1) I learned that if you are going on a DIY back country elk hunt in mountainous terrain (we were hunting and camped at at 11,200'), make sure you make arrangements with a packer to come in and pack out the elk on horseback. I have packed out elk before but we did it along the Missouri Breaks in Montana (gently rolling hills). If you are in big mountains, 10 miles on a map is like 25 miles in the Missouri Breaks. We came close to scoring but didn't score. We hunted to the last minute. After hiking out from the back country we realized it would have taken us between 3 and 4 days to get one elk out. We were glad we didn't score near the end of the hunt. We also learned that if you go on a hunt like this and there are two of you, if you don't have a packer you are only hunting one elk. Once someone scores the hunt is over. If you have a packer you both can hunt the whole trip.
2) I learned that when back country elk hunting, 99.999% of the bugles you hear are elk and not other hunters.
3) At first we didn't want to bugle and only cow called, thinking that the elk would be bugle shy. We found that they must not be bugled at much because thy responded to every bugle. I also pulled in bulls from a long distance with a cow call. I drew a monster to me from his cows with a cow call to within 20 yards but couldn't get a clear shot. Two satellite bulls pulled him back to the cows before I could get a clear shot. We found every time we bugled we got an answer and wound up having one person bugle while the hunter went to the bull.
4) I also learned where to find the elk in the back country.
5) I also learned that at 58 I can still do anything I put my mind to and will continue to live like I can, until I bite the big one. I am going to do a DIY elk hunt every year. This year I am going back with partner, next year I will going alone.
6) I learned I belong out there. We stayed for 11 days and if I had enough food I could have stayed out there 30 days.
7) I learned that trying to make your pack light you can leave things that you should bring even if it does add weight. The difference between 70# and 80# isn't noticeable, because both kill you anyway.
8) I learned I would rather leave my bow behind than my two walking sticks. They saved the trip for me.
9) I learned Tyvek is better than any light weight tarp and a necessary piece of equipment. It also saved the trip for us.
10) I learned that pump water purifiers are no lighter than the camp purifiers, harder to use, take forever to get water and have to be cleaned many times to get any kind of results. I will be selling my pump water purifier. Both my hunting partner and I will be carrying the Platypus GravityWorks Water Filter. We had one last year and the pump. This year we will have two.
A lesson I have to learn is how to deal with the lightning storms when in alpine country. I still haven't figured that one out yet. That is some scary stuff right there.
Topic: What did you learn last year? (Read 1768 times)
