2011 Hunting Pictures

[jockperkins]

Thanks guys. I was really proud of my 16 year old. He helped me pack him out through some fairly steep country when we were short on water and a bit dehydrated. I shot him in early September in 80 degree weather.

The next weekend we saw to bucks that were 200+, one had kickers going everywhere. He busted us walking across a hillside and we never could get on him. It doesn't really matter. Seeing a couple of huge mule deer bucks while hunting are memories that will not fade in time. Spent good time with my 16 year old talking about good things other than clean rooms, good grades and all the badgering that we parents do when we are trying to raise good kids. He was disappointed in eating a tag and not killing a giant buck but later in life he will see the experience for what it was -- a great time with the old man!

 

[JD338]

Here are the bucks my buddy and I shot at Valhalla in Nov. My buddy shot the 150 class 10 pt with a 7mm Rem Mag and I shot the cull buck 8 pt with the 6.5mm Rem Mag with a 130 gr AB.

JD338

 

[cloverleaf]

Sheeks! If thats a "cull"...... Very nice deer! CL

 

[DrMike]

There's a couple of fine Odocoileus virginianus, Jim. Were you able to recover a bullet from the 6.5?

 

[JD338]

There's a couple of fine Odocoileus virginianus, Jim. Were you able to recover a bullet from the 6.5?

Thanks Mike. I took a high shoulder shot and dropped him in his tracks. The 130 gr AB exited the off shoulder leaving an exit the size of a quarter.

JD338

 

[Desert Fox]

Here's the only animal I shot in 2011. Hoping for a better 2012.

 

[DrMike]

It's a decent deer, Rommel. This is your Texas deer, is it not?

 

[Desert Fox]

It's a decent deer, Rommel. This is your Texas deer, is it not?

Yes, DrMike. The antler and meat will be here next week courtesy of our friend Ken who will be coming to visit us.

 

[35 Whelen]

Hunters headed home with a "tailgater" 156 B&C Nov of 2011 Lake Baskahegan Maine

 

[DrMike]

That's a beautiful rack on that deer, Earl. Surely some hunter was pleased with that animal!

 

[35 Whelen]

Thanks Mike,
That old son of a gun was a real project to get off from his feet. Took 3 days of chasing him to get him cornered in a situation; that he couldnt figure out a way to get out of it!! The last day, he made a very bad mistake; and found out what a Nosler BT going 2900fps feels like at the base of the neck! The hunter that got him is an old time Vermonter, with over 50 years of tracking experence, so all you gotta show him is the track; and he is gone for the day! Same guy, has shot numerous big bucks with us and continues to whack them more often than not. He hunted for years back in the 1960s with Larry Beniot and lives almost next door to them. He and Larry cut pulp wood togeather for a while. How do you like his number plate???

 

[DrMike]

Oh, yeah, I magnified the plate to read what it said. He sounds like a quality hunter; he certainly has some good credentials.

 

[SJB358]

Very nice buck! What a hammer of a buck!

 

[CatskillCrawler]

It's buck like this one that keep me going back to hunt in Maine.

 

[35 Whelen]

Well Scotty I dont know what your waiting for, just plan on showing up here next fall around the 18th of Nov or so, to get into the rut................. maybe we can send you back to Va with one just like it! And after the batterys in your gps goes down; we can atleast get you lost.................
I think just an old Sierra Bt at 2700, would get it done even if it flys all to pieces, as soon as it goes into the deer, I am betting on an instantanious kill with massive meat distruction so you dont have to haul so much all the way home.[better gas mileage that way] Old bucks in the rut are really not that good to eat anyway!

 

[SJB358]

I might have to take you up on that Earle! I would like to hunt Maine. Be nice to get into big deer country again.

My batteries won't run out! I always have extras and a compass so I might do okay!

 

[Buddy]

I don't know if this is the right forum, but here is my at that time, new to me, hunting bullet. :grin:

 

[DrMike]

Buddy,

Don't drop that critter on your toe! You'll be crippled for life.

 

[Buddy]

That would definitely ruin my day! :lol:

 

[Coyote Hunter]

2011 was a good year for me as I filled my antelope, deer and elk tags. Nevertheless, it was not without disappointment as once again my long-time hunting buddy couldn’t make it for either the antelope or deer/elk hunt, Daughter #2 missed the deer/elk hunt due to flu-like symptoms and her husband got so ill during the deer/elk hunt that he had to leave after two days.

My wife was diagnosed with a nasty form of leukemia (AML) in 2006 and it has been a very long road to recovery, a road which included a hip and two shoulder replacements due to the drugs that saved her life. In 2011 she was feeling good enough to go on the antelope hunt, although she never left the truck or trailer to do any walking. Daughter #2 kept her company while my son-in-law and I took after the antelope does. The antelope hunt was basically a one day hunt with a half day of travel to Bill, WY, on either end. Here is a phone pic of the three of them at supper the first night.

Here’s a pic of my doe and the Ruger #1 in .280 Rem I used to get her. The bullet was a 140g AccuBond. I forget the range but 260-ish seems to ring a bell.

Here is a pic of Home-Sweet-Home during the deer/elk hunt. The location is the east side of Big Beaver Reservoir, which is just east of Buford, CO.

We got the trailer set up before the snows hit. Opening morning we hunted without success in the forest above camp to the northeast. This picture of my son-in-law was taken Sunday morning after climbing to the top of Oak Ridge SWA a couple miles west of camp. That is the White River valley at the bottom and White River Forest on the other side.

Later that day, on the north side of Burro Mountain, which is just visible in the upper left of the photo above. We were on a trail east of the Buford-New Castle Road. This was my son-in-laws jeep and without the winch we wouldn’t have made it very far. As it sits, the Jeep’s tires were sitting on top of nearly a foot of soft-pack snow. We weren’t seeing any elk tracks and finally decided to turn back and watch a clearing while listening to the Broncos game.

With all the snow and the lack of tracks up high, I decided to check out some areas north of camp, between Meeker and Craig, particularly the Iles Grove State Trust Land and Jensen SWA. Here I found what I was looking for – elk crossing the low, open lands on their migration to their wintering lands. Over 100 elk had passed through the area before I got to the Iles Grove State Trust Land but they were gone when I arrived, having made it over the north ridge in to a different game management area where my cow tag was invalid. Isles Grove is small, consisting of two separate areas. One is about 1 square mile and split down the middle by Highway 13, with a low bluff on the south side of the highway and a high bluff on the north. The elk had crossed the open ranch land and then made their way around the ends of the bluff. I spotted a few elk holed up in some scrub oak and took an indirect route, out of sight, to come in above them. About 40 minutes into my stalk another couple hunters took the direct route and pushed them onto private land where they escaped to who knows where.

The next morning I decided to get to Iles Grove early and set up on the north side of the highway where only my bull tag was good. Shortly after shooting light I spotted a herd of over 100 coming north through the open ranch land but there were very few bulls and most didn’t make the 4-point requirement. I decided to cross back over the highway and set up on the south side, west of the low bluff, hoping some cows would come straight through the public land. Here is a pic taken the next day, looking northwest toward the bluffs. You can’t see the highway, which runs between them.

The elk stopped at the fence line, preferring to stay on the open ranch land rather than crossing into the sage of the public land. Most eventually headed east but a few finally jumped the fence and disappeared under a low ridge. At that point I figured it was a matter of time before they crested the ridge and presented a shot opportunity. After what seemed like forever but was probably only 15-20 minutes, some ears appeared above the crest of the ridge, then heads and finally whole elk. The worked their way to the bottom of the ridge and started to follow the drainage, presenting good broadside shots. I was using shooting sticks and was hidden by some sage and the crest of the ridge I was on. The range finder read 265 yards. Setting up with the sticks I accepted a somewhat awkward position as they were too high. Predictably, my first shot suffered from the poor position. I thought I had missed. After resetting in a more comfortable and solid position I took another shot. The big cow elk kept walking so I took yet another shot. Later, during skinning, I found the first shot had hit above the spine, putting a hole in a process bone (one of the blades that sticks up above the spine). The other two shots made separate holes in the hide, no more than 2” apart, and a single hole in the rib cage.

Here is a pic of the cow with the Ruger MKII .338 Win Mag I had pieced together earlier in the year. The bullets were 225g AccuBonds. The blood behind the left front leg is from an exit hole.

I spent the next day back at Isle Grove hunting for a bull, this time on the section west of highway 13. Mid-afternoonI decided to head home the next morning. I knocked off looking for a bull and went hunting for a mulie buck, looking for anything legal rather than nice antlers. I negotiated a small trespass fee with a rancher with the agreement that I’d only take a small buck. At sunset I took this one with the .30-06 I had brought along, using a 168g TTSX:

Here’s a better pick of the two rifles I used on the trip, the .338 Win Mag on the left and the .30-06 on the right: