spdrman
WKR
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2012
- Messages
- 463
Little late posting but always enjoy sharing my season with fellow roksliders and about my kids hunting season. Draw odds didn’t treat us well at all this year, they only drew extra doe tags but we still made the best of it!
Antelope season went better this year than it has the last couple years, my 11 yr old sat countless days last year and was never able to get an antelope to commit to water. This year we where lucky enough to have a great buck come in on the 3rd day and he made a picture perfect shot with his bow at 18 yards and got his first archery kill, I don’t know who was more exited and shaking harder, him or myself haha
Spent a lot of the season with my 13 year old Hunter after that, he had a few smaller bucks come in but with our low numbers he decided he’d rather eat his tag and let the bucks get bigger for future years. Was super proud of him and the self control he had.
With no bull tags this year the boys asked if we could hunt whitetails in September, so I skipped elk hunting this year and spent every day I could in September trying to get them deer with their bows. Sadly the only deer we had come in range where does with fawns and we decided we didn’t want to shoot wet does. To our surprise though there was a couple cow elk coming in the field. In all my life I’ve never seen elk their, there was a rifle cow hunt open and Hunter begged me for the tag, all September he sat solo to up the odds of getting a deer with a bow, I turned him loose with the 300 prc and his bow and he went and hoped in his blind. Shortly before dark to my surprise the cows came back and he got out of his blind snuck within range and shot one all on his own, we where across the field and it was awesome seeing him do that on his own.
Spent the rest of September pursuing whitetails with no luck. With both kids very active in football (between Aug 15 and Oct 10 I put over 10k miles on my truck running them back and forth between hunts and football, I’ll send them a fuel bill when they get older and have jobs
)I wasn’t sure what deer season would bring and tried to talk both boys into whitetail tags because the season is open longer. Hunter only had a day and a half to hunt and was dead set on hunting mule deer. He’s always wanted to backpack in and I figured with that limited time it’d be our best bet to find him a buck. Night before the season we found a decent 4pt and made a game plan for the morning, we got setup with range and no deer. About an hour into the morning some deer must of been bumped and where heading down the draw below us fast with a decent 4pt. Asked him if that buck would work and he was like oh yeah! Told him to just put the gun on the boulder and shoot l, he asked for something to put under the gun so it didn’t scratch it, I told him we didn’t have time and I wasn’t worried about the gun, he made a picture perfect shot at 212 yards
Below are some pictures of the rock he shot from, his buck and our camp! Asked him how the backpacking was and he said that was one of his funnest trips he’d been on and had always wanted to go back packing, (my back was hoping he’d hate it and want to go back to wall tents, cots and wood stoves haha)
We made it back in time for his last football game which sadly he lost.
We had a day to take my younger boy Talen out to try and fill his whitetail tag, while we didn’t find any shooter bucks both boys where able to do a little predator control while we where out.
Selfish me took off to deer hunt for myself the next 10 days
When I made it back there was still a few days left of rifle season for whitetails so I pulled Talen out of school for a couple days and we headed up to try and fill his whitetail tag and I’m glad we went. We spent all of September hunting this place and never put eyes on this buck and only had 1 trail cam picture of him the first part of September. For the area we hunt they don’t get much bigger than this buck! He made a perfect shot at just under 200 yards on the 3rd morning we were hunting. His does stood around a touch to long and he asked if he could fill his doe tag too, told him to send it and he dumped his doe right by his buck!
Only tag we had left after that was Hunter’s extra doe tag, he said he’d killed 3 does with a rifle and if he couldn’t kill one with his bow he wanted to try the 30/30 with iron sights, I thought it was awesome and told him to go for it. Found a group of does in a stalkable spot and with the crunchy snow I told him his best bet was to sneak in solo. To my surprise he got within 60 yards of them and made a perfect shot on the biggest doe in the group. While it’s sad not being over their shoulder it’s fun to sit back and watch my kids go off on their own and make it happen.
Antelope season went better this year than it has the last couple years, my 11 yr old sat countless days last year and was never able to get an antelope to commit to water. This year we where lucky enough to have a great buck come in on the 3rd day and he made a picture perfect shot with his bow at 18 yards and got his first archery kill, I don’t know who was more exited and shaking harder, him or myself haha
Spent a lot of the season with my 13 year old Hunter after that, he had a few smaller bucks come in but with our low numbers he decided he’d rather eat his tag and let the bucks get bigger for future years. Was super proud of him and the self control he had.
With no bull tags this year the boys asked if we could hunt whitetails in September, so I skipped elk hunting this year and spent every day I could in September trying to get them deer with their bows. Sadly the only deer we had come in range where does with fawns and we decided we didn’t want to shoot wet does. To our surprise though there was a couple cow elk coming in the field. In all my life I’ve never seen elk their, there was a rifle cow hunt open and Hunter begged me for the tag, all September he sat solo to up the odds of getting a deer with a bow, I turned him loose with the 300 prc and his bow and he went and hoped in his blind. Shortly before dark to my surprise the cows came back and he got out of his blind snuck within range and shot one all on his own, we where across the field and it was awesome seeing him do that on his own.
Spent the rest of September pursuing whitetails with no luck. With both kids very active in football (between Aug 15 and Oct 10 I put over 10k miles on my truck running them back and forth between hunts and football, I’ll send them a fuel bill when they get older and have jobs
)I wasn’t sure what deer season would bring and tried to talk both boys into whitetail tags because the season is open longer. Hunter only had a day and a half to hunt and was dead set on hunting mule deer. He’s always wanted to backpack in and I figured with that limited time it’d be our best bet to find him a buck. Night before the season we found a decent 4pt and made a game plan for the morning, we got setup with range and no deer. About an hour into the morning some deer must of been bumped and where heading down the draw below us fast with a decent 4pt. Asked him if that buck would work and he was like oh yeah! Told him to just put the gun on the boulder and shoot l, he asked for something to put under the gun so it didn’t scratch it, I told him we didn’t have time and I wasn’t worried about the gun, he made a picture perfect shot at 212 yardsBelow are some pictures of the rock he shot from, his buck and our camp! Asked him how the backpacking was and he said that was one of his funnest trips he’d been on and had always wanted to go back packing, (my back was hoping he’d hate it and want to go back to wall tents, cots and wood stoves haha)
We made it back in time for his last football game which sadly he lost.
We had a day to take my younger boy Talen out to try and fill his whitetail tag, while we didn’t find any shooter bucks both boys where able to do a little predator control while we where out.
Selfish me took off to deer hunt for myself the next 10 days
When I made it back there was still a few days left of rifle season for whitetails so I pulled Talen out of school for a couple days and we headed up to try and fill his whitetail tag and I’m glad we went. We spent all of September hunting this place and never put eyes on this buck and only had 1 trail cam picture of him the first part of September. For the area we hunt they don’t get much bigger than this buck! He made a perfect shot at just under 200 yards on the 3rd morning we were hunting. His does stood around a touch to long and he asked if he could fill his doe tag too, told him to send it and he dumped his doe right by his buck!
Only tag we had left after that was Hunter’s extra doe tag, he said he’d killed 3 does with a rifle and if he couldn’t kill one with his bow he wanted to try the 30/30 with iron sights, I thought it was awesome and told him to go for it. Found a group of does in a stalkable spot and with the crunchy snow I told him his best bet was to sneak in solo. To my surprise he got within 60 yards of them and made a perfect shot on the biggest doe in the group. While it’s sad not being over their shoulder it’s fun to sit back and watch my kids go off on their own and make it happen.
