2016 Wyoming Doe/Fawn Pronghorn - Part 2

November 14, 2016
With one tag remaining in my pocket I knew that I had to make good on a promise that I had made to my daughter after leaving her in school and taking my oldest three boys back in October. I also knew that I just could not leave my two year old son at home again… he sobbed uncontrollably when I left him home with mom on that first trip. So, with permission from my daughter, I strapped a two year old in the carseat, plugged in the tablets, and we pointed the car to the east for the hour drive to the ranch where permission had been granted to shoot doe pronghorn.
The drive was smooth and since it was naptime my son slept most of the way. This was the quietest he would be for the remainder of the trip!

I pulled off the Interstate and after a short drive down the dirt road I pulled off to the side to prep my rifle, get out my binoculars, and get my sweater on. We drove along the road slowly stopping occasionally to glass the sagebrush terraces. In the previous trip with just the boys pronghorn were everywhere… such would not be the case this trip. What we lacked in pronghorn we more than made up for in mule deer. There were clusters of deer around every bend, and where there was a group of a half dozen or more does there was a great buck. We saw some fantastic bucks and I would conservatively estimate 18 to 20 bucks that were 4pt or better… a number of them had inline 5th or 6th points and were heavy and dark antlered. Beautiful creatures for certain, and we watched as these bucks paid little attention to my little silver car on the road just yards away as they focused intently on does. We watched two very nice 4pt bucks go toe to toe over a group of 8 or 9 does at about 30 yards, and watched a very nice 3pt buck corner a doe against a fence and rough her up a bit. Poor doe trotted away from that encounter with her hair all ruffled up and it didn’t even occur to me that an eight year old little girl in the front seat next to me might have some questions about what that boy deer was trying to do to that girl deer… in typical dad response I told her to “ask her mother.”

We drove from one end of the ranch all the way to the other without a single pronghorn sighting. I couldn’t figure it out… just four weeks ago there were pronghorn everywhere. And a friend of mine with the same tag went to the same ranch just three days before and shot a doe early in the afternoon. But today, on this afternoon, it was a ghost town. We turned the car around and traced our path back and made it almost all the way back to where we started before I spotted a small herd of pronghorn bedded up on one of the sage terraces, 3 bucks and 2 doe. I let the kids know that I had spotted some but we would have to hike for them. I received no resistance to the suggestion so we found a spot to park the car, got our coats & orange hats and off we went. We crossed a small stream and made our way towards the terrace edge. The small herd was actually in a highly advantageous place for a stalk. The challenge was not the location of the herd… instead it was my entourage! I wish I could have witnessed that stalk from a distance. I decided that there was little sense in trying to be stealthy about this all… so I just walked in plain view of the herd with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand along a barbed-wire fence until we hit about 300 yards. I told them to sit down on a small hill and plug their ears and I walked another 15 yards away from them, rested my gun on the barbed wire fence and promptly missed twice. To perform my due diligence, we slinked under the barbed wire fence, and again with my son on my shoulders and holding my daughters hand we went to just double check where the herd had been when I shot. No blood was found much to the disdain of my daughter, and we continued up until we reached the ridge and peeked over into the next valley. I scanned for brief moment but saw no pronghorn. We turned and as we made our way back to the car I spotted a mule deer shed in a clump of sage about twenty yards in front of me. I took my son off my shoulders and when we got right up to it I asked if there was something wrong with that bush? Both my daughter and son thought it was the coolest thing and they wrestled with it to get it untangled from the clump of sage. Pictures were taken and it was stuffed in my pack to be shown to mom at a later time.

They wanted to look for more sheds so I threw my son back on my shoulders and we just kind of wandered through the sage terrace until it started to get dark and they wanted to head back towards the car. On the way back to the car the sage flats came to life with bunnies scurrying about everywhere. My son had the perfect vantage point from my shoulders and whenever he would spot one running along in front of us he would squeal and point and yell, “Bunny!!!”
We got back to the car right at dark. We got buckled back into the car and headed home… but not without stopping first at the Wendy’s in Evanston for a hamburger and Frosty.

All in all, I think both my daughter and son both had fun, the sum of the parts was greater than the whole with this adventure. Even though they were disappointed that I missed and we didn’t get another pronghorn they loved the little aspects of the journey… driving down a dirt road with their heads out the rolled down windows yelling “Hello deer!” to every cluster of deer, eating an entire bag of jerky, going to Wyoming for the first time, finding the shed antler, seeing all the bunny rabbits, and telling mom all about it when we got home. Most times I hunt so hard with the intent of killing an animal and bringing home the meat that I overlook some of these simple things, this hunt reinforced to me that it’s not the kill that makes success. I had so much fun with my daughter and my young son, I hope the memories of this afternoon and evening are as fond for them.

Utah General Muzzleloader Elk

Brian met me at my house at about 3:30pm and we made the short drive up the canyon to the family cabin. We unloaded quickly, turned on the utilities, made a quick fire in the fireplace, and headed up to the top of the mountain to glass in the last remaining light.
With no animals spotted after about an hour we returned to the cabin and finished getting our personal gear squared away.
Opening morning came quickly and as we were preparing our gear for the day I noticed brake lights just outside the window. Jared had arrived early, I wasn’t expecting him until later that day. We piled into Brian’s truck for the short drive to where we would begin our hunt. I hopped out of the truck, set up my tripod, snapped my binoculars into the harness, and immediately spotted a large herd of elk. The elk were on the move feeding up the ridge to the west across the canyon about a mile away… and we were on the move too. We made a brutal 1.5 mile hike (800ft loss in elevation in the first ¾ mile then gained it all back and then some in the next ¾ mile) to try and get above them but were too late.

We began to make our way along the northern edge of a large bowl and as I slipped into a large stand of pines I was met with a mass of tan bodies erupting from cover. I could hear the group heading north onto private property so I just waited and watched. Soon the string of elk began to file through a small opening. I raised my binoculars fully expecting to see the string of 30 or so cows that we had spotted earlier… instead my eyes beheld bull after bull after bull walk through that small opening. Ranging from spike to nice mature 6x6 bulls, I watched twenty plus bulls walk through that opening. I was stunned… and upset that I had been so close yet unable to do anything about it because of the recent boundary changes that now made where those elk were at off limits to me. In previous years I would have fired without hesitation because that was land I could hunt… now the majority shareholder of the property had roped off “his” portion and made it inaccessible.
For the rest of the day we hiked around and didn’t see much else.

On the hike back out Brian’s knee locked up and he dislocated his knee cap. It was pretty painful and he struggled on the climb back up to the truck.

The second morning I met Jesse at the gate early and by the time we got back to the cabin Jared and Brian were just waking up. We had a tough decision to make with Brian feeling unable to do much hiking. We decided that Brian would stay behind and take it easy that day while Jesse, Jared, and I worked around the area that we hunted the day before. We all drove up to the top again and I immediately spotted what appeared to be the same herd of cows and calves so we again headed off on the 1.5 mile hike down and back up the opposite hillside. This morning was different however, the herd had worked into a north facing hillside that we could glass readily and bedded there.

Jesse and I left Jared there on the north edge of the bowl and began working our way towards a bedded bull and two bedded cows that we were in advantageous positions for us to possibly get a shot. We worked towards the bedded elk and shortly before we got to our desired final destination I watched the bull stand and walk across the face of the hillside just beyond our comfortable muzzleloader range. We continued on to where we wanted to stop and sat for a while because I had not seen either of the two cows move with the bull. We waited there until late in the afternoon and watched deer and moose working through the area the entire time. The deer were beginning to rut pretty hard and every group of does was being monitored by at least one buck. We worked our way back out of the bowl and met up with Jared before hiking back to the truck. Jared and Brian decided to call it a hunt and headed for home.
Jesse and I woke the next morning bright and early and began hiking well before first light. We still did not arrive at the north edge of the bowl until after sun-up. We were hoping to arrive early enough to potentially cut the herd off before they reached their bedding area but the elk were not there that morning. We sat and glassed for several minutes before I spotted a lone cow in some deep shadows down in the bottom of the bowl. The race was on and we took different routes towards the cow. Jesse would take a direct line assault while I would circle to the east and head for a large rock outcropping. If she worked her way directly up the hill in front of us Jesse would get a shot but if she turned and tried to escape down the bottom of the bowl then I would be in a prime position for a shot. As I neared the rock outcropping I spotted the cow working her way up the hill across from me. I steadied on her and waited for her to turn broadside. As soon as she turned I fired and a cloud of smoke completely obscured my view for several seconds. She remained standing and continued to work her way up the hill. I ran closer to where she was and tried to get a second shot but she never presented a good shot. It took Jesse several minutes to get to where I was and after we met back up I decided to try to follow her trail. I could easily tell where she went because of her fresh prints in the snow so I followed them for several yards up the mountain. After weaving through some buck brush and ducking under a couple aspen limbs I heard crashing above me. I looked up just in time to see her bolt out from underneath a cluster of pines never giving me much of a chance for a shot. I looped my way west then north along the edge of the bowl and spent the afternoon cat napping in the sun. More deer were spotted in the afternoon and evening along with a few more moose, but no more elk.

My cow elk tag will open shortly in this same area, and I have been unable to make good on two opportunities to fill that tag already. I’m optimistic that I will be able to fill it during the normal season dates for that tag with my rifle.

2016 Wyoming Doe/Fawn Pronghorn

October 18, 2016
Much like last year, a couple friends and I put in and subsequently drew a handful of doe/fawn pronghorn tags for western Wyoming. I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to introduce my six and five year old boys to hunting. I was so impressed with my oldest son when I took him with me on a cow elk hunt right after Christmas last year, that I knew if given the chance to go hunting with me they would all want to go. I underestimated that excitement because my eight year old daughter and two year old son were both devastated that they would need to wait for another chance to go with me. My daughter made me promise that I would only shoot one so that I could take her (and only her… was her requirement) to go hunting a second time.
I arranged with my wife to have her check all the boys out of school when my five year olds morning kindergarten ended and I would work a half day and be home about lunchtime. The agreement was that they would eat lunch and get their homework done and we would head east to Wyoming. It took a little longer than expected to get all the homework done, but without too much of a delay we were on the road. I was so focused on making sure each of the boys had warm clothes, a good jacket, a fully charged tablet, and a good supply of snacks that I forgot my own sweater! When I realized that I only had the clothes on my back I figured that this trip could turn interesting.
We arrived on the ranch where we had obtained permission to hunt I immediately pointed the car towards a large circular field. The field was just covered in mule deer and pronghorn, probably 60 and 80 head respectively. We parked the car out of sight of the pronghorn and me and three boys stalked to the top of a little rise out in this huge field and the pronghorn were still 400 plus yards away. They had us pegged because stealth was apparently not a gene that I passed on to any of these boys. The herd circled far to the east of us back in the direction of the road that we had traveled in on. The wind was cold and the boys were getting a bit chilled so we headed back to the car. I turned the car around and headed towards the spot where the herd had run. We were able to split that herd with the car and I had a couple pronghorn pinned between the car and a barbed wire fence at about 80 to 100 yards. I hopped out and as the doe checked the barbed wire fence for a spot to slip through I fired. It was a clean miss but the doe continued to probe the barbed wire fence and gave me a second chance. I fired and she jumped into the fence then began to run towards the car. The boys were squealing from the car that I had hit her. As she ran towards the car I could see that I had indeed hit her and red swath of blood growing from just behind her right shoulder. At this point I began to get a little concerned because of the graphic nature of this doe running towards the car covered in blood… but the squeals from the car were unmistakable. She found the slightest gap in the barbed wire fence and took a couple more steps into a small grass patch where she toppled over and expired. As soon as she fell to the ground a spontaneous “Mexican fire drill” erupted from the car. Three little boys exploded from the car and ran over to the dead pronghorn doe. I walked back to the car, closed all the doors, put away my gun, and grabbed my pack and a couple of game bags.
The boys watched as I skinned and quartered the doe. It didn’t take long but they were fascinated with the process. They asked where the steak comes from… where the jerky comes from. So I showed them and they each got a chance to hold one of the hind quarters, help peel out the backstrap, and watched me cut out the tenderloins. They have seen me butcher a good number of game animals but for the 6 and 5 year old this was the first time for them to see where the meat actually comes off the animal.

With one doe in the cooler by about 3pm we piled back in the car to try and find another doe. We drove down another road of the ranch and spotted several other large groups of pronghorn but none of the groups were in very advantageous locations for a good stalk with three young boys. If it would have just been me, I would have stalked several of those groups, but I knew that if the stalk lasted longer than about three minutes that I would be dealing with little boys complaining of being cold.
We had one group of pronghorn run across the road in front of us at about 20 yards but I was too slow to get out of the car. We crossed paths with a Wyoming Game and Fish officer and he checked me, he was a good guy and I appreciate that he took some time to explain to my boys what he was doing and why he was doing it. After speaking with the officer for a little while we continued on our way and decided that we should turn around and start making our way towards the Interstate. On our way back, just before leaving the boundary of the ranch I spotted a very large herd of pronghorn just to the east of the road. The problem was… the east side of the road was a neighboring ranch that I did not have permission to hunt. I could see that this herd was making its way toward the road and if they continued the current path would probably cross the road. So I parked the car and we watched and waited. About 15 minutes later, sure enough about a dozen pronghorn were perched 30 yards in front of me right at the edge of the road. I just needed them to cross over to the west side of the road which would put them on the ranch property that I could hunt.

Just when I thought the herd was getting ready to finally cross I looked up and a couple hundred yards up the road I noticed a dark SUV coming our direction. Sure enough, as the SUV neared our location the entire herd of pronghorn filtered their way up the hill from the direction that they came, safe on this other rancher’s property!
We decided that was that, I put my rifle away in the case, and we headed for pavement. Back on the Interstate I told the boys to pick a place to eat and when we hit Evanston we stopped at Wendy’s and had a Baconnator and Frosties. We arrived home before bedtime and the boys couldn’t wait to tell mom all the gruesome details of the bloody doe running at them in the car! I’m sure my wife was not really happy about hearing all the graphic detail, but she humored the boys and was genuinely excited for the boy’s excitement. I am absolutely grateful for her patience and understanding! And now I have an eight year old daughter who can’t wait for her turn.

2016 General Muzzleloader Deer

It was a complicated summer leading up to the deer hunt this year. Early in the summer a long standing lawsuit between landowners was settled and the number of huntable acres that I previously had access to was dramatically reduced. As part of this deal, the ATV trail that would lead me within a reasonable hike distance to access one of my favorite spots for elk was now posted “No Trespassing” and I was on the outside looking in. Combine that with a bit of a family feud that left me with a sour taste in my mouth and little desire to spend much time at the family cabin throughout the summer. It honestly wasn’t until I started seeing the limited entry early rifle elk success pictures posted around that I began to feel those twinges of excitement welling up inside again.
My friend Cody arrived in town from New Mexico late Tuesday night and I loaded up my car and headed to pick him up after getting my kids in bed. We arrived at the cabin at about 10:30pm where my dad, brother, uncle, and grandfather were waiting for us. We got ready for open morning, and called it a night.

A DEATH MARCH

For opening morning, we decided to use other hunters to our advantage knowing that a couple of groups would begin working down one of the canyons on the property at first light. We arrived early and discretely hiked about two thirds of the way down the canyon and waited. Within just a couple minutes six bucks made their way a mere 20 yards from our location, being pushed by hunters above them. The plan worked great however, we were not up to the task. One was a very nice 4x4 that never presented much of a shot because he was moving pretty quickly, however two 3x3s and a small 2x2 stopped and stood in the head high sage staring at us. With only their heads visible and standing directly in front of Cody, I elected to not shoot simply because it didn’t feel right to be pointing my gun in the direction of my friend. Cody had completely neglected the 3x3s after seeing the 4x4 buck and was determined to give chase, so off we went for the rest of the morning pushing through the aspens attempting to get another glimpse of the biggest buck. We were able to get one last look at him as he high tailed it away from us now two ridges away. We decided to abandon this canyon for now because we could see a number of other groups also working the ridges around us.
We wanted to try to get to the area where we were able to kill a cow elk and fill an antlerless control tag last year, we knew the hike would be long but we knew there would be elk there and we again had a couple cow tags. We drove the ATVs over to a small parking area where the creek turns west and heads into a narrow canyon and down the bottom of that canyon following the stream we went. As we negotiated the steep rocky trail alongside the creek, being also an avid fly fisherman I couldn’t help but peer into the clear pools of this small mountain stream. The number of trout found in each of these pools was really fun to see and made me wish I had my fly rod in my hand.

We reached the confluence of two forks of this stream, crossed and began climbing the opposite side. We found an excellent game trail that followed the ridge and as we began climbing the ridge a bugle rang out from the pines directly across from us. We stopped and scoured the thick pines and eventually glimpsed a herd of elk making their way up and over the top. We decided that going much further up the canyon would not be a wise move because we were at our physical limit in the event that we were successful at putting a cow elk on the ground. So we picked out a saddle just ahead and decided to make our way up to that point, take a break, and slowly work our way back. We reached the saddle at about 1:30pm and sat down in some scrub oaks to take a break for a little bit. I peeled off my boots, hung my socks up in the tree and tried to take a quick nap on my pack. I would have been successful… if it weren’t for the several different bulls within a half mile that were bugling regularly.
I laid there basically until my socks were dry and we decided to try and work our way into one of these elk herds nearby, fortunately there were at least two bulls that were below us and would essentially be on our way back. We got to where the closest bull sounded like he was screaming from and I let out a locator bugle. I received an immediate response from the bull in the pines directly across the canyon. Try as we might we were not able to get eyes on him. Then Cody spotted a herd of elk moving through a small clearing casually feeding about 350 yards further down the canyon. The race was on because we could clearly see that there were several cows in this herd… and with those cows were calves. The plan would be to shoot a calf to facilitate the pack out. The hillside we were on had very little cover but we went for it trying to keep any piece of cover, any tree, and rock between us and the elk to help us close the distance. When we hit about 300 yards the herd caught our movement and began to make their way up into the pines. But we kept closing the distance hoping that by some small miracle there would be a straggler or two that would give us a shot. Another 50 yards closer and we spotted a cow elk and her calf still feeding in the trees below the clearing where the rest of the herd was. I had a clear line on two little scrubby trees that would get me within my range and allow me to close the last little bit of distance with the trees blocking my approach. I eased between the two trees and found a perfect seat on a couple rocks, set up the shooting sticks and waited for Cody to get into place. It felt like he took forever, and I finally looked over at him and told him I was going to take the shot. I settled the crosshairs, accounted for the slight breeze coming up the canyon and applied a slight holdover on account of the distance and pulled the trigger. The calf that was standing broadside disappeared from sight. The shot felt perfect so I figured it had just dropped in its tracks. The cow hurried up out of the trees, through the small clearing and into the pines with no calf in tow. I began to mentally prepare myself for the task ahead, we would have a 2+ mile pack out on a rocky and brushy trail.
I made my way over to where I fully expected to see a small elk piled up only to find nothing… no elk, no blood, just tracks. So for the next hour and a half Cody and I scoured that hillside looking for any positive sign but to no avail. I grid searched the area while he followed the tracks that led from the spot where the calf was for several hundred yards. Admittedly, I’ve got to say there was a slight sense of relief when Cody and I met back up again and determined that I had missed and we would only be hauling our own sorry carcasses off the mountain that night.
We were near the bottom of the canyon and we knew we would have about a two hour hike out so we started towards the creek and then made our way back to the ATVs. I would never fully recover from the strenuous nature of that hike for the rest of the week… I was tired but could not sleep and I was hungry but nothing sounded appetizing for the remaining days of the hunt. It wasn’t until I got home and went back to work on Monday that I was finally able to get enough water in me to feel like I was coming out of it. I did come across a small moose shed which I picked up and brought home for the kids.


HOUDINI
Thursday morning found Cody and I both wanting, rather needing, to take it a little easier on our bodies. Feet were raw and legs were sore so we decided to hop on the ATVs and ride up on top and just do some glassing. Well, we both knew that “just glassing” was a nice idea but nothing that either he or I were really capable of doing. Three hours later we again found ourselves just about a mile away from the ATVs slowly stalking along the bottom of a canyon. We saw a good handful of does and fawns but no bucks so we returned to the ATVs and went back to the cabin for a late breakfast.
We milled around the cabin for a bit and chose to hike up into a bowl that I had hunted several years previously but hadn’t visited in the previous couple years. The plan would be to simply sit and watch this bowl for the evening. We parked the ATVs and made the short climb and found a place to sit. We sat there for the next several hours just talking about anything and everything… our families, work, past hunting trips, future hunting plans. Finally the shadows began to lengthen and the temperature began to drop, and the action started to pick up. Concealed from my view for the previous 5 hours, the angle of the sun was just perfect to illuminate the left antler of a small 2pt buck bedded in the shadows about 230 yards directly across the bowl.

We debated, Cody was on him and ready and we discussed where to aim to account for wind drift at that distance. Ultimately the decision was made to wait and after several minutes the small buck stood and made his way out of sight.
A doe appeared and made her way to a spring that was directly below us. I continued to scour the area looking for any more sign of movement. The doe left the spring and began working her way up the opposite hillside, I would lose her then relocate her just trying to keep tabs on her. Then I spotted movement below her moving in the direction of the spring. It was a buck so I told Cody to get ready and shoot. I didn’t get a good look at antlers but I could tell as the buck made his way through the aspens towards the clearing that he was a nicer buck. As the buck stepped into the clearing near the spring he briefly turned broadside and I was telling Cody to shoot. He was insistent that I get ready in case a follow up shot was needed and waited for me. By the time I was steady on the buck he had turned and was now walking straight towards us. Cody began to panic because there was now a cluster of trees blocking his view and he had no shot. I still had the slightest little gap where I could still see his body but could no longer see his head and knew that it was now or never. It was a shot that they always tell you to never take… the buck directly facing me, steeply downhill from me. .. the margin for error extremely small. The trigger broke and the buck lurched in the air then was gone from sight. Everything went silent… no running, no bounding, no brush moving or twigs breaking… just silence. So we made our way down to the spring and to the spot where the buck was standing when I shot and like the day before with the calf elk we found nothing. Cody went uphill and I went downhill on the trail and as I came around a small clump of aspens I noticed an odd white rock several yards down the trail in some high grass. I pulled out my binoculars to inspect the rock and saw that the rock had antlers. I called Cody over and I finally got my first good look at the buck. He was bigger than I had expected. We both marveled at how this buck just appeared out of thin air, how we hadn’t seen him until he was nearly to the spring.

Light was fading quickly so we began to skin and quarter the buck. We got about halfway through before needing headlamps. With loaded packs we began to make our way back down the mountain towards the ATVs. I had walked into this bowl a number of times and knew the trail well, which was a huge benefit and we negotiated our way down the mountain quickly. It was the smoothest pack out I have ever experienced and we pulled into the driveway of the cabin just a few minutes after 9pm. A search party was assembling to come and find us and make sure everything was ok so everyone was just walking out the door when we pulled in. Cody and I shared the story, hung the bagged quarters, and devoured some dinner (which still wasn’t even remotely appetizing to me but I knew that I needed to eat something).

AN OTHERWISE UNEVENTFUL END
We hiked around some more on Friday and Saturday and the only buck sighting was a small forkie, I thought he was a doe until he skylined himself on a ridge. We did spot a half dozen elk on Saturday morning just above the cabin but from the very brief glimpse that I got of them they appeared to all be bulls so my cow tag remains available for the muzzleloader elk hunt in November.

2016 Limited Entry Application Recap (Elk)

Here is my recap of the limited entry bull elk drawing for 2016. Again, I will essentially replicate the table that I posted back in January with my predictions and I will add in parenthesis the number of bonus points that it actually took to draw a take for each hunt. This should shed some light on any dramatic changes.

	RESIDENT					NON-RESIDENT
Unit	Archery	Early Any Weapon	Late Any Weapon	Muzzle loader	Multi-Season	Archery	Early Any Weapon	Late Any Weapon	Muzzle loader	Multi-Season
Beaver, East	11.8 (15)	20..3 (21)	15.0 (18)	18.1 (20)	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Book Cliffs, Bitter Creek South	5.9 (6)	17.7 (18)	10.3 (11)	13.2 (12)	19.1 (20)	13.7 (15)	18.2 (19)	14.3 (17)	15.7 (17)
Book Cliffs, Little Creek Roadless	6.3 (9)	17.3 (18)		13.5 (14)	NA	NA	20.0 (20)	NA	NA
Box Elder, Grouse Creek		14.5 (15)		8.7 (8)			NA
Box Elder, Pilot Mountain		18.4 (18)
Cache, Meadowville	0.7 (1)	4.3 (6)	2.1 (2)	0.7 (3)	23.0 (7)	NA	10.3 (7)	3.0 (5)	NA
Cache, North	0.4 (3)	8.7 (11)	6.5 (8)	4.0 (4)	NA	NA	10.2 (NA)	NA	NA
Cache, South	3.6 (6)	13.5 (14)	9.7 (8)	9.4 (9)	17.6 (17)	6.3 (7)	13.5 (16)	9.0(10)	12.5 (NA)
Central Mountains, Manti	4.5 (5)	14.5 (15)	8.8 (10)	10.7 (10)	18.7 (19)	10.7 (12)	15.0 (16)	11.1 (12)	13.6 (14)	NA
Central Mountains, Nebo	3.2 (7)	12.1 (15)	11.3 (11)	5.2 (10)	16.1 (20)	9.3 (11)	NA	NA	NA
Fillmore, Pahvant	13.3 (13)	21.8 (21)	15.8 (18)	18.3 (18)	22.5 (20)	NA	NA (21)	13.2 (NA)	20.0 (NA)
La Sal, Dolores Triangle			15.1 (16)
La Sal, La Sal Mountains	3.5 (3)	13.4 (13)	7.2 (6)	9.2 (9)	18.0 (15)	12.9 (12)	16.9 (18)	13.2 (12)	18.0 (15)
Monroe	13.6 (14)	20.9 (21)	17.1 (18)	18.1 (19)	NA	NA	NA	NA
Mt. Dutton	3.6 (6)	14.9 (16)	12.1 (15)	11.7 (13)	19.3 (20)	14.4 (14)	17.5 (20)	15.1 (19)	13.0 (NA)
Nine Mile, Anthro	2.8 (11)	14.7 (15)	11..5 (14)	12.1 (13)	NA		NA	NA
North Slope, Three Corners	6.5 (5)	15.1 (14)		6.5 (9)	NA	NA	14.8 (15)		NA
Oquirrh-Stansbury	4.1 (6)	13.4 (13)	10.3 (11)	9.4 (10)	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Panguitch Lake	6.7 (7)	16.1 (17)	11.4 (13)	12.2 (13)	20.4 (20)	12.4 (NA)	20.2 (17)	13.3 (15)	NA
Paunsaugunt	2.3 (2)	10.9 (8)	7.0 (6)	4.5 (4)	13.1 (15)	8.8 (7)	14.4 (17)	11.0 (NA)	NA
Plateau, Boulder/Kaiparowitz	11.6 (12)	18.3 (19)	14.0 (14)	16.5 (17)	21.9 (22)	16.0 (16)	19.8 (21)	17.8 (15)	NA
Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lake	3.7 (5)	13.4 (13)	10.4 (12)	9.1 (10)	17.3 (19)	10.2 (12)	16.6 (17)	13.7 (15)	13.8 (14)	NA
San Juan	16.3 (16)	21.6 (21)	15.0 (16)	19.9 (20)	22.6 (23)	NA (21)	22.4 (22)	NA	NA
South Slope, Diamond Mountain	4.5 (6)	11.5 (13)	11.2 (11)	8.0 (11)	NA	NA	15.1 (19)	NA	NA
Southwest Desert	7.7 (9)	18.9 (19)	12.1 (14)	14.4 (16)	20.2 (22)	13.5 (16)	20.2 (20)	16.6 (17)	17.9 (19)
Wasatch Mountains	4.3 (5)	14.4 (15)	11.7 (11)	8.4 (9)	18.9 (18)	8.6 (8)	13.8 (15)	11.3 (12)	11.2 (12)	15.2 (16)
West Desert, Deep Creek	2.5 (5)	13.4 (13)	10.7 (12)	8.7 (13)	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA

Again, “NA” means that there has historically only been one tag offered so the tag is issued through a lottery style drawing and “blank” means that there have historically not been tags offered for this unit.
In this analysis I will primarily focus on the resident data to make any conclusions.
The first thing that I noticed was that my predictions for nearly all the archery units were too low! I think this is largely due to the calendar this year and the archery hunt dates being the latest possible for the archery hunt thus allowing for more of the rut in these hunts. I kind of figured that we would see something like this but I didn’t expect it to be as dramatic. Eight of the archery units actually drew more than two points higher than what I had predicted (Nine Mile, Anthro; Central Mountains, Nebo; Beaver, East; Book Cliffs Little Creek [Roadless]; Cache, North; West Desert, Deep Creek; Cache, South; and Mt. Dutton). Only on five of the archery units was my prediction high (Fillmore, Pahvant; Pausaugunt; San Juan; La Sal, La Sal Mountains; and North Slope, Three Corners).
The early rifle predictions are generally spot on with only two units actually being drawn more than two points higher than what I had predicted (Central Mountains, Nebo and Cache, North). Only for the Paunsaugunt unit was my prediction more than 2 points higher than how the drawing actually played out. On 19 of the 26 early any weapon hunts my prediction was within ±1 point.
The late any weapon predictions were not as good as the early any weapon ones… but they were still pretty good. Only four units drew more than two points higher than my predictions (Beaver, East; Mt. Dutton; Nine Mile, Anthro; and Fillmore, Pahvant). None of my predictions were more than two points too high.
For the multi-season, only one unit was significantly higher than my prediction… Central Mountains, Nebo. I had predicted that it would draw at about 16 points and it actually drew at 20.
For the muzzleloader, my prediction was too low on four units (Central Mountains, Nebo; West Desert, Deep Creek; South Slope, Diamond Mountain; and North Slope, Three Corners). None of the predictions were more than 2 point higher than what actually happened.
So here’s what I saw from the drawing…
There was a lot of talk about how the change to the scope regulations on muzzleloaders would negatively affect the drawing odds. After seeing the results, I’m not convinced that there was really any change from previous years. It is interesting to me that the hunt dates seem to have had more effect on the archery results that a major equipment change had on the muzzleloader results. Far and away the archery drawing is where the greatest change was observed… at least from my analysis.
Another item that I noticed was that the Central Mountains, Nebo unit seemed to shoot way up there and required a lot more points than in previous years. This was across the board with archery, early rifle, multi-season and muzzleloader all requiring significantly more bonus points to draw a guaranteed tag than in years past. Perhaps this is good news for the unit… perhaps what I had heard about a struggling elk herd in the Nebo area is rebounding. I hope so. Several years ago this unit had a very good reputation and I hope that it will begin to earn that reputation back. At the very least the Nebo unit seems to have captured a good bit of attention compared to years past.
Overall, just like with the deer predictions, I think the elk predictions were pretty darn good. A distribution graph below clearly shows the “bell shaped curve” with the highest percentages of being near zero (difference between prediction and the actual number of bonus points needed from 2016 results):

Spreadsheet for 2017 Updated

I have replaced with 2016 version of the OIAL and LE spreadsheet with the new 2017 version. There have been no changes this year to the format so it should look identical to the 2016 version that was used last year.

It seems odd to wish everyone good luck on their preparation for 2017 when the 2016 hunting seasons haven't even opened yet... but regardless, GOOD LUCK!!!

2016 Limited Entry Application Recap (Deer)

At the end of January I posted an “Application Guide” for the three limited entry species (deer, elk, and pronghorn). In that post I predicted the number of bonus points that would be needed to draw each tag… so let’s go back and take a look at how the 2016 drawing actually played out. The way this will work is that I will essentially replicate the tables from my previous post however I will add the actual number of bonus points that were needed based upon the applicant pool for 2016 in parenthesis. This should help illuminate any dramatic changes within specific units and highlight the effects of some of the changes made as were described also in my previous post.
LE DEER

	RESIDENT				NON-RESIDENT
Unit	Archery	Any Weapon	Muzzle loader	Multi-Season	Archery	Any Weapon	Muzzle loader	Multi-Season
Antelope Island		NA
Henry Mountains	17.4 (18)	19.3 (19)	19.0 (19)	20.0 (20)	NA	21.6 (22)	NA
Paunsaugunt	12.7 (13)	14.8 (15)	12.8 (15)	16.0 (18)	20.1 (22)	20.1 (19)	18.2 (19)
Book Cliffs	8.7 (8)		9.6 (10)	11.0 (12)	12.9 (13)		12.8 (14)	NA
Book Cliffs, North		10.7 (10)				13.9 (14)
Book Cliffs, South		10.7 (11)				15.0 (16)
Fillmore, Oak Creek	6.8 (11)	14.6 (15)	11.7 (14)	NA	NA	21.6 (21)	NA
La Sal, Dolores Triangle	8.6 (8)	13.3 (14)	13.7 (13)			NA
San Juan, Elk Ridge	14.1 (13)	13.3 (14)	13.9 (14)	13.0 (16)	NA	18.5 (18)	NA
South Slope, Diamond Mountain	10.0 (9)	11.7 (11)	10.1 (10)	12.0 (17)	9.4 (12)	13.6 (13)	12.8 (13)
West Desert, Vernon	7.5 (8)	12.8 (12)	10.1 (10)	13.0 (14)	8.5 (8)	12.8 (12)	11.2 (10)	NA
North Slope, Summit		0 (1)				0	NA
Cache, Crawford Mountain			12.7 (13)				14.9 (16)
Chalk Creek/East Canyon/Morgan-South Rich			9.0 (9)				NA (9)
Fillmore			New (10)				NA
Kamas			6.0 (3)				NA
Monroe			New (10)				NA
Nine Mile			6.0 (4)				NA
Pine Valley			11.0 (15)				NA
Plateau, Boulder/Kaiparowitz			New (13)				NA
Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lakes			New (9)				NA
South Slope, Yellowstone			New (8)				NA
Southwest Desert			14.0 (12)				NA
Wasatch Mountains, East			New (8)				New (7)
Zion			9.0 (12)				NA

This is quite a bit to digest… so let me point out a couple of highlights.
First, let’s take a look at the units where my predictions were way off!

These are what I call my “Samsonite” predictions where my predictions were more than two full points below what actually happened. Most notably is the resident Paunsaugunt muzzleloader hunt, I predicted 12.8 points to draw and the actual number of points was 15. I can’t really pinpoint a particular reason for this jump aside from perhaps the changes now allowing a powered scope. The number of bonus points for archery and any weapon were right on point with my predictions and the multi-season hunt spiked just slightly so I don’t really see anything specific showing me where applicants jumped from into this pool.
Both the resident archery and muzzleloader hunts for the Fillmore, Oak Creek showed a spike. The spike for archery was pretty significant, my prediction was 6.8 points but it ended up being 11! I predicted the muzzleloader hunt at 11.7 points and it came in at 14, not as dramatic a change as the archery hunt but still enough to probably hurt a couple applicants. Interestingly enough the number of applicants greatly increased for both archery and muzzleloader compared to 2015. Archery jumped from 75 to 120 applicants (+60%) and muzzleloader jumped from 129 to 179 applicants (+40%). The rifle hunt did not show nearly as dramatic an increase from 820 to 863 (+5%). I wonder why the archery and muzzleloader application pool would jump so dramatically when the rifle remained largely unchanged. Something to keep an eye on for sure.
The San Juan, Elk Ridge and South Slope, Diamond Mountain multi-season hunts showed a significant spike. The San Juan was projected at 13.0 points but actually took 16 points and the South Slope was projected at 12.0 but actually took 17. I chalk much of this up to this only being the second year of these tags existence so popularity is catching on. We also run into the issue of few tags being offered for these hunts so just one or two applicants moving their applications around can have a pretty dramatic impact on the overall applicant pools here. Remember for the hunt units that have been around for a long time I have many years worth of data to base my predictions on… with these multi-season deer hunts which started last year I only have one years worth of data to make a prediction. Over the next couple years my predictions will become more and more accurate, but for right now they are pretty rough on all the multi-season hunts.
The same can be said for the new late season muzzleloader hunts on the Pine Valley and Zion units. My predictions for both these hunts were low. I predicted 11.0 points for Pine Valley but it actually was 15 and I predicted 9.0 for Zion but it was actually 12. I’m honestly very happy seeing the numbers from many of these new late season muzzleloader hunts. I’m seeing many of these late season muzzleloader hunts that take nearly the same number of bonus points as some of our long standing limited entry deer hunts and that leads me to believe that there are a good number of applicants that see these hunts as viable alternatives to the more traditional limited entry hunts. Additionally, I don’t think that we can discount the fact that these muzzleloader season dates are the absolute latest that they could ever be, so this is as close to hunting mule deer bucks in the rut that you can get here in Utah.
The only non-resident unit with a prediction that was way off was South Slope Diamond Mountain archery. I had predicted 9.4 points for this hunt but it was actually 12. Honestly, I’m not sure what an explanation could be for this dramatic increase. The number of non-resident applicants increased from 44 to 59 (+34%) but the number of resident applicants was stable (241 in 2015 compared to 246 in 2016). It makes me wonder if one of the application services (Easton’s, Huntin’ Fool, etc.) had this unit listed in its pre-application publication… I don’t subscribe to any such publications so it’s purely speculation on my part.
Now let’s take a look at units where my prediction was entirely too high and my predictions were more than two full points higher than what actually happened.
The only two units where my predictions were too high were the Kamas and Southwest Desert late muzzleloader hunts. I would largely attribute this to the hunts only being around for one year and the lack of data to calculate a reasonable prediction. As I mentioned above, as the next couple years pass and more annual data is available the predictions will become more accurate.
Overall, I think the predictions that I had made going into the 2016 drawing were pretty good… as always when attempting to predict what a large numbers of individuals will do when faced with so many different options there are outliers, but the distribution graph presented below which shows the difference between my prediction and the actual result shows a clear “bell shaped curve” with the height of the bell being at the center (or very near zero). There are fancy descriptive statistics that a trained statistician could use to provide further proof but I am neither fancy nor trained.


Stay tuned for the recaps of the elk and pronghorn drawings!

Trail Cameras Set for the Summer

I was able to break away for a couple hours on Saturday morning and take a quick hike to put two of my four trail cameras up. 
Camera #1 was placed overlooking a small seep a short hike (about 1/3 of a mile) up the hill and two small draws to the east of the family cabin.  This was a location that I revisited with a trail camera last year after abandoning it several years ago because I had only seen smaller bucks.  Last year I got a number of pictures of some very good bucks, a good handful of elk, and quite a few moose.  I set the camera in the exact same location as last year.  The camera is north facing nicely protected from direct sunlight by the tree branches which will keep it shaded for almost the entire day which seems to help with the IR sensor sensitivity. In the image below the seep is the green grass just to the right of the clump of dead scrub brush just left of center.

I decided to do a little exploring with camera #2... last fall on the muzzleloader deer hunt I hiked to a spot that we call "The Big Rock" and sat for the morning. I could hear animals walking around in the bowl to the south of the rock and started blowing a couple soft cow calls. I could hear something walking towards me so I kept my eyes peeled. It took about 20 minutes but a spike elk popped out of the brush about 35 yards away. Just when he popped out a herd of a dozen elk ran over the little knoll I was on between the spike and I, they must have come to my calls but from the other direction and had caught my scent at the last minute. The hike from the seep where I placed camera #1 to the rock is not far so I figured it would still be pretty easy to check these cameras as the same time. I made it up to the Big Rock and found a good trail leading into the trees. As I worked my way along this trail the trees and underbrush got really thick. I had no idea that it was that thick in there. After a couple hundred yards I was getting tired of fighting with the deadfall and low hanging branches but I pressed on a little further. Just then something bizarre happened... I entered into an area where the undergrowth opened right up underneath the canopy of the trees. It was like a little clearing underneath the high canopy of trees. I could see three well used game trails that crisscrossed the "clearing", one at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom (which is the one I was following). Down the center of the clearing was a single trail going from top to bottom connecting them all. It was too cool of a place to pass up so I walked up the trail that lead to the top and found a nice big tree that would allow me to place the camera and aim it sharply downhill such that all three trails that crisscross the "clearing" would be visible on any pictures taken and directly in line with the trail leading down the center of the clearing. This is a panoramic image so it is a bit distorted but you can see a trail coming in from the left and going out on the right... another trail is just behind the two clumps trees in the center, and the third trail is just in front of the trees at the edge of the clearing.


I'll give these cameras several weeks to "marinade" and I'll try to get a quick check of them sometime in early July... I'm anxious to see what camera #2 sees.

Tips for Success Series: A Scouting Strategy

Now that the Utah results are out and we all know where we will be hunting this fall… I think this would be an appropriate time to roll out the next installment in my “Tips for Success” series: Have a Scouting Strategy.

Several years ago I made arrangements with a friend “to go scouting” and told my wife my plans. She looked perplexed and asked why I was “going scouting” with one of my friends and not taking all the neighborhood boys. Her understanding of Scouting was the Boy Scouts… it took some explanation to help her understand what I was actually doing. She got a little upset and said, “So you’re just going to look for deer?” The emphasis she put on the word look was unmistakable, from where she stood she saw absolutely zero value in the activity I had planned. “Do you expect the deer to be there in September?” Again, the emphasis on the word expect confirmed that she thought I was an absolute fool! That only compounded when I responded. “Yes. I hope so,” and I headed out the door. Although those first few scouting trips were met with considerable resistance, it didn’t take long for my wife to see the value in these scouting trips. She has consistently seen meat put in our freezer over the last few years.
My wife was correct in her simple assumption of what scouting is… looking for deer (or elk, or moose, or whatever). That is exactly what I did on those first few scouting trips… and thinking back as I look at those first few scouting trips they were pretty comical. I would drive around looking for animals, stop at a couple places, spend about 15 minutes looking around through binoculars, then head home. Don’t get me wrong, I still gained valuable information from those trips and learned far more than if I had remained at home watching television.
As we enter the summer scouting season leading up to the 2016 fall hunts, let me share some of the things found in my 2016 Scouting Strategy.

A herd of elk on Google Earth.

Before I ever step foot in the mountains I spend a fair amount of time on Google Earth (GE). Ok, full disclosure and honesty here… I spend A LOT of time on GE. I have a topographical overlay saved into my GE and toggle back and forth between the maps looking for spots that look worthy of an in-person, on foot investigation. A VERY valuable feature of GE is that it acts as a log for me for each scouting and hunting trip. I create a new folder for every year, and in that folder I will save placemarks of where deer, elk, and moose were spotted and if fortunate enough where a buck or bull was killed. Following each hunt I will trace out the trails that I hiked and add notes about which days and the time of day when I made those hikes. I now have a good working database of my scouting and hunting history. I am a very visual person so I find the use of GE very beneficial by displaying all the placemarks and trails on the screen at once I can identify very clear patterns. This helps narrow down where I do my scouting based upon the tags I have in my pocket. This is where my first bit of advice to pick an area and stick with it really becomes beneficial in influencing my scouting. Over the last several years I have learned exactly where to go to find deer and I have also learned that I need to look in different spots to find elk. In many ways, GE helps me determine where to go for the next phase in my Scouting Strategy…. placing trail cameras.

Placing trail cameras with my two oldest kids.

Many love them, many hate them… whether you use them or not, no doubt you’ve likely come across a water hole with a trail camera or two (or six) surrounding it. I use trail cameras, and I really enjoy them. I currently have 4 different cameras that I scatter across the property to be my eyes when I cannot be there myself… but I tend to use them a little differently than many guys I know. I use them to investigate the new areas that I had identified on GE or to revisit old areas that I had moved on from as I discovered new areas. Ultimately this means that I probably won’t actually hunt where I place the cameras this year… go figure, right!?! My plan this year is to place two cameras in new spots to “investigate” these areas and then two cameras to “monitor” areas that were once my go to spots yet I don’t want to lose touch with them! I don’t spend a lot on my trail cameras, mostly because I know of the propensity for these types of things to grow legs and walk away. Even on private property I have not been immune, although I have yet to have a camera stolen I have had them vandalized or tampered with. It is frustrating for sure, however I strap a camera onto a tree and walk away knowing full well that I am taking that risk and each time I return to check a memory card and refresh batteries and find my camera still on the tree I consider myself fortunate. There is varying opinion on how often to check a trail camera, in some cases I’ve heard of guys checking them every couple days. My preference, and this could simply be a product of my busy everyday schedule, is to check them every five to six weeks. This may sound like a long time, and it does make it difficult to sit at my desk job and wonder about the pictures I may have waiting for me… or if the camera has even been working right… or if the camera is even still there! But I have found that letting them “marinade” (as I call it) for several weeks between checks to be very successful. Primarily, I limit the number of times I check them to also limit my scent and my disturbance to the area. Whether that is actually the case or the reason for my success, I’ll never know but I’m going to continue to think that. One additional really cool benefit to the trail cameras is that it gives me something tangible to share with my family members that hunt. They don’t share the same passion and zeal for the “off season” type stuff like scouting that I have but it is not difficult to get them to sit down for ten minutes to look at my latest batch of trail cam pics. It is fun to see them scroll through the images and stop and say, “Now, that’s a nice buck! If I see him in September…” I find that over the course of five to six weeks I can get several thousand images from a well placed camera, however only about one third of those images will show an animal in the frame. It can be tedious to wade through several thousand images, but I can honestly say that the end result of several hundred images of deer, elk, moose, coyotes, etc. is well worth the time spent. On this blog I have a page dedicated to trail camera pictures, and I have selected just a handful of my favorites from each year from the thousands that I have saved (check it out HERE).

The last part of my scouting plan involves my eyes, a pair of binoculars and spotting scope, and my boots. I’ll be honest here… I bought my first trail camera in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I had the conversation mentioned at the start of this article with my wife and began to spend actual time outside of hunting season looking for game with my own eyes. I had such a good time actually spending time behind my binoculars that I seriously considered never setting another trail camera again and going solely to an in person method of scouting. I can’t believe how much information I was missing by relying completely on the trail cameras. When on these scouting trips I do not like to get overly aggressive and get too far into the area, I prefer to set up and glass from long distances so that I can truly sit back and observe the animals. This allows me to see the usual travel routes these animals use to and from different areas, since the muzzleloader hunt is still relatively early in the season many of these travel routines are still being used by the deer that I’m chasing at the time. I usually am only able to do this in the evenings, and I have two or three different spots that I go sit. These spots are high in elevation and provide me with good vantage points. From where I park my car, I can see almost a 360° panorama and can glass several of the places that now top on my list. A short hike from the little parking spot and I can peer into a large south facing bowl that is usually bustling with action while still being able to see a few of my other top spots. I like to go on these scouting trips with a friend or two. We set up plenty far away from any animals so being quiet is not a requirement, we can converse without much concern. It’s during these scouting sessions that I have gotten to know my hunting companions best as we talk about work, family, and life in general. We also take time to relive some hunting memories and talk about what worked in the past and what we’d like to try in the future. We begin these glassing sessions by dividing up the mountain and looking over a specific section of terrain. But once we spot an animal, especially a buck or bull that we want to inspect further, it generally devolves into what I would consider a glassing free-for-all. I take mental notes and enter that data into GE when I get home. I always remind myself to take lots of pictures but inevitably I walk away with very few pictures taken. When the animals start to emerge and spotting them gets fast and furious I often forget entirely about my camera. Here are a few things that I have learned on these evening glassing trips…

First, my personal comfort is absolutely paramount on these scouting trips. The first few trips I would find a relatively decent spot on the ground, set up my spotting scope, and start scanning with my binoculars. I quickly learned that I needed a more comfortable place to sit. This all depends on your personal preference, but I carry a relatively lightweight three legged camp stool to sit on now. I have heard of guys buying the little kneeler pads for gardening and sitting on those, they work just fine as well. If you are comfortable you will be able to spend more time behind the glass instead of constantly fidgeting around, changing seating positions trying to get comfortable, or standing up because your leg or foot has fallen asleep. Second, also related to my general comfort, is to bring a jacket whether you think you need it or not. Even in the summer high in the mountains when the sun goes down it gets chilly and it’s very hard to hold still when you are cold. There have been times where I have had my jacket and not ended up needing it… but it’s better to have it and not need it than need/want it and not have it!

Third, I don’t do extended glassing sessions “off hand” anymore, I always begin by setting up my tripod with an adapter that I created for my binoculars and begin glassing with my binoculars on the tripod. The tripod adds a measure of stability that I could never achieve by just holding the binoculars in my hands. I have noticed a significant difference in my glassing ability and productivity by putting my binoculars on my tripod and having the glass completely steady… I used to spot something off hand with my binoculars and switch immediately to the spotting scope. Now, with those same binoculars on a tripod I switch out to the spotting scope much less frequently. With a good solid rest under my binoculars I am able to evaluate bucks and bulls at distances where I would have previously only been able to see them clearly with the spotting scope and I find that the binoculars are much friendlier to my eyes than the spotting scope. On those first few glassing sessions I bet that I spent 70-80% of the time looking through my spotting scope… now I spend 70-80% of the time looking through my binoculars. And fourth, stay behind your binoculars until that last little bit of light is gone! My first few scouting trips I decided to head back to the car with light remaining simply so I wouldn’t have to do some hiking in the dark. That last twenty minutes or so of light, after the sun sets and goes down behind the peaks to the west, have been some of the most productive moments. Set aside the desire to get an early start on the hike back to the car, sure I know it’s easier to get back on the road home quickly while there is still light but you will be missing what I consider the greatest moments the woods can give you. The problem with experiencing this moment of peace is that it has always resulted in a flurry of animal activity and a scramble to see everything you can in the fading light. It is peace and chaos simultaneously… it’s magic.
The last piece of my Scouting Strategy is making sure all the pieces of this strategy fit into my real life responsibilities. I would love to spend more time on the mountain just looking for deer, elk, and moose but honestly the time that I do get is very limited.

Tips for Success Series: "Pick a Spot & Stick With It!"

I’ve wanted to write up a series of brief articles to post here based upon the things that I have learned over the last several years that have dramatically impacted the success that I have experienced on my hunts. Here is the first of such articles.
The absolute best advice that I could give to any individual who is just starting to get into hunting is: Pick a spot and stick with it.
If you were to simply go to the Utah DWR website or go to the DWR store and look at maps of the hunt units here in Utah (or really anywhere in the western US) you’ll notice one thing… they are all huge. All of the individual units contain more acreage than what one hunter can cover in one season, heck multiple seasons. So the challenge faced by every hunter out there is to identify which of these hunt units we will spend our time and energy actually hunting and where we really hope to find the animals we are looking for. This is an overwhelming task, especially for those with zero experience or knowledge of a specific area.

Our camp on my grandpa's Central Mountain, Manti
 elk hunt with the mountain we hunted in the background.

I experienced this recently when my grandfather drew a Central Mountains, Manti limited entry rifle elk tag. It was a brand new hunting unit to me, I had never once stepped foot on the Manti chasing any kind of big game animal. We were starting the research process on this unit from scratch. I was designated as researcher for the pre-hunt scouting so I went through a couple different steps to “pick a spot.” I immediately turned to the internet for any information regarding different locations within the unit. With a list of locations (mostly vague generalized area names) I turned to Google Earth and began looking for areas that would appear to fit my grandpa’s hunting style. From that time on Google Earth I was able to refine those generalized locations to specific locations that looked promising to me. With those locations in mind I took a drive with my grandpa to those areas just to check them out and we made a preliminary decision where we would focus based on what looked best to us. As opening morning rolled around and the hunt progressed we rarely ventured far from that spot. We picked a spot and we stuck with it… for better or worse (2014 Rifle Elk).
Whether you are hunting general season deer, general season spike or any bull elk, or a limited entry hunt you inevitably have to make a choice of where to hunt. The permits issued will tell you which unit(s) within the state you can legally pursue game in, however within each unit are numerous possibilities. In many units there are areas with different types of terrain, different levels of access, and inevitably differing amounts of other hunters and the game you are after. This is where you need to make a decision… and once you make a decision stick with it. Admittedly, this advice applies best to general season hunts where you can make an initial decision then year after year as you hunt that same area you can build a knowledge base that will ultimately yield consistent success. Limited entry hunts are a little bit different because the hunt is usually a one-time deal or if you do return for a second hunt there it is often years later. I have heard of great success using this philosophy on limited entry hunts if a large hunting group decides that they will all apply for the same hunt individually year after year and as each member of the group draws their tag they build their knowledge of the unit and share the knowledge and experience within the group.
Let me illustrate the benefit of picking a spot and sticking with it through two personal experiences. First the positive… I have some family property and have hunted that area for deer for nearly 20 years now. In 2012 a couple friends and I decided to try hunting elk there for the first time. We had very little knowledge of the elk herd in the area, we really began the hunt not knowing if we would even see an elk. We considered the hunt an educational experience more than anything, we ended up seeing a handful of elk but were not able to create any real chances for filling our tags (2012 Muzzleloader Elk). The things that we learned on that first hunt influenced the scouting strategy that we put in place the following summer. Later that fall, with the knowledge gained from the previous hunt and a summer of scouting, we had a much clearer idea of where we thought the elk were going to be. Success came for me on the second evening when I was able to shoot my first bull elk, a spike. We saw even more elk during the 2013 hunt and learned even more (2013 Rifle Elk). In 2014, now with two hunts and two summers of focused scouting, we felt that we had a pretty good base of knowledge and were anticipating success. We found elk easily and regularly during that hunt, and on the second morning I again tasted success as I was able to shoot a nice little 5x5 bull (2014 Muzzleloader Elk). In 2015 we continued to build our knowledge and had an especially successful year shooting two cows, a nice buck deer, and narrowly missing our chance at a couple nice little 5x5 bulls (2015 Muzzleloader Elk).

General area where a couple nice bulls were missed
on the 2015 muzzleloader elk hunt.

Over the course of the last four years we have built a solid knowledge base on our little spot, and over the course of the four years we have been able to increase our chances of success each year.
Now, the negative… after the 2009 deer hunt we decided that we were not seeing the number of deer that we thought we should be seeing on our family property. So for 2010 we determined to hunt a different area of the state. None of us had hunted this new area in more than 25 years, so essentially we were going into this area as if it were brand new. We didn’t do any scouting and showed up for the hunt the Tuesday before the muzzleloader opener and thought we should be able to find deer pretty easily. Four very frustrating days later we drove home and promised ourselves that we would never again discount the value of the knowledge that we had of the family property that made it seem so easy to find deer and have success (2010 Muzzleloader Deer).

One of the nicer bucks that was taken by my brother
on one of his afternoon drives.

My brother is a “road hunter” extraordinaire (road hunters benefit from this philosophy as well) and along with my father and grandfather have developed a routine that they follow religiously throughout the day. Each morning they make the same turns, following the same route each morning. Shortly after lunch they made a short drive into one specific area. Then in the evening they follow a different route for the evening drive. I don’t hunt with them much because I prefer to spend more time hiking around… but honestly, those guys have it figured out! Over the span of the last three years they have killed five deer on their brief afternoon drive just driving to this one specific spot at 1:45 in the afternoon and each of those deer have all been killed in the same small clearing.
With this philosophy you should desire to become so familiar with an area that you know exactly where and when you should be seeing deer, elk, or moose (or whatever you are pursuing). You will become instantly aware if something is “off”… if another hunter, or perhaps another predator, has been through the area. You will also become instantly aware if everything is set up for you perfectly. In my opinion, this is when hunting gets exceptionally fun.

The north facing slope where I watched the herd of elk before
shooting a cow near the water hole that is out of the picture. 

Last fall, on the muzzleloader deer hunt a friend and I hiked into my now favorite spot and just like we had done the two previous years we planned to sit over a small water hole for the evening. The bowl was quiet as we worked through the aspens and before we even arrived at our predetermined spot we began to spot elk working across the north facing slope that we would be watching the rest of the evening. We quickly recognized that conditions were perfect, the elk and other animals had been unpressured, and there was no question that we would at least have one opportunity to fill the cow elk tags that we also had in our pockets. Four hours later, after watching a small elk herd for the entire afternoon, three cows made their way to the bottom of the hillside to the small pond. My friend and I had waited patiently a mere 60 yards from that small pond for this opportunity. We had sat over this same pond the previous year with the exact same result, except last year I decided to pass on a cow elk because a decent little buck was also spotted just up the hill. I have absolute confidence that I will be able to go to the same spot next year and with favorable conditions be able to fill my cow elk tag.
The most difficult part of picking a spot and sticking with it is just that… picking the area or spot! My only advice is to find something that looks good to you. If it looks good to you then you will be more inclined to put in a little more effort to try and figure it out. Do some research, spend some time on Google Earth looking at satellite imagery, if possible go have a look at it yourself on a scouting trip, or if you can’t scout spend some quality time there during the hunt checking it out. Google Earth is a phenomenal tool… there have been many new spots within my area that I have explored thoroughly on Google Earth then later was able to go and see firsthand and it felt like I had been there before.
The second most difficult part of picking a spot and sticking with it is to know how long to stick with it especially if the area isn’t producing like you want it to. This is a tough call to make. Giving up on a spot you thought looked good is like admitting defeat and nobody likes that. None of us want to invest any amount of time in an area only to find that the animals just aren’t there and be left with the feeling that all the time was wasted. On the flip side, nobody wants to give up on a potentially great spot too soon. I suffer from this… not wanting to give up too soon, especially with some of the spots that showed real promise but have never really developed into anything tangible.
Inevitably as you develop a knowledge base of an area you will learn not only the areas that are productive but also the areas that don’t warrant your future time. I have one spot that I hunted three years in a row for deer beginning back in 2011… it was a very good area and I had the opportunity to shoot a very nice 4x4 mule deer buck there in 2012. However, since 2013 I have not been back. I haven’t abandoned it because it is a poor area, but I have spent my time in other areas of the property. I know that area is still productive and I have it on a list of places to check out but it is now a little further down my list than it was three years ago. Then I have another place that I set a couple of trail cameras for two summers in 2010 and 2011, and over the course of two summers I got mostly pictures of small bucks and moose. Nothing that I saw really interested me in that spot so after two summers I abandoned it entirely. On a whim this last summer (2015) I put a couple trail cameras there again and saw a number of nice bucks and lots of elk… don’t forget that over the course of several years things can change! As you develop your knowledge base of an area and some spots fall off your radar don’t neglect them entirely, be sure to circle back every several years because these animals move around.

One of my "go to places" that I no longer go to regularly.

The hardest part is making the call to move on from those really good spots to learn better spots. All of the spots that I have high on my list today and hunt every year were not on my list three years ago, and many of those places that were my “go to” places several years ago now hardly get a second glance as they are well down the list of options. I don’t think this is a bad thing, it’s a consequence of learning more and more about the area that I hunt and really dialing in on just a couple specific spots that are exceptionally productive for me during the hunting seasons.
The key to this philosophy is that it takes a little bit of time to learn the potential of any spot that you pick to hunt. You may not have success (in the terms of a filled tag) immediately when you go into a new area but it is my opinion that if you give yourself some time to learn it then success will come and eventually be had on a regular and consistent basis.