Yet another western adventure (CO/AK/MT)

[Jeff Holchin]

Just got home from over 3 weeks of bowhunting adventure in Colorado, Alaska and Montana.  Pretty tired from two 17 hour days of driving, and I'm back at work......what a letdown.  It was great to see my family again, however!  I'll load some photos into Photobucket and begin the story tomorrow.  Got to get this cape in the freezer first........

[TexMex]

Good to you made back safe.
I'll wait patiently for the pictures and story.  

[tmccall]

Can't wait!!!!  I'll put the coffee on in the morning and await the story!

[TXRED]

Cape?Whutta tease!  :D

[beachbowhunter]

This could be the best, most well documented, fall season ever on Tradgang. These threads are fantastic! The people over at Photobucket must be scratching their heads!

Bring it on!

[Huntrdfk]

Jeff I'm glad to see you are back safe and sound, and I am looking forward to this one.  I just spent the weekend with Jeremy in the same area you shot your moose, and while it is great country it pales in comparison to the places you and others have been recently.....bring it on my friend.


David

[cjones]

Can't wait to read the story.

[JC]

Well??? You've had all of 17hours....now get on with it man!  

[beachbowhunter]

[vermonster13]

 You write, we read.

[Jeff Holchin]

I'll try not to bore you all, nor tease too much.

Last year I made the wise choice to substitute a family vacation for the usual western bowhunt, and my wife and 3 kids loved the 3 weeks we spent in the rocky mountains.  It was part of my plan to show them why I must return every fall, in hopes of moving there someday soon.  To make up for that missed hunting (well, I did sneak the bow along under the seat and got in 2 days of antelope chasing in Colorado - I couldn't help myself), I began planning a big September at the beginning of 2006.  

I really wanted to bowhunt for elk and mule deer somewhere in the rocky mountains.  I was already committed to my first Alaska bowhunt for the second week of September, for Sitka blacktails on an island near Kodiak with some PBS friends, so I applied for elk tags in Utah and Wyoming in January.  I knew I had little chance in Utah and Wyoming told me in February that I was unsuccessful, so I next applied for the Montana elk/deer combo tag in March.  I assumed that I would be unsuccessful (supposedly 40% odds) there also so I applied for a second-choice deer tag in Colorado just before the early April deadline, knowing that I could buy an elk tag in Colorado over the counter.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that I had drawn both the Montana combo tags as well as the Colorado deer tag.  I found out in time to not apply in New Mexico and Arizona as I had planned.  I would be bowhunting 3 states, solo in Colorado and Montana but with 5 other bowhunters in Alaska.

Much planning and coordinating followed, but I still found myself unprepared on August 31, the day I was supposed to leave.  I am an enginner by training and a former boy scout, so I'm usually well prepared for these hunts.  But we had recently moved to a new house, a small farm actually, with many things to get done before I left.  My work was very busy and the timing was bad, but I demanded and received permission to take all of September off (working weekends, overtime, night shifts and holidays all year helped).  Also, school started for my kids the next day and I had traditionally taken them to their first day of school.  With all my gear scattered across the garage floor, an empty truck and frustrations building, I had no choice but to delay my departure for a day.  This was not a good start of a month long bowhunting adventure!

[Jeff Holchin]

I had planned 5 days of hunting in Colorado, 8 days in Alaska and up to 2 weeks in Montana. I had considered a dozen options, but ultimately decided that the best one was to drive to Colorado with my truck full of gear, then up to Bozeman, Montana.  Then I could fly to Kodiak Island and meet my buddies there, carrying on some gear and finding the remaining gear pre-shipped at the floatplane service.  Upon returning to Montana, I would then have my truck and a pretty open schedule.  I had also found out that a friend-of-a-friend rancher on the Mussleshell river would let me chase antelope on his ranch, so I had applied for and received the statewide archery antelope tag.  I planned to stop there for 3-4 days on the way home from SW Montana, where I would hunt elk and deer.

COLORADO

I finally got on the road on friday, September 1 at noon, after taking the kids to school, saying goodby to the wife, and stopping at the UPS store to ship some gear to Kodiak Island.  That last stop didn't go well, as they wouldn't accept my used cardboard box and the price was twice the one I was quoted a week earlier!  Once I got that sorted out and tried to pay with my credit card, it wouldn't work!  My last stop before leaving Hickory, NC was the bank to fix that problem.  Twelve hours later, I was in the middle on Missouri headed west and spent the night in the truck.  I drove all day saturday and got to Granby, Colorado near dusk.  I was finally in the rocky mountains!

I was hunting an area recommended by another bowhunting buddy who had seen some big mule deer there.  However, his directions were a little vague and I was shocked to see all the other hunters.  It was Labor Day Weekend and every turn-off of the forest service road had one or more trucks and quads parked.  I finally found a place to park and got some needed sleep.

This is the view that greeted me on Sunday morning, after a hike up the nearest "hill".

 

[Jeff Holchin]

The first day or two of hunting each fall is usually pretty rough, as I find out which items I had forgotten, figure out the area and adjust to the high altitude.  I usually get a headache for the first day or two, but my summer exercize program eventually kicks in and helps my sluggish legs and lungs.  It was cool at night and hot during the day.  I learned that most of the hunters were after elk and that few deer had been seen.  I found this part of an abandoned cabin on the second day....

 

[Jeff Holchin]

Although I saw a nice 4x4 bull elk cruising through the aspens minutes after taking the above photo, I was unpleasantly surprised at the lack of deer in the area.  I had seen 1 doe doe far!  However, there were plenty of range cattle.  That evening I ran into a bowhunter who was scouting for moose as he elk hunted, because his buddy had a moose tag and they would return later in the fall for moose.  The next morning I climbed the highest hill in the area and glassed for deer at dawn.  The view was great but I only saw 2 more mule deer - both does....

 

[Jeff Holchin]

Seems like where ever I go, I get checked by a game warden and this time was no exception.  I asked him about the local deer population and he said that this unit doesn't have a lot of deer, but a fair number of elk and some moose.  He recommended an area which I hunted that afternoon and I snapped this photo of it....

 

I finally encountered some deer on the way to the above meadow.  Last night in the tent, I heard some elk in the pines on the north side of the mountain, and detoured through those pines on the way to the top and the meadow.  The wind was good and I saw a deer ahead of me on the trail.  It was a spike buck but I could hear more deer nearby and assumed they were bucks too.  He fed closer and my arrow was ready.  Given the lack of deer in the area, this spike was looking pretty tasty.  I had passed up spikes on previous mule deer hunts, but the pickings were pretty slim here.  However, just as I began putting tension on the string, the wind swirled and the three deer crashed away.  No animals except range cattle appeared in the meadow that night, and I returned to camp increasingly frustrated.  Tomorrow I would try another area.

[Jeff Holchin]

I had walked through another area on the first day that looked promising, and saw some moose sign in the willows and ponds of the area.  There was a high ridge with a great view, so I was there at dawn after a little fun with frosted shale and slick boots.  Here is the view from the top......

 

After hours of glassing, the only thing spotted, beside cattle, were a small 3x3 bull moose bedded in the willows near the ponds and a mule deer doe about a mile away.  This area, thought pretty, just didn't have many deer.  There were still plenty of elk hunters around, but I had only heard I bugle and that was at night.  I spent the day driving around the remaining portion of the unit but couldn't find anything that looked better.  I spent the last few hours of the day walking some state land, but only saw some coyotes.  This first part of my September hunt was a bust, regarding mule deer.  Now I saw why I had drawn this tag as a second choice.  I did gain another preference point but learned that considerably more research was needed before I select my next Colorado unit.

[Jeff Holchin]

I was scheduled to fly from Bozeman to Anchorage late on September 7, so I headed that way via NW Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and finally SW Montana.  Did I mention that I like to drive?  I love those rocky mountains and soaked in as much scenery as possible.  This area of NE Utah, near the Flaming Gorge reservoir, was particularly beautiful.  

 

So ends my Colorado adventure - not as I had hoped but better than nothing.  The next hunt in Alaska was more promising, as it had been planned by my friend Terry Receveur and the island definately held deer.

I'll post the Alaska story and photos tomorrow.  You will definitely see some animals in those photos.........

[JC]

Now THAT'S what we're talkin bout! Lookin great so far...

Dang, a whole month. I can't even imagine it.

[tmccall]

Warming up another pot of coffee... keep it coming!!

[Whip]

Alright!  This one is shaping up to be another epic!  I know what you mean by the Rockies - they have a magical power to pull your heart back to them time after time.  All the work to get in shape beforehand, all the huffing and puffing while you're there.  It's all forgotten when fall starts rolling around.  I'll do anything to return year after year.
Keep the great stories coming!