Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Our 2023 hunting season in Idaho...

This is the thread I look forward to reading every year and they keep getting better. Thanks again Dave for the adventure - great stuff!!

Great story IDDave! I had both my knees replaced in 2017. Best medical decision I ever made. I can go up and down hills easily now with a little help from all the cardio I do. The elliptical machine has been a Godsend for me. Keep at it buddy!

Ron

Thanks for all the kind words gentlemen. Stop or I’ll get a fat head.

Since you asked….Rifle is simply fantastic. It’s my first custom and likely my last as it’s everything a guy could hope for. Anti action with a 21” barrel chambered by LRI. TT trigger. Christensen Arms FFT stock. Chambered in 6 Creed of course, with a 1:7.5 twist. Hawkins Hybrid rings. Nightforce 2.5-10x32 NXS scope. Rifle weighs 5.25 sans optics, and a touch under 7 lbs all up.

I’ve since mounted a gunsmith adapter for the Spartan bipod and a mini Arca rail for shooting off my tripod. Pure function with just enough form to make it interesting. My beloved and well used .280ai is going to get real dusty sitting in the safe.




Most importantly, it’s a shooter. Factory ammo…handloads…it doesn’t matter. I landed in 105 VLDs as my final load, but I could have shot about anything I wanted. This is the last 8 rounds I had of various “prospector” loads I’d thrown together, shot as fast as I could load and work the bolt.

Continued….


Long before I was ready, I had to pack my things and head out to pick up Greg at the airport. The weather was about to turn cold and I had a hunch the boys were going to have some luck in my absence. Turns out that hunch was correct.

I picked up Greg and after a night at my humble abode, we headed east to get moose camp set. We were two days into that hunt when my InReach pinged. I had a message from Matt….good buck down! In a fitting turn of events, it was actually Cadon that found the buck.

Cadon had filled his tag in a different unit prior to arriving at elk camp, so there wasn’t anything he could do about the large, bedded buck he found himself staring at. He and Matt had been hunting together barely 15 minutes prior though, and Cadon hustled down the mountain as fast as he could. He caught Matt (and Jake) in short order, and convinced Matt to follow him back up the hill.

Matt slid over the crest of the hill to find the buck still bedded slightly below him at just under 100 yards. The buck knew something was up but figured it out just a little too late. Matt hit him with three rounds of 150 BTs from his 7-08, even if the first one was probably sufficient.

The irony of how this hunt played out was thick, and goes back more than a decade. Many years ago Matt was hunting with another good friend of mine in a different part of the state. Matt had killed his first bull the day prior with the assistance of my other buddy (Troy) and he had decided to stay up and help Troy. They ended up a drainage apart when Matt spotted a good buck. Even though Matt had a deer tag in his pocket, it never occurred to him to shoot the deer himself. Instead, he ran Troy down and they doubled back to try and give Troy a chance to kill it. Sure enough they relocated it, only to have the buck get blown out by a herd of elk JUST as Troy was about to kill it.

The thing is, Troy said it was the biggest deer he’s ever layed eyes on, and he’s seen (and killed) a loooot of big deer. To this day, Troy swears he’d break 200”. The only thing more amazing than the deer itself, was that Matt had passed on it to try and give a Troy a chance at it.

That’s Matt though…generous to a fault. Thusly, it was only fitting these many years later Matt’s best deer would come by way of Cadon locating it on his behalf. I think the take home lesson here is to surround yourself with good people and good things tend to happen.

Here is Matt with his buck. A tip of the cap to Cadon for setting the stage for his success…



To be continued…

Once again, Thank you for taking the time to write up your trials and tribulations from this past hunting season. Always enjoy your write ups.

I have zero doubt that you will be at 110% for next season, here's hoping 2024 will be EPIC.

Continued….

On the other end of the state, our moose hunt had gone as well as I could have hoped. We saw north of 30 bulls in four days, but ended up filling the tag in the first hour with the best bull we saw.

I’ve already shared that story here on the Campfire, but if you missed it and would like the details, here is a link to that post…

CLICK HERE FOR MOOSE HUNT STORY

Some photos of that hunt for those of you who’d rather skip the read…











To be continued….

As always, great writing my friend!!
Way to go ID boys!!

Your stories are great Dave!

Thanks for posting it.

Continued...

Sorry for the delay. Got busy chasing ducks this weekend.

Much to my dismay, the best part of the season for our little group happened in my absence. Cadon has been chasing elk with us for the last 4 years to no avail, while Matt, Rowdy, and myself have been tagging bulls with varying success. It seemed like each year Cadon would show up and immediately get roped into packing the quarters of someone else's bull out. He'd had a couple of close calls but it just never quite came together.

Even this year had been marked with near-misses and misfortune. One morning he'd made a run on group of elk with a couple of bulls in it, only to have a couple of unseen hunters above him get a shot off seconds before he topped out over the ridge he was going to be shooting from. Another time he was laying prone waiting for a bull to take a couple of steps forward to get clear of a pine tree, only to have a freaking bobcat show up and blow out the bull.

Here is a picture of that bull seconds before the calamity ensued....



The consensus for our camp this season was for Cadon to get the first shot at any bull we spotted. I'd screwed that up by shooting a raghorn on the opener before Cadon arrived, and almost two weeks later nobody had managed to get a shot on another one.

The last night of our moose camp I received an InReach message that I'd waiting for years to hear...Cadon had killed his first bull. The details were sketchy, but I managed to gather that he'd killed the bull in the LAST hour of the season! Matt had stayed back to break camp while Jake and Cadon made one last run to an area they'd been seeing some recent sign in. Sure enough, in the waning minutes of the last evening a small band of elk had fed out of a timber-patch and crossed a ridge in front of them at no more than 80 yards. Cadon had somehow managed to let the first two spikes and a couple of cows pass as he'd previously caught sight of a broken-racked raghorn near the back of the group. A single, well-placed shot had finally put him in the ranks of successful elk hunters.

Here is Cadon's bull. He's not a world-record, but for our little group at least, it was the best animal of the year by a wide margin....



Matt finished breaking down camp and made a run back to their location via InReach. Those devices have been a Godsend in our group fwtw. Cadon, Jake, and Matt managed to get the entire bull out in one run. It made for a looong night as they had no choice but to hit the road at midnight with camp already down. They'd end up back in the closest town around 3 in the morning, at which point they decided to just sleep in the cab of their trucks for a couple of hours before pushing for home. It was a brutal 24 hours, but an adventure he will cherish for all his years.

To be continued....

Congrats to every one in your group.

Outstanding post, congratulations on a great hunt and I hope you recover fully.

Continued...

The entire time that most of our group had been chasing elk/deer/moose across the central and southern part of the state, Rowdy had been dutifully putting in time pursuing whitetails in between classes at U of Idaho and his part-time job.

He's managed to find a few great locations to chase deer since arriving in Moscow 3 1/2 years ago. In a CRAZY twist of fate, one of those spots was piece of private ground owned by an aunt of Greg (AH64fguy) from here on the Campfire and he of the moose hunt. Rowdy had simply knocked on the right door with the right attitude and been granted permission to hunt a fantastic piece of ground. The fact that Greg had a tie to that particular piece of land was completely unknown to him. Small world.

Rowdy had put several trail cameras out and had two pretty solid bucks that he'd been seeing on camera, if not in person. About 12 days prior to Thanksgiving activity really started picking up and on the morning of the 14th I got a text that simply read, "Good buck down!". It felt like forever, but it was probably only 30 minutes or so until I received a picture. He had indeed killed a very nice buck.




He had practiced shooting longer ranges all summer with his Seekins 7mag as he banged steel out to 700 yards at least once a week after work. It paid off for this hunt as he'd killed the buck with a single, well-placed shot at 490ish yards. The buck hadn't taken a step after getting hit with the 180 VLD. He'd put a lot of hours in that blind and passed on a lot of smaller bucks to put his tag on that particular deer, and I'm extremely proud of his evolution as a hunter the last few years.

I was just as excited to join him a week later. I'd managed to talk my lovely bride into letting me purchase an extra, NR deer tag and I'd be joining him the following week. The days passed excruciatingly slowly, but soon enough I was headed north to join him for a few days of chasing deer. It was Thanksgiving break and his roommates had left for the holidays, so I was able to stay at his apartment for the duration of the long weekend. A special thanks to his roommate Brad for letting me take over his room for the hunt!

The morning after I arrived, Rowdy and I loaded into our pickups and headed out of town for the short drive to his spot. We drove separately as I intended to stay at the blind all day with the rut in full swing, but he had to return to his job mid-morning for a shift. The first couple of hours were simply the best part of my entire hunting season. He's a great kid and we laughed and talked as quietly as we could as the sun rose and the day greeted us. I'd happily relive those two hours every day of my life if I could. A couple of small bucks had come out early, but nothing I wanted to put a tag on and end that great morning spent solving the world's problems.

About 10ish or so he gathered up his pack and headed down the hill to get to work. It wasn't 15 minutes later that I looked across the field and saw two does appear from the pines and begin feeding along the edge of the open field. They kept looking back and I had a hunch a buck was about to follow. It wasn't but a minute later that I caught a flash of brown as a good buck emerged just 40 yards away from them. I knew he wasn't the biggest buck I'd ever put the crosshairs on, but he was a solid deer and I knew we'd be able to watch the Vandal football game together the following day if I punched my tag that morning.

The decision was easy as I flipped off the safety and settled in for the shot. At the report the buck spun a 360 circle and staggered about 5 yards before going down. As it happened he was standing about 25 yards from where Rowdy had killed his buck just a week prior. He was a solid buck for that area, and he was certainly rutted up...




The 105 VLD performed fantastically at 465ish yards and I was happy with the shot location as well...





For the first time in about 30 years someone else had been the guide...and it was my own son. All I had done was show up and squeeze the trigger. He secured the location, he put up the blind, he did all the scouting, and he placed the cameras. It felt like a passing of the torch moment, and one that I couldn't be more happy with. I'm also happy to report we managed to see my beloved Vandals kick the chit out of the ISU Bengals the following day before I headed back home to his mama. Go Vandals..




To be continued with one last hunt...

Great write up. Thanks for sharing your adventures.

Now I'm depressed.....

Awesome...
God I miss Moscow. Shot my whitetails normally in the Middle Fork of Potlatch Creek Canyon, but got one up by Deary.

Good on you all. Awesome bucks!

Posts like these are my favorite kinds to read on the 'Fire. I do a lot of my hunting in the woods of AR & MS and I'm really blessed that a couple of friends give me free access to their land. But it's always nice to live vicariously through someone else's adventures in a totally different area of the country. Thanks for sharing!

PS - I like Cadon & Rowdy's taste in Kuiu jackets:

Continued...

Our last hunt of the year would be for a late-season bull tag Rowdy had drawn. It was exciting to be headed to an area that none of us had previously hunted. We'd scouted it in September a couple of times, to include the trip I wrecked the bike on and aggravated my knee after surgery. The season had already been open for a week before we were finally able to head down, but we figured some of the riff-raff might be gone by then.

The plan was for Rowdy and I to set camp first. I'd then bum around for the weekend with the boys before heading back to work while Rowdy, Cadon, and another friend looked for elk. Rowdy and I loaded up the pickups on Friday morning and left town around 7 that same morning. We had camp set by around 3 that afternoon. We had just enough time for a quick evening hunt. We rode the ATVs a couple of miles north to get a good vantage overlooking some country we'd previously identified as likely to hold elk. The country was VASTLY different than the steep mountains of central Idaho that we're used to hunting. It was primarily high-elevation sage with occasional buttes and deep ravines.

We certainly weren't in Kansas anymore...



It was considerably more difficult to glass than the area we traditionally hunt, but we broke out the optics and went to work. It wasn't long before we located a group of animals we THOUGHT were elk. They were many, many miles away and across a ravine we had no opportunity to bridge that evening. The area is littered with cattle and between the distance and the angle of the sun we just couldn't be totally sure. Here is Rowdy trying to get a closer look...



As the sun began getting lower in the sky, we loaded up and headed back to camp for some grub and a good night's sleep. Cadon joined us in camp that evening as we formulated a plan for the following morning. It had been a long day and we were all ready for some shuteye. We'd looked at the critters long enough to convince ourselves they were elk in the fading light, and we hit the sack with visions of what the morning might bring.

We rolled out of camp in the chilly, predawn hours the following morning as bundled up as we could manage. It was about 15 miles by way of a very bumpy route to where we thought the elk might be. We only made it about two miles before we had an ATV break down. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't a show-stopper either. I had Rowdy jump on the back of my ATV, and we were soon on our way.

An hour later and we spotted a small band of cows and raghorns. It was great to see some bulls, but they weren't quite the caliber any of us had been envisioning leading up to the hunt. As we watched them for a bit, I happened to notice a bull crest the skyline a couple of miles distant beyond the herd. We didn't get a great look at him before he dropped down into a draw and out of our sight, but enough to convince ourselves to try and close the distance. We'd only made it about halfway to where we'd last seen him when things started happening quickly. We'd just dropped into a small ravine when I noticed a group of mature bulls starting at us from around 600 yards. They didn't stampede away, but they weren't thrilled to see us either. They slowly began quartering away from us as Rowdy frantically unazzed his rifle and tried to get set up for a shot. By the time he was in a comfortable shooting position, the largest bull of the group had managed to clear himself from the others. Rowdy asked me for the range and I said "680" as I heard him dialing the corresponding distance. It was a long way over to them, and I heard him slowly exhale as he flipped off the safety. The first shot was met with an audible "thwack" as the group suddenly took off in earnest. As Rowdy worked the bolt I watched the bull fade to the back of the pack from the impacts of the 180 VLD. Rowdy's next shot was a complete miss as he rushed the shot.

"Relax bud, he's hit hard and won't go far" I said. Rowdy worked the bolt again and dialed up a couple more clicks to make up for the increased distance. His next shot found it's mark and I could see the bull beginning to falter as we went out of sight. It was a long walk over to where he'd been, and Rowdy was understandably nervous. He needn't have been though, as I soon saw a tine sticking up from the sagebrush.

Rowdy has been extremely fortunate to kill a couple of fantastic bulls in previous years. As such, I could tell he was a little disappointed when we first approached the bull. There was no denying it was a bit smaller than either of us had initially thought, but things happened so fast that neither of us took the time to really look him over as well as we'd have liked. Still though, it was a pretty good bull and he'd made a great shot at a distance that neither of us had previously attempted. After a few moments of hemming and hawwing, we all began smiling and laughing at what had just transpired. Soon, the joy and comradery of the moment overtook any lingering reservations as we told and re-told the story from our different perspectives.

Not his best, but not a bad bull all things considered...



It was getting dark by the time we were done taking photos, and we soon figured out we'd left the game bags behind in Rowdy's pack when we doubled up on my ATV earlier in the day. We elected to just gut him that evening and pray the coyotes didn't find him before we could get back to him the following morning. We had a great evening back at the wall-tent as we enjoyed some drinks and more laughs. I felt bad that Rowdy's roommate (Brad) was forced to turn around and head home as we'd filled Rowdys tag before he could make it to camp.

The following morning dawned cold and clear again, but we waited for daylight before heading to the previously broken down ATV. I quickly diagnosed a bad battery, and went to work swapping it out. Soon enough I had it going again, as the boys got ready to head back and break down the bull while I broke down camp. I snapped a quick picture of the three of us that brings a bit of joy every time I look at it.



I took one more of just the boys before they headed out to retrive the elk. Damn I wish I was 21 again...



I was feeling nostalgic and maybe even a little misty-eyed about the whole thing as I watched them ride away. I returned to my ATV to head back and was quickly grounded in the truth of what it means to be 21. Little azzholes...



It's well after the New Year as I write this and already the details of the hunts are beginning to fade from my grasp. Still though, I'm left feeling fulfilled as I give the good Lord thanks for my many blessings with family and friends this past season. I hope all of you reading this enjoyed some of your own. If so, please do us all a favor and share them at your convenience.

Dave

Excellent story Dave.

Just remember, although this wasn’t your best season on the books, it’s probably several bucket lists rolled into one for many guys. You really are living the dream.

Brother Dave, excellent write up as usual, always enjoy your writings, though I do get a little impatient 😂

Grats to you and the crew!👊🏻

Thank you Dave. What an awesome story. Thanks for sharing this!