The best way I know to kill the time between the early and late archery seasons is to take my son out hunting. He can get Idaho tags at resident rates, being a junior. I bought a license to put in for an Idaho Bull tag (which I didn't get) but since I have a license I can be his mentor and take him hunting.
Last Thursday eve we hit the road for southern Idaho. We live in the southeast corner of the state so we head over to Montanna via Hwy 12 & Lolo pass. We then come down 93 back into Idaho & through Salmon on the way to Challis. We love eating at the Frontier Cafe near Helena and thought we had plenty of time to make it before they closed until we passed the sign that said "entering mountain time"
We forgot about the hour time change. Anyway we drove like madmen & got there two minutes before 9pm when they closed. (poor waitresses) We grabbed a couple of burgers to go & tipped them heavily. It was snowing so we pushed on over the pass into Idaho and stayed in Salmon. Deer season opened the next morning & we were not meeting friends in our elk hunting area near Challis till noon so we decided to try to get a deer that next Morning. Google Earth is great. We found some good looking BLM land surrounded by fields not too far from Salmon & decided to hit that first thing. We spotted some Mulies with a small buck about a mile from the road. We made a nice round about stalk into the wind, came up over a ridge & there was a doe. We hunkered down & bellied over the ridge till we could see more of the group. There were two small bucks visible & with a stiff wind they had no clue we were there. Luke's first shot with his .243 was a bit high & the jumped, ran a bit then stopped. Take your time, Aim.....His second shot was true. The buck stood there a bit, but I knew he was hit hard. Then his legs got wobbly & he dropped dead. Luke had clipped the end of his heart. It was a good honest hunt. We were both pretty tired after dragging it a mile or more back to the truck.
We drove down to the elk camp & met our buddies we were going to hunt with. Between us there was two bull tags & two cow tags. That night the weather went to pot. We were hunting the high desert & nothing was moving at all. The snow was blowing sideways & it was pretty miserable. We had not seen one elk or even cut any tracks Friday night or all day Saturday. Sunday morning was going to be our last hunt & we wanted to be on the road home by 11am or so. It looked pretty bleak. We split up, Luke & I on our own, & tried a different area. We were going up to a pass on a snow covered road first thing, and there were one set of pickup tracks in front of us. Near the top we caught up to the truck. It was a local hunter & he had spotted some elk on the far hill. He said just glass around from the trees (open hillside) and you will see them. It turns out I was looking for elk, not tiny black specks!!! At over two miles elk don't look like elk with my little bino's - more like dust. (I just ordered some Nikon Monarch ATB's 10x42 - cant wait to get them) Anyway, Luke & I took off on foot down, across the valley & up the other side to try to catch up to the small herd. They were feeding away from us working in & out of the canyons on the side of the mountain. We busted some wild horses on the way but they went down & didn't spook the elk. There was about 6" of snow on the ground. After we closed about half the distance we could see the elk just going over the next ridge. I've really got to hand it to my son for keeping up. "Come on Son, follow me..."
I was kind of living vicariously through him. We got up to the last ridge we saw them go over & slowly went over & I could just see ears & a head of a cow on the next ridge 500-600 yards over. We dropped back out of sight & went straight up our ridge to gain elevation on them until they fed on around out of sight. We snuck over that ridge but they were not there. There was a shallow swell & then another ridge. I'm following right behind Luke & as we crested that next ridge he spotted a cow right away up high & across the next draw. They were alomost to the top of the hill. We bellied through the snow & with his rifle on my pack we watched two cows & two calves. The closest one ranged at 285 yards but it wasn't giving us a good shot. The farthest cow was broadside & seemed a bit bigger. Luke was shooting a .270 that we had sighted in 3" high at 100 and was supposed to have a point blank range out to 300 yards. He held right on & shot. She jumped & trotted toward the other elk. He shot quickly again & hit right in front of her. She stopped & again I told him to take his time. She didn't seem to react much on the next shot so I was thinking she was hit hard. He shot one more time & then she started getting a little weak kneed. Down she went. We were pretty excited & thanked God for answered prayer.
It really started snowing while we gutted her out. We were about 2.5 to 3 miles from the truck now. I thought if we could get here down the hill (3/4 mile) we might be able to get a our friends 4 wheeler to her to drag her out. I left our rope in the truck so we used up a rifle strap dragging her down the hill.
I've grown to hate sage brush. What a job. That took us 3-4 hours. We left her there & walked back to the truck. We got there about 3:30 (we'd left after the elk about 7:30 or 8:00) When we got back to the camp to get our friends 4 wheeler, the camp trailers were GONE. He thought we went home so they left us on the mountain to die
Anyway we borrowed another guys 4 wheeler & got her out about dark. What a great weekend & lots of memories with my son.
Now what am I going to do till late archery starts?
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