stripping.

This last week was the first day lucky Doug's strip hunt. Doug drove for a few hundred hours to get from Denver and Wyler and I met him up there Wednesday afternoon. By late evening we had the camp all set up. Wyler and I saw a couple of smaller bucks on the road on our way to camp it got us pretty excited for the days to come. Next morning the three of us went and learned a few new roads and waters and glassed for a bit. We didnt see much but I guess thats not a weird thing for up there, there is just SO much country. We met dad out on the main road that after noon, showed him where camp was and we went to glass again for the evening. Opening morning (friday) we went to a point were dad said he has always seen some deer on the early part of the hunt. We all spread out and just glassed our way to the end. Of course Dad found a really cool deer shed horn that he said we walked right by. when I got out to the drinker on the end of the point at about 9am I set up to glass a bit and my eyes wandered to looking at a far off ridge. I SEE A DEER! ... a doe.... and a buck, i think its just a small one tho.
Dad calls me and says, I see where your looking and if you can see horns at that far (2 miles) we need to get back to the truck and get over there.
Before we packed up, Wyler and I both put the spotting scopes up just in time to see him turn side ways and walk up the ridge and all we could say is wow! he is bigger than I thought. I took a compass barring and we were off.
The next few hour found us driving the 15 miles to get around the canyon and we decided which ridge he was on and we took off hiking. Dad and Wyler stayed to glass the side of the ridge where he could maybe sneak off. Well Doug and I got out there and found him and his does just where we thought they were. They herd us and blew out of the trees. The 3 deer ran bout 550 yards to another patch of ceders and they just laid down! Doug and I watched them for a hour or two and snuck a few hundred yards to get a shot. The buck stood up and came out in the open and Doug whacked him! We caped and quartered him and started out the 2 miles to the truck in the dark. Weeks and weeks of planning and packing and getting ready for one day of scouting and one day of hunting! Thats how it goes. He got a buck of a life time thats for sure.

 here is the buck alive taken though my spotting scope

 Doug and I with his club horned buck

 Me, Dad, Doug and Wyler

Our camp.

Long walk for fun.

Well this last weekend Dad, Wyler and Doug all went to Utah for the Deer hunt. I didn't get a tag up there this year and it was a long drive for just a few days for me to go so instead I met Jimmy in Strawberry. He had a client coming to hunt Coues Deer and he hadn't found any shooters as of yet. We decide that we should pack out into a wilderness area to find the big boys. Bear season was still on and there was a good chance of seeing one so we packed our bivys, sleeping bags, water, food, optics, tripods AND my gun. Well it was a long walk to some neat country but not much to show for it. we saw a handful of Coues, bunch of elk but no bears and not the 105" we hoped for. Had a ton of fun though and saw beautiful country. right after I left on Sunday night I got a phone call from Jimmy saying he found a pile of bucks. Go figure. The next day him and the hunter got it done. The buck tapped right at 105.
Wyler got to take a great buck in Utah and Dough passed several and went home empty. I'll post pictures as soon as Wyler gets them too me.

Elk hunting with the boys

Jimmy, Ish and Raul all drew early archery bull tags this year! We did absolutely not one day of scouting and they still got it done. I was able to hunt with them for the first 4 days and then came back the second weekend when they killed. We got to see TONS of bulls and had a great time but after 14 days in a wall tent they were ready to go home. They shot these bulls 30 seconds apart at the same waller. They both took about 5 running strides and died. No tracking or packing involved.

 Ish's bull: 388" and Jimmy's; 365"

Heck of a job boys

 My good buddy Eli and his dad have tags for archery deer on the Kiabab this year. Jimmy has two hunters for the same hunt. Jimmy's family came and we just all had one big camp and had a heck of a good time. No one shot deer. But that's not to say they didn't shoot AT deer. We had a great time and saw lots of deer.

 There was a little bit of FOG

 Who knew that deer were blurry?

 TATONKA!

Lets go back a month or two

 So just to start out here are some pics from my little brother Wyler's Arizona antelope hunt this year.  We did a few days of scouting in the weeks before the hunt. Dad, Wyler and I hunted a total of 3 days before he shot his buck. I was a pretty tough hunt, we didn't see the number of bucks we thought we would but we found this one and got it done. 

 Just a few of the great sunsets and storms we saw.

 Glassing and eating Cheetos

 A couple of bucks on our scouting trips

Just a small buck in the sunset. He was fun to watch.

 Wyler and his trophy

 Wyler and I

Me, Dad and Wyler