Fun on the Kaibab!

[CouesWhitetail]

Well, I just got back last night from about 11 days up on the Kaibab. I was up there trying to help my friend's dad get a buck. This is his 2nd Kaibab tag in 3 years! I went up and helped him in 2005 also and we got a little forkie on the 2nd morning. This year he said he wanted to wait for a big buck. So we hunted hard the whole season, but came home empty handed. The hunter (Ray) is 75 years old and has hunted the Kaibab many, many times (before it went to a draw) with his wife and family. He is almost deaf and can't walk too much country, so it was a little tough trying to get him in on bucks. (but to his credit, he refused to road hunt, despite the fact that almost every other hunter we saw out there was doing just that and being successful at harvesting bucks). Ray is a remarkable man who even decided to scale down this year and not take his small camp trailer and instead sleep in a cot tent. I hope when I am 75 I can still be as tough as he is!

 

Here is a photo of Ray that I took while we were sitting on a slope hoping some deer might come through a draw below us. I call this his buffalo bill cody look. hehehe (his family is all shocked that he has recently decided to grow his hair long! it's tied in a knot in the photo - and you should see the monster truck he drives! It's a classic jacked-up teenager truck! wish I took a photo of that)

 

 

We didn't see deer in that spot that day but I did glass up an old skull that I suspect was a deer someone shot last year and didn't recover. Seems to be a lot of wounding loss up there. I found one fresh kill that must have been shot by a hunter and not recovered. The ravens had picked it clean already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hunted in several different areas of the kaibab. We started lower and then went up high and then settled on some middle ground where it seemed the deer were really abundant. Here are some foliage and flower pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the areas we settled on seemed to have lots of deer the evening before we hunted it. And so we were excited to go in there in the morning. However, the US Forest Service decided it was the perfect time to light a fire across the road from there and when we went there in the morning you could barely see the road we were driving on! We hunted it anyway and saw a few deer, so I guess they didn't leave, despite the smoke causing our eyes to burn and lungs to ache and it gave me a headache!

 

sunrise in the area we hunted that morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here is a look a the burn from a distance. It really looked like something we should run from rather than camp in! I gotta say it was some tough camping in smoke that thick. All my camping and hunting gear smells like smoke! If I get lung cancer in a couple decades from now, you guys will know why!! (we had already moved camp twice on the hunt and he didn't want to move again!)

 

 

 

 

here is a sunset in the smoke.

 

 

 

The fire was still burning on Halloween night and it looked pretty neat driving by it in the dark. It looked like someone had set out lots and lots of jackolaterns in the forest. That afternoon we had run to town to get supplies and saw lots of halloween candy, so we bought some. You guys probably won't believe this but my friend and I decided to go trick or treating on halloween night. We visited several hunting camps and sort of did reverse trick or treating since we brought the candy. We went in full camo including facemasks and walked up to camps in the dark! I was sure someone would pull a gun on us crazy people! It was a lot of fun though and most people appreciated it! One guy had just jokingly told his buddy that he needed to be ready for trick or treaters and his buddy told him he was nuts - "there won't be any trick or treaters up here!". hehehe, and then we showed up! The guy couldn't believe it!

 

 

One morning I went out scouting an area while Ray hunted another. I saw another hunter shoot this large buck right in front of me. Later in the day I scored it for him. It went about 180 with those two nontypical kickers.

 

 

 

 

Later I found this condor right near the gut pile from that buck. Took some pics of it while it was roosted in a tree nearby. You can see its wing tag and the radio transmitter on it also. It was pretty neat to see one so close. I digiscoped a few pics of it. They are pretty ugly, but they have a neat "mane" of black feathers with white highlights around the neck and chest. It looked to me like this bird had just finished feeding on the gut pile (which the hunter shot with a lead bullet, so I suppose it's highly likely that condor ingested some lead)

 

 

 

 

Even though we didn't get a buck, we had a great time. Ray plays guitar and sings and so we had several nights of music by the campfire. And we got some squirrel hunting in and cooked them up for a meal one night. This was a whole different kind of hunting for me. Very little glassing and mostly just still hunting through the forest, which was really tough because everything was so dry that it just crackled with every step. I enjoyed it but am really looking forward to doing some glassing on my WT hunt coming up this weekend!

 

Oh and here is a view of the vermillion cliffs on the way back down off the plateau.

 

 

And on the way home we were in some traffic around flagstaff. Some guy saw the CouesWhitetail.com sticker on my jeep and waved the rack of a buck he had just killed that morning in unit 23. Hope that guy shows up here and posts his hunt story.

 

Amanda

[YOUNGGUNZ]

Amanda, you are a Phenomenal photographer. I love it when you post pics. It sounds like a great time.

[stanley]

Outstanding Amanda! Thanks so much for sharing the pics & story.

 

Nicholas and I are heading-up on Thursday for his Junior hunt this weekend. We'll be focusing on the mid-elevation areas, as that's where we had success on Erik's hunt a couple of years ago and the weather seems similar.

 

Thanks for the primer!

 

S.

 

[mulie hunter]

Thanks for sharing such a great hunt and the photos. The Kaibab is a truly special place.

[CouesWhitetail]

Stanley, I will PM you some more specifics.

 

Amanda

[GameHauler]

Awsome Amanda,

Thanks for sharing your outing with us.

Aways enjoy the Great photos and stories.

Ever thought about starting your own web site

GOOD Luck on your upcoming hunt.

Mike

[DUG]

I'm surprised we didn't run into you up there. We were up there the 1st 4 days and the last 2 days. We heard a lot of people got little bucks by road hunting. We were surprised the forest service did a prescribed burn in the middle of the week. It was right where my wife jumped 3 nice bucks on the 3rd day. Anyway those are awesome pics you took. Here's a couple of does that came into a waterhole right after we left.

[shortpants]

WOW, that old timer is one tough cookie!

 

The pictures are amazing as always.

 

It doesn't get any better than listening to a man and his guitar around the campfire!

[COOSEFAN]

Awesome pic's Amanda! Looks like it was a great trip! JIM>