Upper Smith Creek Bull Tag!

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Good report! That was a good camp spot you picked. If a Squatch went to howling you would of heard it......

[luvmystang67]

Haha I felt like an elk when I picked that spot. There were places that were more level but it would've inhibited my vantage point or left me too boxed in. That spot was the perfect combination of good visibility and coziness.  I did anticipate feeling a little more nervous about camping solo but it was actually pretty freeing.


Sent from Tapatalk, which is a mediocre app at best.

[elkhunter00]

You probably thought I was lying to you about point number 5. You have spotty coverage on the 99 but at Windy Ridge it is perfect with Us Cellular, Verizon and At&T.

[mburrows]

Awesome pics. Looks like you're in for a great hunt!

[luvmystang67]

A couple of pics to share in the excitement

[luvmystang67]

One more

[D-Rock425]

All so little.

[luvmystang67]

All so little.

Now I'm personally offended... my babies are growing D --- Bag.

Jk,

We'll see what happens with the growth.  The raghorns (that I didn't post) have little tufts of nothing.  Unless these guys just grew earlier, I speculate there is some more horn growth to occur.

[luvmystang67]

Anyone have any idea what kind of additional growth i can expect on these guys or are they all at different stages of development?

[h20hunter]

Stang....what have you found or what are you thinking the critters will be doing when the hunt comes around? Home turf and you can expect a similiar amound of animals? More scattered and moved around?

[luvmystang67]

Stang....what have you found or what are you thinking the critters will be doing when the hunt comes around? Home turf and you can expect a similiar amound of animals? More scattered and moved around?

I'm expecting not to find a herd of bulls (8 raghorns)... I'm expecting to have them be a little more afraid of me than letting me sleep 100 yards away from them all night.

Between now and then we have Lewis River archery (bordering unit), Lewis River muzzy, Upper Smith Creek archers (6 total people, 4 cow and 2 bull) and a rut.  I think it'll be a bit different, but it does appear that animals like using the upper area of the unit this time of year.  I really don't know what to expect, other than for them to maybe be a little less out in the open.  Their color against the green right now kind of makes them pop visibly. 

I expect that they'll flow into the lewis river unit, get pushed back into this unit, and then find the crap holes in this unit where archers and other muzzy hunters don't want to go... which shouldn't be hard for them.

[h20hunter]

Sounds like you do what you normally do....get up early, hike down in to the dark and nasty. I think you are going to notch a tag on a pretty good bull. I got faith.

[Tschaefer72]

great to see those bulls in velvet

[youngbull]

Hopefully youll get a little moisture
makes walking on thr pumice easier

[luvmystang67]

Some new pics from my most recent trip.  Not much growth on the ones that I saw on 6/20.  I saw some of them again that I recognized due to abnormalities in their antlers.  The smaller raghorns grew the most, but most of the larger animals didn't put on much growth.  Maybe ~4-5" at the top at most.  Some of the tines a little.  Generally similar to how I saw them in June.  They were bugling like crazy and sniffing cows.