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Two cows, two calves and a spike elk pass my ambush location one night when I wasn't there.
Sitting in my ambush spot waiting for elk to pass by at 13 yards.
A Leupold RX-1000i range finder. I like this little range finder with a Bow mode and it fits perfectly on my Browning Bino Hub.
The only trees near this muddy spring was a cluster of really small ones. I was able to use the Browning trail camera mounting bracket and cinch it around several of these small trees and made a pretty darn solid location for the camera to watch the spring.
With the heat, lack of vacation time and the lack of elk that I have seen on the trail cameras the past couple of weeks, I decided it best to save my vacation to hunt when the elk are talking more. I only went out elk hunting on the opener and the following Friday and Saturday.
Friday and Saturday I decided to sit in an ambush site I had picked out while scouting. The 5x6 with shed velvet walked right past this ambush the day before opening day. The site provides a great place for me to shoot an elk as it walks past at 13 yards. Unfortunately, nothing passed my ambush Friday night and Saturday morning while I sat for many hours each time.
Saturday around noon I started rounding up all the SDHC cards from all the cameras to see what activity had taken place the first week of the hunt. From reviewing the videos on the trail cameras there still wasn't much activity however there was a cow and calf the show up from time to time on the cameras. In fact, Friday evening while I was sitting in my ambush location the cow and calf were captured on camera about 200 yards to the south of me. I would shoot a cow if she didn't have a calf with her.
After reviewing the trail camera video footage on the mountain on my Galaxy S3 phone I decided to move one of the cameras to watch a spring closer to the center of most of the elk activity.
I just love having the cameras to help me know what is and isn't in the area. Without the cameras watching the area I would be very discouraged with three days of hunting and not seeing or hearing a single elk. Now I would admit there aren't the elk in this area right now like there were in mid-July. It's was crawling with elk in July and they all but vanished about the last week of July. I would go elsewhere but the elk in this area have moved into the local giant CWMU and unfortunately, that's a no-fly zone for average income hunters like myself. Anyways, I really enjoy the extra challenge and the trail cameras are giving me the faith that it will come together either with my archery tag or with Dallen's late September youth elk tag.
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This 5x6 bull walked by the camera the day before the opener with his velvet shed. Yes! The elk are still here and I highly dislike velvet.
I found this huge wolf spider the night before the archery opener. This critter is about the size of the palm of my hand.
This camera captured the nice 3x4 mule deer buck I had the previous time out.
It's nice to see lots of Ruff Grouse on the mountain this year.
Opening day of the archery elk season is finally here. After reviewing the patterns of where the elk had been all summer, thanks to my Browning Trail cameras, I was hopeful to get into some on opening day. Opening day also marked two weeks out from the last time checking my trail cameras so I pulled SDHC cards come mid-day.
The night before the opener found me driving up the mountain in my old Montero. I spent the night across the two front seats of the Montero and awoke early to hiking up into the area I have watched the highest concentration of elk over the summer.
After spending all morning in the baking heat not finding any elk or sign of them to speak of I started hiking to all of my trail cameras to pull the SDHC cards and see what activity was in the area over the past two weeks. As I suspected the elk had all but vanished. Where I had been getting daily elk activity on about three of the cameras there were only a couple of elk passing by in the past two weeks.
The five or more spike elk and the two 4&5 point bulls that had been in the area were not on a single camera. They were all gone. Although the cows and younger bulls had vanished the two largest bulls we had on camera made a couple passes by the cameras. Yes!
The bull that both Dallen and I want to shoot passed by one of my trail cameras the day before the opener with it's velvet already shed. This gave me needed encouragement to get back in there. If I didn't have the trail cameras to show me a little of what is going on in the area I might have completely given up on the area and hunted somewhere else. Thankfully the cameras work great at capturing the activity of the elk.
I'll be back soon.
These snakes are so cool. This a a very young Rubber Boa. The third Rubber Boa I have found on this mountain while hunting over the years.
Taking a break in some cliffs after hunting the opening morning.
The Real Tree Max-1 looks really good in black and white.
Walking up to check one of my Recon Force trail cameras.
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Sighting in my Model 1885 in 243 WSSM with the new Talley one-piece base. Talley's new one-piece base is pretty sweet. It is much better than the dovetail turn-in style that has been the only option. I do think Talley should rethink their rings as they take a little too long to get the scope mounted level.
Find more information on setting up Model 1885 High Wall - Bases, Rings, Triggers Etc.
The Vortex Viper scope wasn't too bad either. It's my first Vortex rifle scope to try out.
The three young men set up blasting away at the prairie dogs.
This year Dallen has been reminding me over and over that we missed last year and that we need to go shoot some Prairie Dogs. I wonder if he likes going. :) It is a lot of fun spending time with your son shooting a lot of rounds with high powered rifles I must admit.
This year Dallen invited two of his good friends to come along for the fireworks show. Unfortunately, we picking the windiest day ever to go. On our first set up early in the morning I just set up the tripod with a spotting scope and the wind blew it over into the dirt. Luckily the scope was fine just a little dusty, however, I put the scope up for the rest of the day fearing it would get damaged. There is always a strong wind in Wyoming but we usually are able to get a couple of hours of shooting in before the wind starts roaring but not on this day.
I set up the camera as best as I could to take some video of the boys shooting. With the wind, it was very difficult to keep the camera from shaking uncontrollably. I tried to set the camera up directly behind the Expedition as best as possible trying to keep it out of the wind but it helped little.
There appeared to be a good number of dogs this year. Thanks to the wind there were still a good number of dogs when we left. The area was the driest I have ever seen it. It could definitely use some good rain storms this summer. The dust was really bad especially combined with the extreme wind.
On one of our setups as I was watching and spotting for the boys, I noticed a good-sized prairie dog that was hiding in the sagebrush nearly out of view. After many numerous attempts to show the boys where it was none of the boys could ever see it, so I put the camera on the spot and bumped them off the bench. You can see the shot in the video below. I was using the same 95 Gr. Berger VLD load and Model 1885 rifle that I used to take my cow elk back in January this year. I have changed out the bases, rings and rifle scope to a Vortex Viper since my cow elk hunt. The shot was my first to two shots I think I took for the day.
Below are a couple of the better shots that we were able to get on camera. It took some editing in Adobe After Effects to get the video somewhat stable to be able to watch.
Panorama of the area in Western Wyoming where we go hunting prairie dogs.
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