Hunting 2015

I hunted 3 times with Hugh and Dad.  I was previously planning on  hunting this weekend but now have to bow out because my work is becoming way too stacked up.  People are screaming at me and wondering where I am.  Dad and Hugh will finish the hunt this weekend which is a cow elk only hunt.  

The first two hunting trips we went on were for deer in Sublette and it was really hot.  We went opening day which was a Saturday.  Then two weeks later we went back up on Thursday and met at dad's house to hunt on Friday and Saturday.  Its kind of nice to hunt so close to dad's house.  As Sublette is only an hour away from his house its just easier to go sleep there in a bed rather than camping in the cold.  We are getting soft. 

I put each group of pictures in order.  The first few are of the first hunt and so forth.  The elk hunt I took a lot more pictures.

Sublette we worked our butts off climbing over hills and trying to push deer out of the canyons.  This is the only year I can remember that I did not see a single buck to shoot.  Lots of does and fawns but no bucks.  It was really weird.  So we came home buckless.  We hunted up Limpy's canyon, and now the one we call Buck Snort canyon (because 4 times me and Hugh were just sitting around and all of a sudden a deer would walk up upon us not paying attention.  Then it would realize some humans were there and make a buck snort and run.)  They were really only does bucksnorting at us.  

Hunt 1

Me and Hugh pause for a Selfie.  Oh wait a minute that is not my good smile said Hugh.

Now I got my good smile says Hugh

We look mean

Looking down into Limpys

Dad and Hugh on the Mule, sitting up in Bucksnort

I pose for another selfie

I hiked over the ridge from Bucksnort and overlooked Limpy's and the canyon in between.  Dad and Hugh are down below by the UTV's

Hunt 2.  Me and Hugh hiking over the ridge from Limpy's into the canyon between Limpy's and Bucksnort.  That turned out to not be productive

The picture I took and texted to work during their meeting.  Apparently it popped up with good timing and everybody laughed

Hugh posing for his wife

On top of the pass that you go over from Bucksnort into Limpy's.  Notice the moon in the background

Same place just the moon

Dad wanted to see what my ride was like

Another photo in the Wildcat

Hunt 3.  The elk hunt at Littlewood.  I left my house early Wednesday morning and met up at Hugh's house as usual.  I will drive and he pays half my gas.  It works pretty good.  Anyway we show up to Littlewood around 11:00 am and it looks like this.  It was foggy as well and so we didn't do much other than drive around.  We found nothing but some muddy roads.

Littlewood Reservoir

We each parked our vehicles in a camping area.  We slept in dad's camper and ate meals in there.  It was actually a really good camping spot.  There were tons of rabbits running around at night

You can see my camp spot across the road

Bird tracks on the table.  I'm glad we didn't have to use these tables.  It would have been miserable

Took some cool pictures of the bushes and fog overlooking the lake.

I was so tired I needed a nap and so slept on the trailer.  These pictures are out of sequence and happened the afternoon of the first day which was Thursday.

Huh?

I've got pictures from my phone and my camera and thats why they are a little out of order.  These next few are from my cell phone

beautiful sunrise

Just about to go down the dugout.  thats dad in front up there and a nice sunrise

You can see Dad's orange in the middle right of the photo.   This is after we jumped a herd of elk from their beds.  We spread out to see if we could see where they went.  They must have moved far and fast because we never saw them.  I'll show the beds in photos later.  Way off in the distance you can see the valley where the road lies and the reservoir is a little south of there.

The next few pictures show the elk beds.  Look closely at the picture and you can see areas where their bodies melted the frost.

A wallow with some salt.  Again notice the beds.  There were probably around 40 beds in this herd.

Just a pretty picture

We pause to glass the mountains and find a heard of elk, clear up on the ridge.  I got my range finder and they were a little over a thousand yards away and straight up.  It would have been incredibly difficult to get up to where they were to even shoot and then if we got one it would have been so difficult to get it out so we didn't attempt anything.

Glassing

Dad coming down a really rutted road that a pickup had gotten stuck in.  We did fine with the sidebysides

Hugh and Dad on Mormon Hill

Me Hugh and Dad on Mormon Hill

Coming down Mormon Hill you can see our pickups below

Friday and Saturday the sun came out and we had pretty blue skies and water.  You can tell the water in the reservoir is rising because there was an island sticking out near the inlet but now its covered over.

Looking south and west from our campsite over the water.

Straight across the lake from our campsite.  Along time ago as scouts we had crossed the lake in boats and camped on the other side.

Dad's camper

Saturday a frosty morning.  We went up a hairy scary road from here and then promptly came back so Dad wouldn't try the Mule. 

A sunrise as we unload the Wildcat

Overall it was a good bunch of hunting but the first couple weeks for deer were just too hot.  The elk hunt was a little cooler since it was a late hunt and we are in November.  In neither case was it cold and snowy enough to drive the critters down.  We'll see how it goes next year.

Getting out in the middle of the night showed a neat sight of the moon, with Jupiter up above and Venus next to the moon.  there also was Mars but I don't think it stands out in the picture.