Monthly Archives: December 2017

2017 – A lot of firsts!

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My seasons of 2017 – spring lake rainbows, spring turkey season, tenkara trout,  summer fly fishing, summer steelhead fishing, pheasant hunting, elk hunting, late deer season,  chukar hunting

I can hardly believe that 2017 is drawing to a close already, where did it go?   As I sit back and look over the year I realize that I have had one heck of a year with a lot of firsts.  For the first year in a while health was just not an issue, as you can tell from my lack of health related blog posts, so it freed me up to get back into fly fishing, to really get into hunting and to finally reach my goal of stocking my freezer by myself.   On top of spending almost one-third of my days in the field I was able to get out for daily hikes (and later runs) with Lira and still find time to work all year long.

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Getting the lead out

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Growing up all we ever shot was lead and when I started hunting again I have to admit I used lead shotgun shells where I could and took my first deer with a lead bullet.  After that though I got religion and went lead free this season and found that non-toxic worked just as well as lead and is much better for the environment.  For more info on hunting with non-toxic ammo check out the Hunting With Non-Lead Ammunition website or this MeatEater blogpost.

 

Locally for pheasants I needed to use non-toxic shot because of the wetland habitat we hunt but this year I’ve only used non-toxic anywhere bird hunting.  I like the Federal Premium Prairie Storm FS Steel and that is all I’ve used now for two seasons.  The stuff takes down birds with either my 12 or 20 gauge shotguns.

For elk hunting I used a 140 grain Barnes TSX-BT bullet loaded with 55 grains of IMR 4831 powder in a .270 cartridge.  This bullet knocked my cow elk down in it’s tracks at about 150 yards no problem.  I had also loaded 130 grain Hornady GMX bullets for use with deer during Modern Firearm season, these use 56 grains of IMP 4831 and are great because I can use the lead SST bullet at the range and switch to the all copper GMX for hunting.

For muzzleloader I switched to a Federal Premium B.O.R. Lock 270 grain bullet and it knocked down the doe in its tracks no problem.   I had tried several bullets and found this one gave me the best patterns at 50 and 100 yards at the range plus performed well in the field so I am sticking with it.

 

 

Black powder deer

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After filling my elk tag I kind of figured I was done with big game hunting for the year and that my Washington deer tag would go unfilled. I had hunted a few days during early muzzleloader season without so much as seeing a deer and figured that would be it.  When we thought we may have had a mix-up on the elk samples for CWD then I realized that late muzzleloader season was my last chance to put some meat in the freezer should I have to throw out my elk so I started looking again.  I put out cameras locally again but the farm was flooded so I started looking east of the mountains back to special unit 3372 by Sunnyside and unit 130 over by Cheney.  I opted for Cheney since I had seen no deer at all in 3372 so I made a plan and set up a trip in early December for a few days to hit unit 130.  I had scoped out the small amount of BLM land there and gotten a bit of intel and also found Miller Ranch which offered access to its private land mostly via guided hunts.  I talked to Scott Miller and he was very busy with bird hunters and another doe hunter but gave me an offer of a small trespass fee to hunt on my own and I took him up on it.  (I know this wasn’t a Public Land hunt which I fully support but I’m taking baby steps, on my own in private this year, on my own in public next and I’d so far struck out on public looking in early season.)  Of course a few days before the trip we finally got resolution on the elk, mine was safe, and I really didn’t need to do the hunt but decided to go anyway since it would be my first totally solo multi-day hunt and I had scouted out some nice looking canyons where I hoped the deer were hanging out.

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Dealing with CWD

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This year I went on my first elk hunt to an area near Craig, CO known to have Chronic Wasting Disease, CWD.  In fact, the units we were in had a high enough incident of CWD among the deer population that they required all bucks be tested.  Elk testing was optional since the rates were only 1-5% but we chose to test mainly because I’m health paranoid after all I’ve dealt with an no sense risking a fatal disease especially when a recent study shows it can possibly transfer to humans.   A few weeks after the hunt was over I got back my negative result from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and would have immediately eaten some elk had it not been for the fact I already had some other meat thawed that needed to be cooked.  Before I got around the getting elk out my friend called and said his elk came back Suspect for CWD and that he had to wait another 7-10 days for more testing.   On top of that he was pretty sure that we had mixed up the two heads that were dropped off for testing and that it possibly was my cow that was suspect.    Another few weeks went by and we found out that the elk was indeed positive for CWD and now we weren’t 100% sure which elk was the positive one.

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