Bowhunting Again!

Season finally arrived last Saturday. I picked Joe and Michael up in Denver on Thursday night and we camped Friday and Saturday night. We had a good first day and I almost got a shot at a 4 point bull, but 70 yards was the best shot he offered. In all we saw a group of five bulls, called in one spike and managed to get in front of the four point. We also saw two other elk and a nice bear. The bear was in a really good position for a stalk, so it was too bad season doesn't start until the 2nd. Our choice of routes back up the mountain was a very poor one and we didn't make it back to camp until 11:00pm. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided to climb out that way, but during the climb I was thinking I was going to have to tell Nancy how I killed Joe climbing a mountain. We slept in Sunday morning and hunted Sunday afternoon with no sightings.

Joe has hunted a few more times since the weekend and found some good sign, but no elk. Joe has ended up with a nasty sounding cold and it isn't helping his strength to climb these mountains. They did however catch a limit of trout on Monday out of a State Pond and we took the kids back on Tuesday evening. They all caught some fish and had a good time. Joe and Michael are fishing a bigger lake this morning in hopes of catching some larger fish. We plan to cook the fish when Nancy and Kelsie get here.

Nancy and Kelsie will be flying into Denver tonight and Joe, Michael and myself will be driving to pick them up. We plan to leave early and stop in Georgetown to glass for sheep in my sheep unit.

I'll be hunting the same unit as Saturday again during this long weekend and hope to bring something out of the woods besides sore feet. I'll post some pictures soon.

Various photos from the last month

Elk and Deer archery season starts the 25th. I'll be out every weekend until the last on September 23rd. Joe N. will be out the first two weekends, so hopefully we will be packing a lot of meat up the mountains. Bear starts on the 1st of September, so if given the chance I'll shoot a bear. Dad will be here for the last two weekends of archery and the following weekend when he has an early season cow elk rifle tag. I hope he comes out every year to hunt along with Sean and anyone else that has the time and money. It would be great for everyone to come out during the first rifle when they can buy tags over the counter for bull or cow depending how much they are willing to spend (250 for cow 495 for bull). Following all that, I start hunting for my ewe on the 2nd of October when I have four vacation days and two weekend days to make good on the tag. I'm pretty exited about the prospects, but know I'll be lucky to fill any one of those tags considering my limited time out this summer and my inexperience with these mountain animals.

Its been running low to upper 40's at night here in Leadville and every morning I can smell the spruce and sage brush. It smells like hunting season is upon us. And thank God it is. The following photos are from the last several weeks. Enjoy!

Here is a 6 point elk shed that Heather spotted while we were driving through the aspens down the mountain I plan to elk and deer hunt on. There have probably been a hundred people drive by it since spring that thought nothing more of it than an aspen branch. I was pretty exited that Heather spotted it.

I found this skull on the opposite side of the same mountain while scouting for deer and elk the week before finding the shed. There were only a few other bones around and it was at about 10,000 ft. Considering the elevation, I don't think it was a winter kill. More than likely it was an unrecovered hunter kill from last season or a mountain lion kill. It is just a decent muley without much mass, there are a lot of muleys like this one on this mountain. I won't hesitate to kill one this size, but I would like to find a bigger buck since I know this mountain has them.

This is the mountain I'll be hunting the first couple weekends to try and fill my deer tag with a big buck. I hope to kill one coming out of these steep draws in the mornings or going into them in the evening. I've been seeing elk there too, so maybe I can take one of them home also.

This is a wildflower I photographed, among others, while on a sheep scouting trip above timberline. I was at around 12,000 ft here. The three pictures that follow the flower are all from the same area looking in different directions. There is nothing like being above timberline. A man can not help but stand in awe of God's creation from up there. I can't keep from thinking that when God finished creating the Rockies, he stood back and said "Shane is gonna freak out over this". And he was exactly right.
To top off the fantastic views, I was able to find a big group of ewes and lambs. Since I have a ewe tag, I was exited about finding them. Hopefully they will be there after the early season hunters get done. I can't hunt until October 2nd.

The fog was really rolling through early in the morning.
This is a little later in the morning.The big group of ewes and lambs are scattered throught the rocks and trees at the top of the point of trees in the center of the photo. I'm guessing around a half mile away.

Boyd and Olivia at the museum in Denver.
Isaac and Olivia north of Leadville above Turquoise Lake.
This is a bridge I drive over on Hwy 24 every day of the week. The road beneath it goes to Redcliff.

This is a view of Mount Massive from Leadville. Our neighborhood is just down the hill and to the right in the picture.
This is a view over our neighborhood from the same location as the previous photo. If you look hard you can see our house before we painted. It is located behind and to the right of the red roof. It is the beutiful mint green w/gray roof, or as Gretel called it "Starnes BBQ Green".

This is a photo of the house in the evening after I finished trimming the new garage door. I still have painting to do, but it won't stop raining. It actually snowed above town, above 11,000 ft, just south of town today. I'm sure it will be gone tomorrow, but it was neat to see snow above timberline in August.