trickyrabbit
FNG
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2022
- Messages
- 2
Hello everyone. Friendly New Guy here. I'm a long time lurker. I grew up in NC around hunters, but not hunting myself. My dad was more into racing cars and never was a hunter. I started getting interested in hunting when I was in my late 20s living in Virginia. I had asked an elderly gentleman I went to church with to help me learn to hunt. We were going to meet for some whitetail hunting on his property but my wife was pregnant and when she had the baby, there were some complications with extended hospitalizations for our daughter, so hunting for delayed until the following year.
Opening day of rifle deer season came and was in the tree he had killed a deer on opening day for the past several years. I sat there nervously until the sun came up. At some point I dozed off for a bit. A few hours goes by without much happening besides squirrels being noisy. Then I hear footsteps. It was several young does being harassed by young spikes. Before I went out that morning, the older gentleman told me not to shoot anything with less than four points. I thought the deer were cute, but didn't get excited. I remember thinking, 'I don't get the whole "Buck Fever" thing.' Then, an eight pointer came out. I understood and got the buck fever thing immediately. I shot it at around 40 yards then again when it stopped a few yards from its original spot, just in case. That was when I got hooked on hunting.
That was about ten years ago now and I haven't taken any game animal since. For several years anytime I planned on hunting, I would see if I could work overtime instead, and almost never went hunting, but I got out credit cards paid off!
Then a few years ago we moved to Colorado. 2022 was my first year elk hunting. It was terrible but amazing. I didn't see anything but mule deer and moose for the first two years. I did see some elk on private land, but nowhere else.
This past September, I was able to have multiple encounters with bull elk. One stopped at 25 yards on the other side of a bushy tree, them smelled me and ran. One I saw at 50 yards in the timber. He stopped, bugled, and started walking again. I managed to catch up to him again a few minutes later at around 30 yards. His head was on the other side of a tree so I thought he couldn't see me, but as I turned, he saw me (my backpack I think) and took off. The first one I saw was following a cow and calf. I drew my bow, cow called to stop him at around 15 yards, and when he stopped and looked directly at me, I had major adrenaline dump and shot directly over his back. I'm glad it was a clean miss. That hooked me again. This year is the year.
Sorry for the long post.
Opening day of rifle deer season came and was in the tree he had killed a deer on opening day for the past several years. I sat there nervously until the sun came up. At some point I dozed off for a bit. A few hours goes by without much happening besides squirrels being noisy. Then I hear footsteps. It was several young does being harassed by young spikes. Before I went out that morning, the older gentleman told me not to shoot anything with less than four points. I thought the deer were cute, but didn't get excited. I remember thinking, 'I don't get the whole "Buck Fever" thing.' Then, an eight pointer came out. I understood and got the buck fever thing immediately. I shot it at around 40 yards then again when it stopped a few yards from its original spot, just in case. That was when I got hooked on hunting.
That was about ten years ago now and I haven't taken any game animal since. For several years anytime I planned on hunting, I would see if I could work overtime instead, and almost never went hunting, but I got out credit cards paid off!
Then a few years ago we moved to Colorado. 2022 was my first year elk hunting. It was terrible but amazing. I didn't see anything but mule deer and moose for the first two years. I did see some elk on private land, but nowhere else.
This past September, I was able to have multiple encounters with bull elk. One stopped at 25 yards on the other side of a bushy tree, them smelled me and ran. One I saw at 50 yards in the timber. He stopped, bugled, and started walking again. I managed to catch up to him again a few minutes later at around 30 yards. His head was on the other side of a tree so I thought he couldn't see me, but as I turned, he saw me (my backpack I think) and took off. The first one I saw was following a cow and calf. I drew my bow, cow called to stop him at around 15 yards, and when he stopped and looked directly at me, I had major adrenaline dump and shot directly over his back. I'm glad it was a clean miss. That hooked me again. This year is the year.
Sorry for the long post.
