Hirshey's Hunting Season 2016

[hirshey]

We still hadn’t seen the caliber of bucks we were hoping for (with the exception of Storm) so the next day we planned to go big. Storm kept a close watch on his non-typical, ranging him at 300-500 yards throughout the day while Jeff and my mom put a huge effort in on a 14 mile, 9000 foot elevation gain/loss day circumnavigating the western side of the entire basin and then some. Derrick and I invested time into the northern portion of the expansive basin, and were rewarded with a close encounter with the first “mature” size-classed animal yet to be pushing does. We snapped some photos, but let him walk, noting his location and keeping him in mind for a possible candidate for my mom or others in the days that followed. We continued the punishing hike to the head of the basin, and searched the basin further to the north for something of interest. We spotted one mature buck, but chose not to push him from the area seeing as that was Jeff’s favorite haunt after his successful harvest the year prior. We gained yet another peak and surveyed the next bowl, and found a buck worth investing the remainder of our day into: the camera revealed some fairly heavy horns, and at least a solid 4 with eyeguards on both sides. He was in an impressively defensible location which required another 2 miles of hiking to include circumnavigating the next peak over and a steady sneak to lose about 600 feet in elevation, all to avoid spooking a cluster of elk and some smaller deer in between his location and ours. We performed flawlessly (even pausing to take photos of a red fox at 8,300 feet elevation) until roughly the last 300 yards of the stalk when an unseen group of does being pushed by a smaller buck caught our movement, blowing and stotting right through the opening our buck had been feeding through; we’d been busted. The light was fading, so we boogied back down the slope, only pausing to note yet another set of wolf tracks; something we’d never witnessed in this basin prior to this year, but a common theme of this year’s hunt. We all met up under the glow of the evening’s campfire for some Mountain House meals paired with fresh elk heart and tenderloins to share stories of the day and refuel our bodies which were now operating on overdrive. The big question all of us shared was where were the mature animals? We were accustomed to seeing dozens on the day, so where was the weather to drive the rut, and when the weather doesn’t cooperate… where should we concentrate our efforts?
I didn’t have an answer to any of those questions, and my body was telling me I needed a break. With that in mind, the plan for the next day was to Storm the head of the basin: Jeff, Storm, and my mom were headed back into the area we’d left alone in search of new antlers to view, while Derrick and I were going to sleep in and take a slow meander up a localized knife ridge.

[hirshey]

Incoming

[hirshey]

Pretty lovestruck

[hirshey]

Charming caramel-colored horns

[hirshey]

Lovestruck

[hirshey]

Sensory or mocking?

[hirshey]

My biggest concern.......




Who doesn't like crab....

It actually works out better for me... because he likes to catch them and then I get to eat more. 

[GUscottie]

Tagging

[fishngamereaper]

My biggest concern.......




Who doesn't like crab....

It actually works out better for me... because he likes to catch them and then I get to eat more. 

Ah, smart girl. Carry on then.

[bowhunterforever]

Nice work

[kellama2001]

Tagging! 

[Jburke]

No more story time?!  Brutal 

[hirshey]

No more story time?!  Brutal 

Meat cutting... To ruin the story's ending

[hirshey]

I'll post more tomorrow night... Just have the wrapping left to do!

[Boss .300 winmag]

I almost got  for stunt like this once!