Opening week end of the 2011 deer season

[DCMHunter]

What a weekend!!! I started out Friday to try and recover some cams, sence the forest just opened up enough for me to hike in and see what was left. I salvaged one out of three so far. As I was hiking in to get my first cam I spotted a bear working down the ridge ahead of me. I sat down right wear I was and waited. The bear cam down the ridge and gave me a 30 yard shot. Unfortionately a tree branch had other ideas for my arrow than I did and my arrow deflected and hit the rocks behind the bear. This caused the bear to jump and start running strait at me, as I am trying to get another arrow nocked. At 10feet the bear turns and runs to my left into some trees and over the ridge. Next time I go out I am taking a side arm!! (And a clean pear of shorts) I recoverd one camera there and a melted camera. The good camera had about 60 pics on it and the batteries died a week before the fire. The melted camera had 675 pics, 50 of deer, elk and people and 625 of the fire coming down off the ridge straght at the camera, until it got so hot that the case melted and caused the batteries to fall out. After that I desided to drive thru the Blue and on my way in I see six rams so I stopped and took some pictures. When I get to the Blue I'm driving along and two small bucks walk across the road in front of me. I have a muley tag for later on so I let them pass.

 

I then Tried to hike up on Escadia and find some more cameras. I took the wronge draw up from the bottum and ended up on a ridge over looking Alpine. The top of the ridge is toasted and I have about a 3 mile hike around the canyon to my camera. Did I say the ridge is toasted. As I hike around I am getting pretty disapointed that I will not have any thing left. As I neer my camera I see a patch of green trees that gives me some hope. As I get to my camera it is gone, except for the batteries, the security cable and a few mettle plates. The tree my camera was on is toast and a tree 5 feet away was not even touched. It is now raining and I decide not to go for the other camera at this time and hike off the mountain. That was enough for an old man.

 

On Saturday I decide to head out and scout/hunt in my muley area. I get out before daylight and get to a good glassing spot and all I see are elk. About 9:00am I decide to try another area and get stopped by a rancher who claims he is the stuart of the land and demanded to know what I was doing out there. I get him to show me on a map where we are and there is nothing but blue within about 4 sections in any direction of us. After talking with him for awhile he points me in a good durection and asks me to not hunt his privet land over in a draw to the north of us and he shows me this on the map. I get over to were I was wanting to go and find some good deer sign and I set up my recovered camera on some water. I then found a new route into this area not crossing the ranchers lease. I then go and check some other cameras and had a few good picks but nothing worth posting.

 

I get back home shortly after dark and get a text from my son who went down onto the blue were I saw the bucks on Friday. The text is of a small 3 X 3 my sons first CWT. Way to go!!

 

 

I had to work Sunday but what a weekend.

 

DCM

[bow.hunter8971]

Cool and congrats to your boy

[CouesWhitetail]

What an adventure! Congrats to you and your boy!

[dtresca]

Congrats to your son!

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Awesome! Congrats!

[izquik72]

Now that sounds like an allstar outing!

[muzzlehunter75]

Wow what a weekend, so exciting! Congrads to your son on the bow kill!

[AZbowhntr]

Congrats to your son and sorry about the cameras. At least they weren't stolen.

[.270]

sounds like a nice eventful time. tell your kid good job. that's why a guy needs to do something every chance he gets. ain't no tellin' what might happen. Lark.

[Coues Archer]

WOW Congrats to your son.