While I'm the technical fella around here, I shoot stuff too. I had a great season but an absolutely horrific hunting schedule. I had 3 weeks of hunting planned between Washington and Montana. It got boiled down to a total of 5 days between archery and modern in Montana and 2 days in Washington.
Started by driving to Montana to hunt for elk, after getting unpacked I got out for the evening hunt. When I checked in with my wife she told me we had a work emergency and drove home to Washington that night. After a few days home I decided I wanted to go punch a tag in MT so I ran back over and shot a doe with my b-tag. Super stoked on my first archery kill.
My next hunt was scheduled to be a solo hunt in the Blue Mountains in Washington. Unfortunately, my wife had to fly to France, in the middle of October for 3 weeks, to care for her sister who had surgery removing a tumor the size of a brick. Leaving me home with 4 kids and our business to run. To make matters worse, my father-in-law and his wife flew over shortly after the surgery and my father-in-law's wife passed away within 12 hours of landing in France. After the insanity my family was going through, I needed to clear my head. With a 3, 4, 6 & 8-year-old trying to do anything overnight wasn't an option so I picked out a feel free to hunt area nearby. I will say my pack had enough calories for a week and yet my kids ate through it all in a night. We watched some does but didn't see any bucks.
My folks came over for a couple days to give me a hand with my kids, I was able to sneak out one morning and shot a buck on another feel free to hunt property.
To wrap up my season, I usually head to Montana with my in-laws. After the family turmoil, I ended up being by myself. After missing a bull on the first day, I knew I needed to shoot the next legal elk I saw to fill the freezer. Luckily, I cut some tracks and caught up with a herd 3 miles later and took a cow. Good thing I had my Kifaru, wouldn't have been able to pack her out without it
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me just lucky after that back issue late summer to get out and call in a bull in for a long time friend, some ink for my passed compadre Magnum and then a few fun days Muley hunting north Idaho hopeful 19 is better
