Stand ?? tomorrow

[wraithen]

Heading out tomorrow with a new hunting partner tomorrow. I'll be driving all the way out and hitting up area's off the 90. Finally got a dependable hunting partner so maybe I'll have better luck. I quit counting stands a few outings ago so that if I get stumped as much as raul duke I won't know it and won't wrap my calls and foxpro around a stump. Wish me luck! If anyone is willing to part with honey holes I'll gladly accept them. 

[saylean]

Hope you do better that I did today...only saw a three point, doe, two grouse and a rabbit.

Good luck!

[wraithen]

I may have shot the rabbit if given the chance. I'm bringing chicken livers to help my odds a bit. I gotta brush up on the regs and see what's still in season.

[saylean]

Ahh crap...I thought rabbit ended in Jan.. (just checked the regs...ends in March)

Oh well. It was still fun. Good luck!

[wraithen]

So I went out there yesterday and had an adventure. To start it off the entrance had a snowmobile jump across the road. I didn't bother to stop to check it out and figured I should gas it so I didn't high center when I knocked the top of it off. Ever see an Xterra get air? I saw the sky in all of it's blue beautiful glory, until my back wheels hit the jump. Then I saw the ground at a bumper crushing angle. Ooops! Luckily my Xterra just took the landing like a champ. No damage and no bounce on landing. Thank god we didn't land til after the cattle guard! I figured with a start like that great things were coming! We drove in until the snow didn't seem to be as packed anymore and got out and started walking. We didn't walk very far until we found all kinds of tracks for rabbits and coyotes and racoons and bobcats and possibly one very large cat set of tracks. They were old so we didn't worry about them. We started a stand and waited. Nothing. I was a little worried about the warmer temperatures so we walked back towards the truck to get to lower elevations where the snow wasn't so deep.

I decided to back down to avoid risking getting sunk in the non packed snow. Too late! Got my right side sunk pretty good so we pulled out the shovel and got to work. No matter what we did we kept getting sunk on the right side and the truck kept sliding diagonally more and more towards a cliff. After moving 2 car lengths, cutting down 2 trees, and shoveling down to the earth about a foot and a half down several times a snowmobiler crew came out. It was a family of a guy and his 2 kids and a 4th person that we couldn't see. The guy told me I wasn't stuck and started to rock my truck a bit. He asked if we wanted him to wait with us until we got unstuck. I told him since he would be on his way back through if we were still there we'd appreciate him calling us some help. His daughter then proceeded with "Dad! Help them! They're stuck! You're a genius! You don't have to buy anything, you can just build it! You built your truck so high up in the air! Help them dad!" She was cute but I got the feeling her dad didn't appreciate us tearing up the road. He told us to deflate the tires and we'd be able to drive right out and not to worry about tearing up the road like we did. We voiced our appreciation for the advice and they left to go play.

I'm an IDIOT!  So we deflated the tires and tried backing down a bit but the truck kept sliding to within inches of the right back tire going over the edge. My buddy then got in, put it in 1st, and slammed it until he pulled straight out. (I'm in IDIOT!  Why was I using D?!) Needless to say we backed down until the snow was only about 8 inches deep, turned around, and slowly crept out. Slowly rolled over the snowmobile jump, and drove slowly all the way to the gas station with the gold-lined air. (It took us 75c for air, 3 times before we had the tires aired back up so we figured the air had something expensive in it.)

All in all we had an adventure. If I ever say I'm going to play in the mountains this time of year, would somebody please tell me what an idiot I am? We should have realized that since there were NO vehicle tracks past the snowmobile jump we weren't sposta be there. We did learn a lot and if that guy with the snowmobiles is on here, I'm really sorry we wrecked that section of road and didn't fix it, we were afraid to lose momentum on the way down. And thanks for giving us the advice we should have already got around to. We both knew better, we just stopped thinking for some reason. Thanks for letting us salvage a tiny bit of pride by getting ourselves out of there. And your daughter lightened the mood a lot with her compliments to her father.

[4OYOTER]

Was this out by Cle Elum? Sounds almost identical to my adventure there a few weeks ago!

[Heredoggydoggy]

From now until the snow melts and the mud dries out, the dirt roads are going to be mushy.  Last friday i went out to check an area, and there was so much mud, the Bronco II was going up a hill sideways.  I'm staying off the dirt roads for a while.  Tears them up too much to be driving on them now.

[wraithen]

Yeah I felt like a complete D bag when the snowmobilers showed up. It was a good 20 foot long trench we dug up. I'm foregoing any non-flat areas for at least a couple months. I wish mud was my problem though 

[rynokron]

Most of the roads on the East side are closed to motor vehicles until they thaw and dry. (State and Fedral land)

[wraithen]

These were open. We checked. I usually do a bunch of research before heading somewhere since the rules and laws change every 15 of river or road in this state.