Let me elaborate a little. The week prior to the big opener, hunting was so thick in the air that it's all I could smell, see, hear and even taste. I guess you could say I was a little excited. It seemed as though each day of this last week lasted longer and longer than the previous one and Thursday even gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to live to see Friday. But, none-the-less I lived and Friday did come. Finally we off to the hills and to set up what would be base camp for the opening day of the hunt.
Camp couldn't have felt better, we got set up with plenty of time to shoot our last set of practice arrows before loading the bow with the real money makers, then set out to watch our territory from a distant ridge. We spotted a couple little bucks and small group of elk just before dark. I admit it wasn't what we'd usually see in this area right before nightfall, but even just a few elk is plenty of elk to choose from. Night came and I was dead tired, I thought I'd be sleeping peacefully for sure. But, alas I was mistaken. I couldn't get hunting out of my head. I played and replayed over and over in my head the series of events that were almost guaranteed to happen the following morning. Wake up @ 4:30 > crawl out of pj's > brush teeth > camo up > force down a granola bar > hit the trail @ 5:05 > arrive at camera #4 @ 5:45 > and finally arrive at camera #3 and my hot spot @ 6:00, just in time to settle in knock an arrow and let it fly.
After a long and exhausting night I finally put to play my wonderful plan. Everything went perfectly as planned, I had no trouble finding the camera's in the pitch black. As I snuck over the ridge to my hot spot the air was thick with the smell of elk, I thought to myself "are they already in here? Nah, couldn't be they've never showed up this early on the trail cam before, why would they now?" But, just to be sure I waited till I could see the outline of objects in front of me for about 50 yards. As I saw nothing in my sight I knew I was okay to check the camera and settle down. For the next 20 min I was as anxious as ever, and found myself guessing what time I'll see my first elk of the archery season. Then all the sudden my bother comes on the radio "Did you check the pictures on the camera?" he asked. "Just long enough to see that it was working, why?" I replied. Then he broke the bad news. "There hasn't been any elk on this camera (camera #2) for the past week." I was heart broken. I quickly pulled out my camera and checked the pictures. Sure enough since Monday no elk showed up on the camera except a few that showed up night before. Blast! "What could have happened?", I wondered. Then I put two and two together and realized that the big storm blew through here those same exact days. I'm almost certain that most the elk took refuge elsewhere and were probably still taking it easy. It was more apparent later on that day when I noticed all the newly downed trees the wind must have had it's way with.
The rest of the day was painful. I waited patiently for 5 hours, but nothing came in. I then took to the trail to check out some other nearby hot spots to see what sign there might be. Nothing but old tracks. The highlight of my day was the big two-point that I convinced myself would be a great archery buck for the area. Needless to say I took the ethical approach to wait for a shot where he wasn't laying down half hidden and missed the opportunity. I ventured back to my spot and waited out the evening, but still nothing came in. The planned victory lap back the our base camp and home just wasn't to be.
I'm still super excited for the next weekend, and I sure glad I still have my tag so I can continue my hunt. Sure, I would have been a great story to have a kill on opening day, but maybe my luck will change next weekend.
P.S. My uncle Marvin hasn't filled his LE tag yet. He had a few bulls come in, but nothing worthy of shooting yet. We're still waiting out of some of the bigger 6x's we've been seeing. I'll keep ya posted, but in the meantime here's some pictures from the past week.
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