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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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Dallen with his very large cow elk and X-Bolt Stainless Stalker 270 WSM.
We knew he had a large cow and did he ever. Once off the mountian the scales showed that there was 177 lbs. of boned out meat. This is the largest cow we have ever taken.
Weston and his cow elk.
Here is a recovered 270 WSM handloaded 140 gr Accubond that was resting against the hide on the opposite side of Dallen's cow elk. The muzzle velocity with this handload is just over 3300 fps. The 140 gr Accubond bullet now weighs 109 grains after being shot through a cow elk at 506 yards.
After my successful trip up the mountain to get my cow elk it was time for my son Dallen and brother Weston to get their elk.
Dallen is now a freshman in high school and an avid basketball player. Finding a day when there wasn't a game or practice was difficult. Luckily on Presidents Day Dallen was out of school and the coach gave them the day off. So early Monday morning Weston, Dallen and I took off up the canyon looking for elk.
We knew the elk had moved to the north side of the main canyon this year. The elk had been wintering on the south side ever since the deep snow of the 2007-08 winter. This was the first year that we had been seeing them back in their more traditional wintering areas of years past.
We didn't have to hike long before we found eight cow elk. We set up on them at 600 yards and debated the shot. We then decided to hurry up to the top of a small ridge to close the distance without being seen. Once to the ridge we had no other way to close the distance any further without spooking the elk over the ridge they were on. Dallen and Weston set up on shooting sticks and I ranged them at 506 yards. A quick look at the hold over bullet drop chart I have taped to my Nikon Monarch 4-16x BDC scope called for holding on the top of the third hold over ring in the BDC reticle.
Dallen took the first shot which was answered with a solid whopping sound. The cow remained standing but was looking very sick. Dallen loaded another shell and watched the cow to make sure she didn't go anywhere. While he was keeping an eye on his cow elk Weston shot a cow as they filtered around the ridge and into the canyon out of our view. From the looks of it Weston's cow was hit a little further back but solidly hit. This cow made it around into the canyon out of view and we soon learned that she didn't go very far. Dallen's cow tried to follow the rest of the cows and Dallen put another bullet into her to put her down. After Dallen's elk was down we hiked around into the canyon and quickly found the other cow and Weston put her down for good.
The 140 gr Accubond handloads continue to perform well out of our 270 WSM rifles however I am really excited to try the new 150 gr Accubond LR bullets that Nosler just introduced. They should be very accurate at long range and have great performance on big game. I can't wait to give them a try.