Gobble's Alta Late Hunt Thread

[Gobble]

I'm heading out the door for 6 days, hopefully with a nice buck

Wish me luck

[BLKBEARKLR]

Good luck Gobble, get a nice one.

Joe

[SpokaneSlayer]

Good luck.  Kill a big'n!

[Kent Hunter]

Good luck Gobble and have a fun safe hunt.

[Gobble]

Well I,m back and sadly to say without harvesting an animal  . I had some serious equipment problems that resulted in some missed opportunities on the some 170-180 class bucks.  I will post some pictures and the "rest of the story" later.   

[Kowsrule30]

 That sucks man....

[boneaddict]

Glad you found some bucks of that caliber.  They were hard to come by this year.  Most I think are in the form of wolf scat. 

[finnman]

My balloon just popped!!!!

Was looking forward to some bone......

[OU812]

Hey Dave this is Koloski from high school sorry to hear ya didnt bring home a wall hanger!  Darin had a rifle permit this year for the same area.  Him saw and Beave saw 13 bucks in 2 days..passed on all.  He ended up with a small fork horn.  He'll send ya a post.  Lets see some pics of these 170-180 bucks!

[Skyvalhunter]

Hey Koloski how the heck are you?

[Gobble]

Hey Dave this is Koloski from high school sorry to hear ya didnt bring home a wall hanger!  Darin had a rifle permit this year for the same area.  Him saw and Beave saw 13 bucks in 2 days..passed on all.  He ended up with a small fork horn.  He'll send ya a post.  Lets see some pics of these 170-180 bucks!

Hey Jon! Long time, How's it going? Beave lives out by me. My 11 yr old and his niece (Julie's Kid) are real good friends.

We saw anywhere from 5-15 bucks a day. My four wheel drive wouldn't engage on the first day so we were limited to the lowlands until the second day when I got it fixed.  I passed on many smaller bucks (2 pts and 3 pts, small 4 pts) and does waiting for a shot on the big one, when that opportunity came about we snuck up to the top of the ridge at 3,500 feet and belly crawled for 80 yrds to get within 120 yrds (the closest i could get) to 2 very nice mature 5 pts,  I had 40 sets of eyes to evade and made it to the rock ledge down hill from them undetected. I had a couple of does and a 2 pt walk within 15 yrds of me and just stood there looking at me until they realized I wasn't a threat (haha) Both bucks were close to 170-180 I'm guessing, one was bedded and one was standing broadside. I pull back the hammer , line up and pull the trigger....NOTHING. My cap didn't go off. Then I pull the hammer back again and fire BANG. The deer just stood there as the smoke bellowed out the barrel. I signalled to my 16 yr old to retrieve my back pack that I left 80 yrds behind me with my quick loads   The whole time the deer is standing still. I reload again and let it fly and the same thing happened, I'm like what the hell? The deer wander off and I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. I had sighted the gun in before the season and it was shooting about a 3-4 in group at 100-120 yrds. I ended up missing 2 more animals and having the same issues with the caps and misses. All this happened at the end of the hunt and by the time I realized my sightes were bumped out of adjustment it was too late. I would have been better off with my bow. I saw 30-40 deer a day, 1 Bobcat, 2 sets of cougar tracks and heard no wolves what so ever, nor saw any tracks. I don't have any pics of the big deer as I was focused on getting shots at the animal and I only have a point and shoot digital camera anyway. I do have some pics of the Cougar tracks and some awesome landscape shots I will post later. That pretty well sums up my ordeal. Saw some great country. Hiked my ass off and had a really great time with my son.  

[Craig]

Sounds like a good time with your son. Do you think the late muzzleloader hunt was worth using points on? I have 8 points and was looking at those hunts. The mission and the Alta.

[Gobble]

Sounds like a good time with your son. Do you think the late muzzleloader hunt was worth using points on? I have 8 points and was looking at those hunts. The mission and the Alta.

Absolutely, I think you have a better chance to get drawn. The only issue I had was my ML somehow getting knocked out of Zero  I actually applied for the rifle hunt with my 2rd choice and this was my 3rd choice. I don't see how you could miss with a rifle tag. I could have filled mine at least 15 times with a 4 pt or better buck. I like the challenge of the primative weapons. I would have done better with my bow on this hunt though   

[NRA4LIFE]

Man, I'm bummed Dave.  I thought I'd be seeing a monster rack out in your truck yesterday morning.  Oh well, there still some late hunting for ya yet.

[Wea300mag]

Crap, I was pulling for you Gobble. At least you had some quality time in the field.