Sierra_Dave
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- Joined
- Feb 7, 2007
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Well,
Like the saying goes, sometimes the bug and sometimes the windshield...I hunted Unit 39 and came home with tag soup. I got to Idaho City around 4 pm on the 29th and camped outside of town. I saw some Elk bull tracks and several hunters already camped out.
On the 30th I made my way to Queen River campground which is about 26 miles farther north and nestled next to the Sawtooth Wilderness Area. I spoke to a group of deer hunters who had been there a week and they reported seeing no Elk in the area. The local paper said that on openning weekend of deer season, deer hunters at lower elevations were seeing lots of Elk.
I later learned from the Fish & Game guys at the check station that a winter storm had dumped a lot of snow 2 weeks earlier and that had pushed both Elk and deer lower. Neither had returned to high ground.
I scouted 2 days in the sawtooths and saw only old sign and hunted openning day on a ridge all the way up to Greylock Mountain at 9300 feet. Saw old wolf scat [ with bone chips in it] and old tracks.
And after Nov1, like Johnny Cash sang, I been everywhere man. I hunted for 2-3 days at different spots all over the zone. I saw just 6 elk total and only 1 bull. I stalked close to him, but by the time I closed the distance to about 400 yards, he slipped into the woods and never gave me a shot.
According to my gps I had hiked 117 miles over 11 days and it felt to my body like a 1000. My knees swelled up a couple of nights and it was med-time.
I was in a box canyon one night and in the middle of the night I was awakened by wolves howling really loud. You know you can tell how big a dog is by how deep his bark is...well, one of these wolves had a very very deep howl. They howled for only about 3-4 minutes and stopped. The next morning after I hunted, I returned to my camp on a trail covered in tracks...some 2x bigger than a big dog's and others smaller. There was also fresh sheep droppings everywhere...so it was mutton for the wolves.
The bad thing is that any Elk within 5 miles got up and boogied.
I also met an old guy hunting with pack goats. I was having lunch at camp and up rolls an old ford pickup with vanity plates that read "pakgoats". Out of the back came 6 goats. 3 sahneen (sp?) and 3 mixed. The old guy had been hunting for 18 years with them and was 73 years old. He and I talked and he used to be in the business, but now is just retired. He said they can each haul about 35-40 lbs, you have to raise them from kids and bottle-feed them for best results.
He also said some women in Reno were raising the mega goats [350lbs] and they could pack as much as 75 lbs. He said 6 goats with saddlebags would set you back about 1200 dollars. They followed him in a nice neat line and camped by his tent.
The bad news is that if there are dogs or bears in the field it will be a problem, but if there are wolves...party is over...it happened that on that day in that area of Idaho there were none.
Well, the zone I was in has a success rate of 17% and I was one of the 83% that go home empty. I hope Wogg and Kentuck have had better luck. I will hunt Idaho again, but on horseback...too steep for my old knees.
I have to log my "harvest report" now...30 years of Elk hunting and I have had more than 1/2 the times out I have brought back home an Elk, but not this time. Splat!
Good luck to the rest of you,
Dave
Like the saying goes, sometimes the bug and sometimes the windshield...I hunted Unit 39 and came home with tag soup. I got to Idaho City around 4 pm on the 29th and camped outside of town. I saw some Elk bull tracks and several hunters already camped out.
On the 30th I made my way to Queen River campground which is about 26 miles farther north and nestled next to the Sawtooth Wilderness Area. I spoke to a group of deer hunters who had been there a week and they reported seeing no Elk in the area. The local paper said that on openning weekend of deer season, deer hunters at lower elevations were seeing lots of Elk.
I later learned from the Fish & Game guys at the check station that a winter storm had dumped a lot of snow 2 weeks earlier and that had pushed both Elk and deer lower. Neither had returned to high ground.
I scouted 2 days in the sawtooths and saw only old sign and hunted openning day on a ridge all the way up to Greylock Mountain at 9300 feet. Saw old wolf scat [ with bone chips in it] and old tracks.
And after Nov1, like Johnny Cash sang, I been everywhere man. I hunted for 2-3 days at different spots all over the zone. I saw just 6 elk total and only 1 bull. I stalked close to him, but by the time I closed the distance to about 400 yards, he slipped into the woods and never gave me a shot.
According to my gps I had hiked 117 miles over 11 days and it felt to my body like a 1000. My knees swelled up a couple of nights and it was med-time.
I was in a box canyon one night and in the middle of the night I was awakened by wolves howling really loud. You know you can tell how big a dog is by how deep his bark is...well, one of these wolves had a very very deep howl. They howled for only about 3-4 minutes and stopped. The next morning after I hunted, I returned to my camp on a trail covered in tracks...some 2x bigger than a big dog's and others smaller. There was also fresh sheep droppings everywhere...so it was mutton for the wolves.
The bad thing is that any Elk within 5 miles got up and boogied.
I also met an old guy hunting with pack goats. I was having lunch at camp and up rolls an old ford pickup with vanity plates that read "pakgoats". Out of the back came 6 goats. 3 sahneen (sp?) and 3 mixed. The old guy had been hunting for 18 years with them and was 73 years old. He and I talked and he used to be in the business, but now is just retired. He said they can each haul about 35-40 lbs, you have to raise them from kids and bottle-feed them for best results.
He also said some women in Reno were raising the mega goats [350lbs] and they could pack as much as 75 lbs. He said 6 goats with saddlebags would set you back about 1200 dollars. They followed him in a nice neat line and camped by his tent.
The bad news is that if there are dogs or bears in the field it will be a problem, but if there are wolves...party is over...it happened that on that day in that area of Idaho there were none.
Well, the zone I was in has a success rate of 17% and I was one of the 83% that go home empty. I hope Wogg and Kentuck have had better luck. I will hunt Idaho again, but on horseback...too steep for my old knees.
I have to log my "harvest report" now...30 years of Elk hunting and I have had more than 1/2 the times out I have brought back home an Elk, but not this time. Splat!
Good luck to the rest of you,
Dave
