Elk hunting '09

These are a lot of random pictures from this past elk season.

Little brookie that lives in a mtn stream.

Del's elk from this year. His second bull in a row with a longbow.
Dale found this skull during the season.
Danny killed this bull this year. His 4th bull in 5 years.
No matter what I do, this pictures is coming in sidways! I QUIT TRYING! Anyways, big bloodtrail from a narrow two blade broadhead.
Danny's elk as he found it.
I went hunting with Del and his Dad this year. I had a rough trip, but it was an absolute blast. Here is an evening in camp.
A view from camp.
My tent and gear tarp. I really enjoyed that tent.
Another view of my camping spot.
The llamas packing all of our gear up the mountain. That was nice!
Getting the llamas loaded.
An elk skull that me and Danny found. We kept the ivories from this skull, we both had one of the teeth in our pocket when we killed our bulls this year. Gonna hold on to that thing until I lose it now...

Another view of the bull.
Neat view of the sun peaking through a hole in the trees.

That's it until next year, dang it!

My CO Elk

I got a spike this year elk hunting with my Mohawk longbow. Here a few pictures of the hunt.

Scouting Elk

Danny did some elk scouting and took these pictures. He found this huge moose about 5 miles from the nearest road.

Old Pictures

Found these old pics the other day. This was during my first elk hunting season. I was 13 years old, and I made a 40+ yard shot on this grouse. I would love to have back some of the opportunities that I blew that season. At one point I thought that an elk was going to step on and break my bow, which was laying at my feet...what a fun year of learning that was!

Danny shot this cow when we were in high school. I think we skipped our last few classes of the day and went elk hunting instead. If I remember right, he killed this elk when we were supposed to be in gym class...

'09 Colorado Turkey Outing

I should have titled this post Colorado Stump Shooting, because that's we ended up doing. The turkeys had moved into higher parts of the mountains. Saw lots of deer, elk tracks, and bear tracks. Had a great time nonetheless.

Derrick's Colorado Turkey

I ran up to the lower mountains in Colorado to hunt with Derrick. He had never been turkey hunting before and didn't know how, or when, or how often to call. He told me about hearing turkeys and even seeing some. I was pretty confident that if they were there we would get one.

Sure enough, they were there. Unfortunately they were on another hillside and across a creek. I've seen turkeys not want to cross under a fence in the past, let alone fly across a creek. I felt like we had nothing to lose, so I let the turkeys dictate the frequency of my calling. When they got fired up, I got fired up. When they calmed down, I calmed down. I ended up calling much more than I usually like to, but like I said, I truly felt like the turkeys would not come and that we had nothing to lose.

After several hours of listening to them gobbling like crazy we managed to call one away from the flock. This beautiful tom came down the other side of the mountain and flew across the creek to come to our calling.

Derrick made a great 35 yard shot with his compound. We managed to call in another, larger tom from the same location. I had not bought a Colorado turkey license yet, and I was kicking myself. The second tom came in to 7 yards.

We had good luck on this trip just hiding behind some rocks in the mountains. We had no blind on this hunt. 

'09 Nebraska Turkeys

Well I had a disappointing and frustrating turkey season. Although I had chances to kill turkeys I did not come home with any game. I am going to strongly look into what kind of broadheads I shoot next season. Danny had some luck, as you can see above. He shot this turkey from the ground, no blind. We slid underneath a thick cedar tree and gave a few soft yelps. Two jakes came right in to seven yards and Danny shot the first one.

Danny recently had surgery on his left shoulder. Drawing even a super light bow was too painful for him. He could not support the weight. But drawing a left handed bow, as long as it was light, did not bother him. So Danny switched to left handed about three weeks before this trip. I'm pretty proud of the fact that Danny killed this bird from the ground, no blind, and with a left handed bow he'd only shot for a few weeks.

This porcupine was sleeping when we walked up to him, and really could care less about us. We saw a lot of porcupines on this trip, more than in previous trips.

Overlooking some of the public land that we were hunting. It would be possible to walk most of the day and stay on public land.

Another couple of pictures of Danny's turkey.

From a few weeks earlier. Andy made a great shot to get this bird.

Winter Trout

Danny and I got out the other day for a fishing trip. The weather was so nice we couldn't pass up on the chance. The fishing was real tough. Danny caught a half dozen or so, I just managed one little guy. We had a great time nonetheless.

New Years Coyote Hunting

Danny brought Kelly out for his first time coyote hunting. During the second set-up on a bitterly cold morning they called in two coyotes, Kelly shooting the first and Danny the second.

One of the nicer bucks they saw that morning.

This is one of the little guys roaming around the town of Saratoga.

Froze in Nebraska

Had a COOOOLD hunt in Nebraska. Normally the drop in temperature concentrates the deer and keeps them moving for a big part of the day. The hunting can be fantastic with those sort of conditions. However, the temperatures on this hunt were so cold, and the wind was blowing so bad, that even the deer just hunkered down to wait this one out. 

We didn't really have the option to wait it out though, we only had two days to hunt. With ZERO deer movement and wind that hurt we decided to put a ground blind in a deep ravine. We wanted to both shield ourselves from the wind and (hopefully) increase our chance thinking that the deer were probably in those ravines as well.

We set up on a ravine that led to a wheat field. A group of four does made their way past us and I got a shot at this small button buck from about 15 yards. The temperature was -3 when I shot, but windchill was pushing -30. 

Wisconsin Whitetail Hunting

Here is the result of a week-long whitetail hunt in Wisconsin. Danny killed this huge buck early in the hunt.

We are lucky. Our good friends in Wisconsin hooked us up with a great farm to hunt. Only a few other people have permission to hunt this farm and they are gun hunters. They killed a few does off of this property during an early gun season, but we got to hunt relatively untouched deer.

Danny got to Wisconsin about four days before my Dad and I arrived. The deer action was spectacular. Danny saw the deer he eventually killed three separate times, including two other bucks who were both bigger. But Danny wasn't really "hunting", not yet. He was sitting in areas where he had a great vantage point to watch. Since none of us had ever hunted this property before Danny decided that he would do some scouting before Dad and I arrived. He unselfishly decided to wait to sit the "prime spots" until we could all hunt together.

We had spent quite a bit of time studying aerial photographs of the property and we pre-determined a couple of placed that we thought would be good stand locations. Below I marked in blue our stand locations, and I marked in red the different places where Danny saw the buck that he killed.
From his treestand, Danny got great pictures of the deer he eventually killed. The buck was with a doe out in this CRP field. A little guy was running around bucking and jumping and acting like, well...a teenager in rut.

So here is the story. The morning after I arrived we all set out to treestands that Danny hung before we arrived. We got a bit of a late start. Since my stand was the closest I was in my tree in plenty of time.

At 6:08am Danny sent me a text message to let me know he was settled in. A little late, I was thinking. I had already seen 5 or 6 deer by then. At 6:15am my phone buzzed again, I was never expecting what I got. "I just drilled a monster!" That's all it said. I was dying to know more! I told him that I was seeing a lot of deer and I wanted him to wait for me before going after the deer. 

I have never wanted a morning hunt to end quicker. I was out of the tree much sooner that I would have liked to be. By 9:30am we were on the trail.

Danny told us that he saw the huge buck through the trees and immediately turned over his can call. The buck looked but did not act. Danny tipped over the call again which brought the buck running directly to him, breaking anything in his way and grunting the whole 75 yards.

Walking parallell to the tree line, and perfectly broadside at 15 yards, Danny let out a voice grunt to stop the buck. At the shot, Danny said that he hit the deer perfectly behind the shoulder, with a complete pass through, and that it shouldn't be far.

We found exactly what we expected from the shot description. The blood trail was fantastic. It was among the best blood trails I had ever been on. We all expected to see the deer at any moment. 200 yards down the trail we're starting to wonder how this deer was still alive.

As we're crawling on our knees through a nasty, brushy hillside Danny spots a large buck bedded down...and looking at him. Danny tried, but there was no way he could have gotten an arrow out in time. That buck sounded like a train as he busted through the thick brush.

We were all heartbroken. It's three hours after the shot, the blood trail is amazing, how could this deer still be alive? We decided to see how much he bled in his bed. To our relief, we found that the buck was actually bedded several yards off of the blood trail. There was no blood in the bed. We concluded (more like "hoped" at this point) that the bedded buck was a different deer.

Another couple hundred yards of following the blood trail at a walking pace we heard some thrashing in the leaves and a long groan. At the time we thought that the deer must have still been alive. We sat down for quite a while just to be sure. When we thought for certain that the deer had expired we continued to sneak along.

While Danny and Dad slowly crept up on the deer I circled below the trees in case he ran that way. I spotted him from below and whistled to signal that he was dead.

As you can see the shot was exactly where Danny described it to be. The arrow, to Danny's amazement, exited pretty far back of the ribcage on the opposite side. Danny concluded that when he grunted to stop the walking deer it must have taken a step towards him. The shot was obviously more of a quartering-to angle than he had originally thought.

At the time we thought that this deer was still alive three hours later. From looking at the deer it was apparant that he had been dead for some time.  But we heard a groan, and thought that the only explanation for that was that the deer had been alive. I have since read that deer can emit "groans" after death, a result from gasses building and being released inside the body cavity.
Here is the path that the buck took after he had been hit. The red circle is where Danny first saw the deer. The blue spot is his treestand.

Unfortunately the hunting dramatically shut down after this morning. We hardly saw another deer for the next few days. It didn't help our cause that the temperatures were in the mid 70's. Towards the end of the week Dad and I both ended up seeing some great bucks. Dad had a close encounter with a beautiful ten point. Distant sightings were the best I had.

Either way, to take home one deer like this was an accomplishment that we will cherish. It was so nice, so fun, and so fulfilling for the three of us to be able to scout and hunt a new property together.

More Wisconsin Pictures

Danny snapped a few more pictures after he killed his big buck. Here are a couple of the better ones.

Danny killed this little doe a few days after his buck.

This was a gnarly looking little guy.

A friend of ours killed this buck across the road from where we were hunting. He had two other bucks of this size walk within ten yards of him after he shot this one.

Nick's First Buck

I asked my good friend Nick to write a story about his first buck. Nick's family has some of the best whitetail hunting I know of, and they have been extremely generous in letting Danny and me hunt with them. I have not found that to be a common thing in the midwest, where quality hunting land is hard to come by. However, Nick, his Uncle Donny, and his grandparents have treated Danny and me like we were part of their family. And when I killed a huge buck they were all as happy as if they themselves had killed it.

Nick is the kind of hunting partner anybody would look for. We've had a lot of fun debatin...well, fighting about hunting tactics. No doubt we've both learned a lot about hunting whitetails the past three seasons. Here is his story.

It’s been a long time coming since I filled a buck tag. I still vividly remember shooting my first (and until this year, only) buck with my Dad during my first day of gun hunting. I was a little too young to fully grasp why I was able to stay warm every time I saw deer on that cold day. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about the ins and outs of hunting and the adrenaline rush that comes with the presence of watching these beautiful animals go about their natural habits. At first, I started off as only a gun hunter, and I never really had any influences pushing me to start bowhunting. At the age of 16 with a driver’s license in hand, I decided I was going to begin bowhunting. I bought a used but nice High Country bow from a friend.

Looking back, that first couple of years of bowhunting was a pretty sad effort at hunting big game. I finally started to become serious about bowhunting freshman year in college, and I made many trips home from college at Minnesota to chase whitetails back in Mt Horeb, WI. I started to gain experience seeing big bucks, but I never really understood just how GOOD the land I hunted was. I had let many good bucks go without fully understanding that Pope & Young IS a record book with the bow (although sometimes they had to legally be let go due to Earn-A-Buck, but that’s a different story).

I didn’t harvest my first deer with a bow until this past year, but that exhilarating experience led me to leave the shotgun at home and reach for the bow everytime. I still don’t fully understand expert ways of hunting whitetails, but I made a full-fledged effort to tweak my hunting style for this year. Scent control became a concern, as did being open to trying new stand locations when other spots weren’t producing. It did not take long looking back to realize the effectiveness of keeping spots fresh and trying new spots. Danny and Jake both killed does out of stands they hung that very afternoon in 2007. Utilizing this idea, I decided to hunt a new stand on the morning of November 2, 2008.

Some relatives had previously hung stands near this fenceline on my Grandparent’s land just a couple of hundred yards over the hill along the same fence that Tommy killed his giant 8 pointer on. I had decided the night before that this spot should be hunted, especially due to past rut movement having occurred pretty heavily in this area. In the early morning darkness I was able to pretty quietly hang a stand in a solid tree just 5 yards off the fenceline. This tree overlooked the newly sewn winter wheat field on my grandparents, as well as a picked cornfield on the property to the south.

(view from the treestand)

Early rattling proved fruitless, and by 7:45am I still had not laid eyes on a deer. I had convinced myself that I must stay put until at least 9 a.m. due to the high volume of buck movement we had been seeing in our area. A few times I thought I had heard some rustling that sounded like a buck chasing a doe to my south in the draw about 200 yards away. I scrutinized every movement, but no deer seemed to materialize. By 8 a.m. I was growing quite fidgety, but I reminded myself of the promise to stay put until at least 9.

All of a sudden I looked up and a dark bodied, good sized deer was trotting along the edge of the woods and the cornfield to the south. One quick glance through the binoculars showed me a beautiful 8 point buck that I quickly realized I should shoot without hesitating. Now, I’ve let bigger bucks go in my time, but reality has started to catch up to me this year. I realized I have to walk before I can run, and I needed some experience under my belt. It also helped that my freezer was currently void of any backstraps!

(Nick's buck a few days earlier)

As the buck made his way toward the fenceline I was sitting, I quickly grabbed my bow and played out scenarios in my mind. As he came within 15 yards on the other side of the fence, he turned broadside and started feeding on some corn. Although we are on close terms with the neighboring landowner, I had decided I was going to wait for this beautiful buck to cross on to our land. I picked out the trail I thought he would take, which is less than 10 yards in front of me. He started to feed heading diagonally away from me, and I had had all I could take of watching him walk away. I turned over my Primos can call twice and he came in on a string! He actually came to the base of my tree before heading straight out from me. As he turned broadside, I drew back. My first shot stopped him in his tracks, and buck fever began to set in immediately!

Although he wasn’t a monster, I felt some tremors begin to creep into my legs. I began shooting text messages out to any friends that would want to hear the good news, and some immediate answers flew in. I was just trying to pass the time until I knew I’d be able to climb down without any issues. I was elated to finally strike gold with the bow, and this is an experience I’ll never forget. As excited as I was, I think Jake might’ve been even more excited as he pulled up in his Jeep to give me a hand in pictures! The highlight of my first two bow kills has undoubtedly been the presence of good friends there to share in my joy. It is this very reason why I’ve grown to obsess over hunting. Friends and family are there for every moment, and the memories stand as clear as a mountain lake.

Danny's Nebraska Doe

Danny got this doe the other night. He stopped in Nebraska as he headed out to Wisconsin.

A little guy checking out the arrow that Danny dropped from his stand.

A neat looking buck

Braden's First Deer Hunt

Braden got to go on his first hunt with Todd (his Dad), Danny and me. We had a lot of fun and Braden got to see some deer. Braden did great on a stalk and along with Danny and his Dad they got to within 15 yards of some feeding does. Todd got his first shot at a big game animal that night, and shot high. We all had a lot of fun.

Cow Moose Hunt in Canada

Dad and Danny got to go on a cow moose hunt in Canada. Neither of them had any shots, though they were both close several times. They both could have have shot bulls, of course! They did get to have some excellent fishing while they were there as you can see in the pictures below.

This is the cabin they got to stay in while they were there. 

These native paintings were barely visible on the rock walls around the lake.

Danny's 08 Bull

Danny made a pack in trip with some good friends. He had only mediocre elk hunting and saw as many people as he saw elk. On the final day of the season he called this bull up from his bed. The bull ran up the hill using his antlers to push a cow along with him. Danny made a perfect 25 yard shot.

My 2008 Elk Hunt

Well...what can I say about this elk season? I ran through every emotion from the frustration of not being able to hunt often, to the dispair of not finding any elk, the high of getting a shot on a nice bull, and the low of watching him run away, unharmed. But now, that the season is over, I don't have the usual dissapointment that comes with knowing I have to wait a full year to do it all again. I saw more country and a wider array of animals than ever before. And I got to do it all with friends.

Our good friend Jake made the trip from Wisconsin this year to spend four evenings and three mornings elk hunting with Danny and me. Elk sightings were few and far between but that had little effect on our mood. Our enjoyment had more to do with eachothers company as we drove over a hundred miles trying our various (not so honey) honey-holes in search of elk.

We chose to hunt the opening week of the muzzleloader season. The first place we visited had 17 different camps of hunters, and very little fresh elk sign. It didn't take long before we decided we needed to go somewhere else.

On the second day of our hunt we changed locations to a place where Danny had several encounters with big bulls on opening weekend. The reason this is a good elk area became evident to us shortly into our hike up the mountain. After over an hour of climbing straight up we finally reached two breath taking parks at 11,500ft. Nobody in their right mind would have crawled up that mountain. I have to admit that the excitement of pulling the bow back on an elk up there would have been coupled with the reluctancy to take on the chore of packing it out!

The tormenting hike however, was well worth it. Though the elk weren't there, the scenery alone kept our spirits up at camp that night. We went over the awesomeness of the place we had just seen and we wondered how elk could not have been in such a haven. But the beauty of this place was not enough to keep us there. Little sign and only a brief sighting of one lone bull caused us to try our luck in a new area the next day.

Here are several pictures of our hike (not hunt, hike).


As we sat and glassed this bowl we had the pleasure of watching a sow bear and two cubs. They were climbing this steep hill straight towards us before a swirl in the wind caused their quick retreat. We laughed as the sow clumsily ran across a boulder field, tripping and slamming her face into the rocks. After a few seconds of regaining her composure she continued her withdrawl and dissapeared into the trees.

On our final day of a frustrating hunt we made our way to one last spot we hadn't checked. Thanks to GPS coordinates from our cousin Jake got to see what elk hunting was all about. The elk really gave us a show. We called three bulls to within shooting range, two of them being too small to be legal. One of the small bulls stood infront of us for ten minutes and made every elk vocalization in the book.

I continued my yearly tradition of getting a good shooting opportunity on an elk. True to form, I fell in line with that tradition and missed a beautiful 5X5 bull. Easily a P&Y book animal.

Though, this time the miss really didn't bother me. We watched that great bull run several hundred yards to our calls, bugling the entire way. At 30 yards he hung up and turned, giving me a perfect broadside shot. I picked a spot, loosed an arrow, and felt my heart sink as the arrows sailed only inches under his brisket. But how could I be upset? I got close enough for a shot, witnessed some great elk action, and got to do it with my brother and a good friend. That's a successful season for me.
Danny and Jake above 11,000ft.
We saw many moose while hunting this season. This cow and her calf (not visible) didn't have a single care in the world. She hardly looked our way and we had no problem enjoying the view and leaving her be.
As often as I walk through these danged spider webs while wandering the woods and as much as they can be annoying, I've always been fascinated with them. They are one of natures works of art.

My cousin shot this magnificent bull, his Dad called it in for him. I had to post it because of what a great bull it is, and what an accomplishment it was for him to take it with a longbow.

Leaving Wisconsin

Danny's mission to catch a musky before he left Wisconsin has finally been accomplished. You can read about it below in the Fish Of 10,000 Casts post.

On the final day before Danny had to leave Wisconsin he caught this 44 inch musky on Lake Waubesa. The evening before this one he caught his first musky, a 33 incher on Lake Wingra (pics below).

Dad came out to help Danny pack and move his things. We decided to hit Lake Wingra for Danny's second to last evening of fishing. Not ten casts in I caught this 35 incher.
The very next cast Danny had a strike and missed. He counted that his 48th strike or follow. But on the 49th fish to either strike his lure or follow it to the boat he finally got one- this 33 inch musky.

Tom's Corner

For the fourth year in a row I returned to "Tom's corner" to fill my tag. I haven't decided if Tom's corner is named after the turkeys or me, either way it's a fitting name for the corner of woods that has been very good to me over the past four seasons.


The previous three seasons I have showed up to Tom's Corner and found turkey's waiting for me. The turkeys like to roost from 40 to 70 yards of the Corner. Every year it has worked out the just about the same (2007, 2006, 2005). I show up, call a little bit depending on what I hear, and the toms come by.

This season was a little different because we were not able to hunt until the afternoon. We didn't plan on going to Tom's corner right away but gobbling toms convinced us otherwise (we had planned on saving it for the morning). Two hot toms were in a place where setting up on them would be difficult. So me and Danny made a big circle through the woods and around a pond to get into a good position. We now had a small hill between the gobbling turkeys and us.

Danny gave a soft yelp so we could locate them and they gobbled immediately. Ten seconds later they gobbled again and they were definitely closer. We decided to just sit right where we were. The toms came up to the top of the hill but they wouldn't crest it for a couple of minutes. They just stood up there drumming. Finally, after a few minutes of Danny's convincing purrs, soft yelps, and their non-stop gobbling, they peeked their heads over the hill. One shot and that was that. The turkey had a beard just over ten inches, and spurs just under 1 inch.

Tom's corner produced again. Danny and I had a great, although short, hunt.