Last spring I had to watch my little boy on the first 3 days of the season so I didn't get out until friday. The area I usually hunt for the opener was still snowed in. I decided I could still get to it via another drainage. I started out climbing at 4:00 am. It was 27 degrees and snowing. As I was climbing this god forsaken "mountain" I was asking myself "what the hell are you doing". Especially when I kicked up 3 mountain goats out of there beds. By the time I got to the top it was just getting daylight and I had climbed 997 feet in less than 1/3 of a mile. I didn't realize how steep it was until I was on my way back down. Anyway, I get on top and there is snow everywhere. I set up my decoys and start calling. Nothing. I start to "run and gun" and get a response after about 100 yrds. He's just not interested. I continue on for about 2 more hours and I'm getting exhausted. It's still snowing so I look for a good tree to get under and take a nap and have some warm soup. I get to an area where I have killed birds before and find a nice 5 pt elk shed right in the trail. YeeHaw!!! The trip won't be a total bust. I continue up the trail and see a big tom out in the meadow 40 yrds from me. Unfortunatly he see's me first. I go ahead and set up and crawled under a tree. I'm almost asleep when I hear a hen yelp. I slowly peek around the tree and see 4 jakes and a hen coming up the trail. Normally I wouldn't take a jake up there but with all I went through to get up there any bird is a trophy on this day. I let them come up to about 30 yrds and waited for a bird to single off from the flock and I rolled him down the hill. I couldn't believe my luck. When I got back to my truck it was still 27 and snowing. It really does freeze in hell. Here is a picture with the bird proped up with the elk shed.
