Thanks everybody and sorry for the typos.
Vance, I wish I had known that I passed by so close. I had breakfast in Pinedale with my friend Dave Klein, who introducted me to highcountry backpack hunting up in the Bridger Wilderness. I'll always owe him for that.
As a kid I couldn't wait until age 12 so I could hunt rabbits in PA. My dad wasn't much of a hunter, more of a workaholic. Daniel is luckier than many kids his age, I guess, to be able to go on such hunts with me. Life is too short - I believe in experiencing "once in a lifetime bowhunting adventures" every year! I hope to provide as many such opportunities to him (and his sisters if they wish) before they grow up and leave the nest, which isn't that far away......
Part 3 - hunting the foothills:
Eventually we were on the north side of the mountain range that contained the east drainage and the elk, but actually getting back in was more of a challenge that expected....
The topo map showed an old road following the creek upstream to our destination, but a posted ranch block the easy access, and going around would be pretty difficult. This lower part is wilderness so we couldn't use our game cart. I like hunting difficult access areas because there are usually more animals and less hunters, but this would be a little too much for us this time. We drove around some and talked with another trad bowhunter, who gave some tips on where he had seen some elk and deer nearby.
We hunted the aspens in the foothills, and saw some mulie does that afternoon, but couldn't get closer than 30 yards....
My son got to witness one of my classic misses before dark. We came upon a sleeping red fox and I acted too quickly, drawing and shooting my arrow before I had time to think about letting Daniel have the shot. The arrow flashed over the 7 yards and lodged into the ground, under the fox's chest. His reaction? He woke, yawned, sniffed the fletching of my arrow, and stood up to stretch. I completed my meltdown by sending a second arrow into a nearby tree. I turned around and Daniel said "How in the world did you miss that 5 yard shot?" I explained that I was using my 5 yard pin and the additional distance, plus the brisk wind, had caused the miss! He proceded to kick me in the pants, a tradition started by PA-Bones who has witnessed even more spectacular misses....
The next day were were back in the same area.
I noticed that the pine beetles were taking their toll on these old pines...
We spotted 2 small mulie bucks and closed the distance to about 50 yards and it was Daniel's turn for a shot, but we lost them. Later we did see these antelope and Daniel enjoyed watching the small buck keep his does in check....
The only elk we saw was this one, which had died of unknown causes....
We reported the exact location to the area biologist, hoping she would examine the carcass and possible sample for CWD. She said that there were no CWD cases in the area so hopefully it died of other causes. We heard some strange noises nearby, which seemed like a bull and cow moose in love, but we didn't want any encounters with bears so we scooted out of those woods rather quickly.....
By now we had only several days left and decided to head for SE Montana, with a little flyfishing on the way. We did see this owl out in the day, an unusual sight for us....
We also watched a small bull moose chase a cow moose around a willow bottom, but couldn't get any photos. Unfortunately our elk hunting was now over, with only 1 good day of action, but we hoped the deer would cooperate a little more before we had to make that LONG drive home.
Part 4 to come later........
Topic: Montana adventure for 12 yr old son (pics) (Read 7333 times)
