We're back from Idaho

[Cameron Hunt]

Congrats Niels. Growing up in Idaho you dont know how hard it is to say that to a nonres. I hated seeing all these out of staters coming into what I called "my wilderness". I felt very privelaged to have grown up where there are so many great places to hunt, fish and view wildlife. I guess that if you guys want to pay the big price that is up to you. I know that you dont have Elk in Fl to hunt so you have to go somewhere. Oh ya, the whitetale deer you talked about are at a lower elevation like the one you saw in Riggins. The mulies are the ones that like to get up in the clouds.

 

[niels]

Thanks Cameron, you mentioned paying the big price to hunt in Idaho, actually I thought it was pretty cheap for a non res to hunt in Idaho, I hope to be back in the not to distant future. I know you were just joking when you said "My wilderness" or at least I hope you were, but that land is any man's land that has big enough balls to try and hunt it, this country separates the men from the boys very quickly.

 

[Cameron Hunt]

Yes Niels I was joking.. I know that the U.S. belongs to us all. There is one thing that I dislike though. That is when rookie hunters take on big game when they dont have a clue as to what the hell they are doing.
I did think that nonres tags are a bit pricey though. I was going to take my son back home for his first Elk. The tag would only be $12.50. Yes that is right. but the catch is that the minor must be with a licensed adult.. My brother in law always buys his lic/tag for Id. So I will be covered next year....

We didnt go because we drew cow tags here in Wa. so I couldnt see wasting them and go to Id. So next year He will get to go...

 

[Haary]

Great pictures thanks. Congratulations on the nice buck.

 

[niels]

here are some more pictures that I just scanned from our Idaho trip

 

[niels]

packing him down the mountain

 

[niels]

panoramic shot of the mountains and the Salmon River

 

[niels]

side view of my buddies 5x5 elk

 

[Quacker Wacker]

Niels,

Just curious about the steepness of that country. I just moved here to Idaho this year and was amazed how hilly this state is. You said you spike camped by the river. Did you go in by boat? Did you pack mostly downhill? That is alot of meat to pack on your back.

My elk hunt included alot of packing this year also, but unfortunately not for me. I had some last minute issues so I missed opening morning, only to get to camp and find that all 6 members of our camp killed bulls by 9am. We spent much of the next 2.5 days packing them out, and that was with horses. 3 of 4 horses were rookies, including my 2, but I am a rookie also so I didn't want to overload them. It was alot of work just dealing with them up and down the hills, plus there was a fair amount of dead fall on the trail.

Anyway sounds like an amazing experience, based on those pics I'm going to guess you didn't have alot of other human company around. Enjoy that hard earned game meat.

Brian

 

[niels]

Hey Brian, to say the country was steep would be the understatement of the year, I've never seen anything that would even remotely compare to it, and I grew up in Northern California hunting in some pretty steep country. The country is relentless and unforgiving, but it holds game, so that was our motivating force, you just have to work your ass off to get to them and get them out once they're down. We didn't have horses, we packed out everything on our backs, it was brutal, we tried to stay sidehill on game trails as much as possible but even sidehill was brutal because it was so steep, you had to make sure that each time you took a step you had your footing, a couple times I almost lost it, but regained my footing, thank god I did, because I probably would of fallen a long ways down the mountain and got pretty banged up if not dead.

Yes, we base camped by the river at about 2300 ft and spiked camp up the mountain at about 4,000 ft, and yes we took a boat up the river about 10 miles to our base camp, and to answer your last question, we didn't see a single hunter, but we didn't really expect to, you kind of have to be nuts (like we are) to hunt in country like this without horses, we wanted to do everything by ourselves this year, but next time we go we are going to try and secure some horses, so we spend more time hunting and less time packing out game, we were in there for 10 days, 6 of those days were spent hunting, and 4 days packing out game.

 

[nv30378]

Kevin, did you use to live in the San Fran Bay area and have a buddy named Tony A. that worked at Kemper? If so, I am pretty sure I know you. I also have a question regarding your Idaho hunt. Nice shot placement on the buck. You will know me too.

 

[niels]

Nope, sorry must be a different Kevin, What was your question about hunting in Idaho?

 

[nv30378]

Did you rent a boat or get ferried up the river? On another note, Those elk tags went the first few hours it opened up on the first. So, looks like we will be looking at something different. I do like that area though.

 

[niels]

We hired the Shepp Ranch (outfitter in the area) to take us up river about 10 miles, they dropped us off and 10 days later took us back out, drop camp sort of thing, The tag you were talking about is the same tag we tried to get, it is called the Selway B tag, which covers both the September rut and November migration hunts, but the residents gobble them up as soon as they become available, they sold out of them very quickly, sounds like they did again this year, but what you can do is the same thing we did, we had to settle for the Selway A tag that starts October 1st and goes through October 31st, and if you go early in October the bulls will still be rutting, we didn't know that they would still be in rut in early October, until somebody that I correspond with that hunts the same area told me, but we had already set our dates, we went from the 20th through the 31st, hoping the snow up high would push them down to where we were, but it was too early in the year and there wasn't enough snow up top to push them down, so we had to go higher than we had planned to get to the elk and the deer. The only animals we saw down low near the river were Bighorn Sheep and they were at about 2500 feet, once we got up to around 4000 feet, that's when we started seeing the deer, and a few elk, but we didn't start seeing large herds of elk until we got around 4700 feet and the snow level was down to approximately 5200 feet, so the elk weren't too far below the snow line, the snow line at 5200 feet though was just a dusting, very little. We ended up with 5 animals, with not alot going for us in that they weren't rutting and the snow hadn't yet pushed them down, so needless to say we had a pretty incredible hunt. If you go in October, you should get into the animals as long as your willing to hoof it and get up high where they are. If you want to hunt the tail end of the rut, I would go on October 1st. The non resident Selway A elk tag was $338.50, the Clearwater non resident deer tag was $235.00 and the non resident license was $128.50.

 

[larrysogla]

WOW!!!! Breathless wonder, animals & scenery!!! Congrats!!!! larrysogla.

 

[niels]

Thanks Larry, yea it was something I will never forget, I find myself thinking about it all the time, even if we hadn't killed a single animal, it still would of been the trip of a lifetime for me, the animals we killed were just the icing on the cake.

 

[FresnoHunter]

Nice pics and sounds like you guys had a great hunt! What did that muley get hit with? Pretty big exit hole above the right shoulder.

 

[niels]

Thanks! I hit him with a 150 grain Nosler Partition from a .270, actually that was the entrance hole, believe it or not, the hair was just matted back from the blood coming out of the hole while he was tumbling down the mountain, the exit hole wasn't that big but the bullet turned his heart into mush. I'm a big fan of the Nosler Partitions, I switched to using them a few years ago, and the last 4 deer I've shot with them, dropped in their tracks, the bullet stays together well, retains most of its original weight, incredible knockdown power.

 

[superguide]

This sounds like a great hunt -really enjoyed all the scenery pics-I was in Salmon buying cattle about 10 years back so brought in some memories. As for packing out game for four days-that's gotta be a labor of love. Congratulations on your experience of a lifetime.

 

[niels]

Hey Superguide! I can assure you that it wasn't a labor of love, LOL although it was a significant part of the whole experience and I wouldn't of had it any other way. I think it was more like the 3 of us need our head examined, LOL. I'm glad you enjoyed the scenery pics, I will hold on to the memories of that country and the whole experience as long as I live. Thanks.