Well the weekend Shawn has been awaiting for a very long time finally arrived this past weekend - the opening weekend of elk archery season. For those of you that don't know, I somehow not only ended up with a bow (pink camouflage, to be exact), but also with a specialty elk archery tag. Shawn swears up and down it was a misread that I was entered in an archery only draw, but I have my suspicions.
We packed up the camper and the family and headed out to the CMR Wildlife area for the hunt. The weekend ended up being fairly hot (high 80's on Saturday, and mid 80's on Sunday), which made it a little less than ideal hiking up and down ravines and ridges carrying a bow, a backpack, wearing camo gear, and helping two little girls. I did not see anything close enough to shoot at, but we did see a nice 4x4 (or maybe 5x5) at about 150 yds across a ravine, and heard him walking around in the same spot another morning. We also saw several elk from a fair distance with our binoculars.
Sunday evening we saw a really nice whitetail buck with a tall, wide 4x4 rack, down in a valley by the creek (last picture in the sequence I believe), but at that point we were so exhausted from walking in and out that we didn't want to make the extra effort (Shawn has a deer bow tag and was drooling!).
The biggest shock of the weekend was how well the girls did. Initially they were excited to go, but after the first 5:00 morning and long, uphill hikes they became a little less enthusiastic. They remained quiet and well behaved, however, quietly playing in the grass or hillside while we glassed and waited to spot things.
Hailey was even a pretty good sport, being willing to go out hunting more after she became fairly well acquainted with the prickly pear cactus! The poor little girl tripped and fell belly-first onto a clump. The next several hours were especially painful for me, as I had to hear her cry in pain, yet refuse help to pull out the spines. After about two hours, and a joint effort with tweezers, we got all of them. unfortunately she must not have had enough of an introduction to prickly pears, because despite several warnings and me pointing out repeatedly the area she needed to stay away from, she ended up putting her hand directly on top of another one! This time there were no tears, however, and she quickly proceeded to pull out the spines. Needless to say we are watching the various areas closely in case some spines were missed, and cross your fingers that the situation will not be repeated!
Although we did not get an elk, we learned a lot about how we need to hunt and where to go. We were even shown an example of why you need to be prepared for all weather, as we had to hunker down on a hillside as a nasty rain, wind, thunder, lightening storm ripped through. (The girls handled that one really well too!). I am not sure that I will be successful this year in getting an elk, but we are really making some good memories and getting to see some beautiful country!
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Welcome! We thought this would be a nice way to share a little more of our day-to-day lives with all of you. I will try and update this a couple times a week. Take care everyone and enjoy!
