spdrman
WKR
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2012
- Messages
- 459
Last couple years I've thought I'd never be able to top that year with my boys and yet my boys keep doing it.
We had high hopes for archery antelope season, spent around 15 days in the blind with the boys hoping they'd get a chance at a nice antelope, Hunter (my 12 yr old) passed up a couple does opening morning and that was the only antelope he had come in all season. Talen (my 10 yr old and his first year hunting big game) had a lot of uneventful days. Decided to pull him out of school the last day of the season to give him one last chance. To my surprise when the sun came up there was antelope in the distance short time later a nice buck worked it's way to the water only 15 yards away. He came and watered quartering to us, had Talen draw when his head was down so he wouldn't catch movement and as soon as he turned broadside take the shot, Talen was calm as could be tell the buck turned and then his whole body started shaking and he let the arrow loose, he's a great shot but missed that buck by several feet. He then asked what was wrong with him as he was shaking so bad he was struggling standing up, I told him that's called buck fever and the excitement we all look for while hunting, trick is learning to control it so you don't miss next time but we'll take a clean miss over a bad hit.
Both boys had extra whitetail tags and were dead set on notching tags with their bows. So I decided to skip archery elk season and try and get them whitetails with their bows. The only deer that came within bow range were wet does, they elected to pass on those so their fawns had a better chance of surviving. It was a any weapon tag so the last weekend we had set aside to go they decided to pull out the 260 and notch their tags. Hunter spotted these deer over a mile away midday, we snuck in range and waited about an hour for them to stand out of their beds. Talen made a perfect shot on his first deer and it only went a short distance, the other deer weren't sure what was going on and went to check on the one Talen shot. Hunter got behind the tag and was able to get his only feet apart.
A few days after this I welcomed my 4th child and 2nd daughter into the world, we enjoyed her for several days and then Hunter and I loaded up and took off for general deer season.
Opening morning started off slow with not much for deer, Hunter was a few feet away with his bino's on a tripod and whispered "dad, I found a buck..... I think it's a 4 pt, it is a 4 pt, holy cow it's a huge 4pt!!!" With this only being his second year hunting mule deer I figured it was just a decent 4pt that he thought was huge, he grabbed the spotter and got it on the buck, I was shocked with the caliber of buck I was looking at. There was a couple other great 4 pts with him as well. My buddy also had his deer at camp, we all agreed before going to camp that his son would get the first shot at a 4 pt we found since Hunter shot a nice 4pt last year we needed to get his son one this year. I talked to Hunter and told him we needed to get Connor over here and with our suppressed rifles there's a great chance we they could double up on 2 great 4 pts. The deer where in a spot I didn't think anyone else could see unless they where on the same point I was on. While Connor was working his way towards us some other Hunter's started shooting at the bucks from way out side of their effective range, I'm not sure how many times they shot but I do know they didn't hit any of the deer and we where never able to turn them up again.
Next couple days where slow but we where finally able to get Connor a nice 3x4. The last evening Hunter could hunt we spotted some bucks way to far away to go after that night but didn't think they'd go far and would have a good chance that next morning if we got there early. As the sun was coming up the next morning we got eyes on the bucks fairly quick, then we spent the next couple hours playing cat and mouse as they working through the trees trying to find Hunter and opening to shoot through. The bucks stopped to spar a little bit and that was the chance Hunter needed to make a great shot on this buck.
After this we switched our focus to a elk tag Hunter was lucky enough to draw, turns out it wasn't as good of a hunt as I thought it would be. We had multiple trips without putting eyes on any elk. We where running out of time before Talen's tags opened. Decided to go give it one last try, on the way back to the truck I was staring at something that was the color of elk but I thought there was no way, as we where walking it looked like it moved, I pulled up my binos and to my surprise there was a lone bull. We used the little cover we had and got Hunter with in range and he was able to make a great shot on the one and only elk we put eyes on that entire hunt.
Now it was the time to get after the 2 hunts I was looking forward to the most that year, Talen was lucky enough to get a good bull tag and an incredible buck tag for the month of Nov. While this sounded awesome I was also stressing about it, I wasn't sure where to put our efforts, originally I wanted to just focus on deer, once he got a buck killed go try and find an elk. Talen didn't like that idea and wanted dedicated time for elk too. We decided the first weekend we'd hunt elk, if he wasn't able to kill one that weekend the focus would be deer. If he tagged out on deer we'd go back and try again for his elk.
First couple days of his elk hunt didn't produce any elk. We decided to pack up and drive to the other side of the unit, right before dark we spotted a big herd of elk with several good bulls in the group. They were a couple miles away so we made a plan for the next morning, 2 hour in the dark the following morning got us right where we needed to be, we had elk within 300 yards of us but all the bulls where 600 plus yards away, my boys spend a lot of time shooting long range but with the wind we had I didn't feel comfortable with him taking that shot and we were pinned down in the wide open.
There was some snow flurries blowing through with the wind and after awhile a white of of snow moved in and cut visibility to less than 50 yards, told the boys this was the time to move, we grabbed the gear and rushed to get into range before the snow lifted. We got right to where we wanted to be crested the ridge and the elk were feeding right where I hoped they'd be, got a solid range on the bull, Talen did a few dry fires to make sure he was solid on him from his shooting position, told him to chamber a round and whenever he was comfortable send it. I've always told my boys you shoot elk tell they go down and he put a couple well placed shots into his first elk.
My inreach lied and said the weather was supposed to clear up that afternoon, the snow never let up and got worse throughout the day, was worried I pushed my boys too far, they where starting to get cold and wet sage brush doesn't work well to build a fire, we got the bull deboned and in game bags, told the boys I'd carry what meat I could and we'd come back the next day for the rest. Took several hours to get back to the truck and boys were exhausted. Had several great friends reach out and offer to come get the rest of the elk the next day. Sun was shining, no winds, boys needed that. Talen told me while I was deboning his bull that he probably shouldn't have shot it. Told him not to think like that tell we get it back home and see how he feels. When we finally got the bull to the truck the following day he told me it really wasn't bad and he'd totally do it again. That was a huge relief for me.
My buddy Tanner was able to capture this awesome pics of my boys and myself, this is getting framed and put on the wall.
We had high hopes for archery antelope season, spent around 15 days in the blind with the boys hoping they'd get a chance at a nice antelope, Hunter (my 12 yr old) passed up a couple does opening morning and that was the only antelope he had come in all season. Talen (my 10 yr old and his first year hunting big game) had a lot of uneventful days. Decided to pull him out of school the last day of the season to give him one last chance. To my surprise when the sun came up there was antelope in the distance short time later a nice buck worked it's way to the water only 15 yards away. He came and watered quartering to us, had Talen draw when his head was down so he wouldn't catch movement and as soon as he turned broadside take the shot, Talen was calm as could be tell the buck turned and then his whole body started shaking and he let the arrow loose, he's a great shot but missed that buck by several feet. He then asked what was wrong with him as he was shaking so bad he was struggling standing up, I told him that's called buck fever and the excitement we all look for while hunting, trick is learning to control it so you don't miss next time but we'll take a clean miss over a bad hit.
Both boys had extra whitetail tags and were dead set on notching tags with their bows. So I decided to skip archery elk season and try and get them whitetails with their bows. The only deer that came within bow range were wet does, they elected to pass on those so their fawns had a better chance of surviving. It was a any weapon tag so the last weekend we had set aside to go they decided to pull out the 260 and notch their tags. Hunter spotted these deer over a mile away midday, we snuck in range and waited about an hour for them to stand out of their beds. Talen made a perfect shot on his first deer and it only went a short distance, the other deer weren't sure what was going on and went to check on the one Talen shot. Hunter got behind the tag and was able to get his only feet apart.
A few days after this I welcomed my 4th child and 2nd daughter into the world, we enjoyed her for several days and then Hunter and I loaded up and took off for general deer season.
Opening morning started off slow with not much for deer, Hunter was a few feet away with his bino's on a tripod and whispered "dad, I found a buck..... I think it's a 4 pt, it is a 4 pt, holy cow it's a huge 4pt!!!" With this only being his second year hunting mule deer I figured it was just a decent 4pt that he thought was huge, he grabbed the spotter and got it on the buck, I was shocked with the caliber of buck I was looking at. There was a couple other great 4 pts with him as well. My buddy also had his deer at camp, we all agreed before going to camp that his son would get the first shot at a 4 pt we found since Hunter shot a nice 4pt last year we needed to get his son one this year. I talked to Hunter and told him we needed to get Connor over here and with our suppressed rifles there's a great chance we they could double up on 2 great 4 pts. The deer where in a spot I didn't think anyone else could see unless they where on the same point I was on. While Connor was working his way towards us some other Hunter's started shooting at the bucks from way out side of their effective range, I'm not sure how many times they shot but I do know they didn't hit any of the deer and we where never able to turn them up again.
Next couple days where slow but we where finally able to get Connor a nice 3x4. The last evening Hunter could hunt we spotted some bucks way to far away to go after that night but didn't think they'd go far and would have a good chance that next morning if we got there early. As the sun was coming up the next morning we got eyes on the bucks fairly quick, then we spent the next couple hours playing cat and mouse as they working through the trees trying to find Hunter and opening to shoot through. The bucks stopped to spar a little bit and that was the chance Hunter needed to make a great shot on this buck.
After this we switched our focus to a elk tag Hunter was lucky enough to draw, turns out it wasn't as good of a hunt as I thought it would be. We had multiple trips without putting eyes on any elk. We where running out of time before Talen's tags opened. Decided to go give it one last try, on the way back to the truck I was staring at something that was the color of elk but I thought there was no way, as we where walking it looked like it moved, I pulled up my binos and to my surprise there was a lone bull. We used the little cover we had and got Hunter with in range and he was able to make a great shot on the one and only elk we put eyes on that entire hunt.
Now it was the time to get after the 2 hunts I was looking forward to the most that year, Talen was lucky enough to get a good bull tag and an incredible buck tag for the month of Nov. While this sounded awesome I was also stressing about it, I wasn't sure where to put our efforts, originally I wanted to just focus on deer, once he got a buck killed go try and find an elk. Talen didn't like that idea and wanted dedicated time for elk too. We decided the first weekend we'd hunt elk, if he wasn't able to kill one that weekend the focus would be deer. If he tagged out on deer we'd go back and try again for his elk.
First couple days of his elk hunt didn't produce any elk. We decided to pack up and drive to the other side of the unit, right before dark we spotted a big herd of elk with several good bulls in the group. They were a couple miles away so we made a plan for the next morning, 2 hour in the dark the following morning got us right where we needed to be, we had elk within 300 yards of us but all the bulls where 600 plus yards away, my boys spend a lot of time shooting long range but with the wind we had I didn't feel comfortable with him taking that shot and we were pinned down in the wide open.
There was some snow flurries blowing through with the wind and after awhile a white of of snow moved in and cut visibility to less than 50 yards, told the boys this was the time to move, we grabbed the gear and rushed to get into range before the snow lifted. We got right to where we wanted to be crested the ridge and the elk were feeding right where I hoped they'd be, got a solid range on the bull, Talen did a few dry fires to make sure he was solid on him from his shooting position, told him to chamber a round and whenever he was comfortable send it. I've always told my boys you shoot elk tell they go down and he put a couple well placed shots into his first elk.
My inreach lied and said the weather was supposed to clear up that afternoon, the snow never let up and got worse throughout the day, was worried I pushed my boys too far, they where starting to get cold and wet sage brush doesn't work well to build a fire, we got the bull deboned and in game bags, told the boys I'd carry what meat I could and we'd come back the next day for the rest. Took several hours to get back to the truck and boys were exhausted. Had several great friends reach out and offer to come get the rest of the elk the next day. Sun was shining, no winds, boys needed that. Talen told me while I was deboning his bull that he probably shouldn't have shot it. Told him not to think like that tell we get it back home and see how he feels. When we finally got the bull to the truck the following day he told me it really wasn't bad and he'd totally do it again. That was a huge relief for me.
My buddy Tanner was able to capture this awesome pics of my boys and myself, this is getting framed and put on the wall.
