tree line.  

I hit the road right above the tidewater slough and slowly work my way back up towards my starting point.  Long story short.  I am back in elk and cannot seem to find a deer for the life of me.

Staty tuned to a meet up that afternoon with a Trad ganger.

Lots more to tell.......