More Scouting Pictures

My wife left our windows open last week, I woke up in the middle of the night shivering cold. That can only mean one thing...fall is getting near! Bring it on! 

A few weeks ago Danny, his girlfriend Ashley, my brother-in-law Kelly, and I made a pretty decent ascent up one of our favorites mountains. We camped on a nice perch for viewing animals. We were not let down.

I woke up, opened my tent, started some coffee, and spotted a group of big bulls from my sleeping bag. Is there a better way to start a day?

Overall we spotted a lot of elk, and a few good bachelor groups of big bulls. The biggest bull that we saw was right at dusk, the minimal light only gave us a picture of a blurry fuzz ball. The bull was a stud, big 5th points, huge 4's, and sweeping brow tines that made it hard to sleep that night. He would have made this blog post an instant classic. 

Below are a few pictures that came out alright. 

The pictures of these elk were taken from 1.25 miles away. Once again we were using the new Swarovski ATX 30 70X95 spotting scope. The pictures were taken through the scope with a cell phone. The few pictures I took through my SLR camera were absolutely amazing, but none of elk. When the elk were standing in the open the wind and our lousy tripod wouldn't allow us to get good pictures with the SLR camera attached to the scope. I am going to throw some money towards a better tripod, then we will be rockin'!

This nice bull was worth the hike.

 

 

 

 

 

We needed to leave about the time the elk bedded down for the morning. Danny found this guy right before we packed up, I think he was challenging us to find him. We'll see you again Mr. Bull, soon.

  

Summer Pics

I love this time of the year. The season is just around the corner. We've been spending as much time as possible learning new country, and of course, checking in on favorite spots.

It's tough to be the apex predator!

Dan spent some time in the high country this past week. He saw some beautiful country, but had an experience that even the most avid outdoorsmen dream of. Viewing a wild mountain lion doing its thing is rare enough for most of us. But seeing one interact with other animals is all the more special.

Dan and a few good friends were riding their horses through some serious elk summering ground. They saw several groups of over one hundred cows and calves, and many small bachelor groups of bulls. 

One morning they heard a couple of coyotes making a heck of a racket. One of Dan's friends made the comment that he had heard that vocalization before, in Yellowstone, when a pair of 'yotes were chasing a lone wolf. Dan didn't think much of that comment, at first.

They snuck over the hill to see what all the fuss was about. Amazingly, the coyotes were harassing a full grown mountain lion. Right as Dan got the spotting scope out one of the coyotes bit the mountain lion by the tail and started shaking it, like a dog would do to a rabbit. The big cat sent that coyote rolling down the hill with a huge swipe, then batted the other one as it came to help his buddy.

The coyotes kept harassing the big lion until he trotted off.

But the big cat's troubles were not quite over. The coyotes were annoying him, but there were just two of them. Just down the hill were about 65 elk, more than half of them pissed off mothers. What Dan witnessed next was amazing. Half of the cows surrounded the calves and ran them down the hill, further from the cat. The other half of the cows formed a mass of wapiti and charged up the hill towards the lion! They ran him up and over the hill before returning to the rest of the herd and the calves. 

After running the cat off the herd moved closer to Dan's position. He snapped a pic of a small portion of the herd. You can see several of them visibly winded from all that running around. 

Dan also heard a squirrely bugle last week. It's getting close!

Where do you enjoy your morning cup of coffee?

Del and I dreaming about chasing bugling bulls, just a few weeks away now!

This little guy walked right past Dan's tent a few weeks ago.

 

 

This moose is going to be a dandy. But his buddy, just below, will give him a run for his money.

 

 

Dan, Del, and I saw six of these big boys all hanging together. Two of them were absolute studs, 2-3 more very big, and a couple of little guys.
 

  

Two weeks ago this buck's face was swollen to about twice its normal size. The swelling has gone down but damage has been done. This poor guy's horn was swinging around and he was acting pretty annoyed with it.

 

 

The bull elk are getting pretty dang big now. Dan will be spending a lot of time in the hills for the next few weeks, I plan to make it out with him as much as I can (he doesn't have two toddlers at home so he has a little more freedom to sleep away from home than I do). Hopefully we'll have some pictures of big elk. There are a couple of basins we haven't checked yet, and they haven't failed the last few years of showing us some exceptional bulls. This year should be no different.

Check back!

2013 Idaho Bear Hunt

Danny and I returned to Idaho for the second time in as many years to try our hand at bear hunting. We didn't like getting beat up so bad last year. But just like last year they whipped us, again. The hunting was a little slow but we at least got within 50 yards of a couple of bears this time. The fog the last few days really prevented us from being able to glass that far.

 

Rain was a constant theme on this trip.

Danny and I thought we would surely turn up a bear in this giant burn, but none showed themselves.

On the second day of the trip I spotted two bears meandering along the other side of the valley from us. They were both adult bears, so I grabbed my bow and set off. Danny sat on the opposite side of the valley watching the whole episode through his spotting scope.

They were both brown, the bigger of the two with dark legs and a golden back. He was a real beauty, the bear of my dreams. But it was not meant to be. The wind was swirling so I tried to circle wide of the bears and get above them. The only direction the wind wasn't blowing was up the mountain. While making my move the larger and better looking bear was coming straight towards me. When he was within 50 yards a bad gust of wind threw my scent in his direction. To say he lit out of there would be an understatement. That bear ran up and over, and up and over hill after hill until he was over the horizon. 

 

  

We spotted only one other bear, and lady luck was not on my side. The bear was feeding in a perfect position for me to sneak up to him. I felt like a real panther as I prowled in his direction. I snuck into that distance where things get real. Just 25 more yards and I'll have a shot. I take another perfect step and what happens? A bedded mule deer doe stands up just ten yards to my right. She spooked, which of course spooked the bear as well. He didn't run like the first one, but he wasn't going to stick around to see what scared the deer.

And that was that. Five days of hunting, two stalks on bears, a little bad luck, and a lot of good memories with my brother.

Our maiden voyage with the new Swarovski  modular spotting scope system. This baby was incredible. Check out the pictures Dan snapped from his cell phone below, and the bears above.

 

 

I bought an adapter kit to mount my SLR camera to the spotting scope, but like a knucklehead, I did not set it up before we were on the side of the mountain. I left the most important piece at home, so my adapter was just a few extra and meaningless ounces in my pack. Dan took these pictures through the spotter with his cell phone...not too shabby for a cell phone.

Will Danny and I drive all that way again next year? Probably. I guess now it is time to shoot a few carp and hit the range. Might have to go spend a few nights in the high country just to pass the time and get my mountain air fix. The fall will be here before you know it. I'm waiting!

Don't miss our Father's Day sale!

Don't miss our Father's Day sale. 

Since this is one of the first promotions we are doing I am letting EVERYBODY know about it. We will be running special deals for our Newsletter subscribers and Facebook followers, so be sure to sign up (at right) and follow us on Facebook for more deals.

Almost everything in the store is 15% off (not including bows).

 25% off almost every knife in the store. That includes orders if we don't happen to have it in stock.

Don't miss out!

A Nebraska limb-hanger

I returned to Nebraska with my good friend, Del, and my brother-in-law, Kelly. We were hunting some of the most pressured public land that I know of, but the birds are plentiful and we are young and overconfident. 

I've never seen birds so weary of blinds. We figured it would be more fun anyway to ditch the blinds and hunt on the ground.

 

We jumped a hen sitting on 17 eggs.

The birds were acting very similar to what I have seen at this time of the year in the past. In the mornings they would gobble a little bit on the roost, but once they hit the ground they got pretty quiet. Toms did not seem interested in anything except living hens. We got toms to check us out after 10am. Del called in and killed a bird around 1pm with his shotgun.

We did a lot of stalking, a lot of belly crawling, and had a lot of fun doing it.

One morning Kelly spotted a big tom in a plum thicket. Kelly made the best of it and shot a great bird.

 

Kelly shot this tom with a Chastain Wapiti recurve, VPA Terminator broadhead, and Carbon Express Heritage arrows.

 

 

2013 Turkey Opener

Opening weekend was good to us here at RMSGear. Danny, my brother-in-law Kelly, and I got out to hunt with our cousin Chad in Nebraska. We drove out with long time friend, and one time RMSGear employee Andy Thomas. Andy has a real job now and only shoots his bow about four times in an average year, once at a turkey, once at an elk, and a few times at deer. You'll see how that works out for him below! I wish I had his talent, the man is a killer.

As you can see in the picture above, there was a large group of turkeys roosted in a powerline a couple hundred yards from the field edge we were sitting on. This is typically a bad sign for the morning hunt. The turkeys will usually stay in the hills and not come down into our field. They also pull a lot of turkeys from our field before they make it to us. On this particular morning that is exactly what happened, luckily there were enough turkeys that we were still able to pull in a few gobblers.

We've hunted this field for quite a few years now so we have a good feel for which direction the turkeys travel.

This time of year we typically try to position ourselves in travel corridors early in the morning. If the turkeys are already headed our direction, and they are going to pass by within 100 yards, then we have luck calling them in. But if they are not already coming towards us it is very hard to change their course.

Only after the turkeys are "done" for the morning with their feeding and strutting have we had better luck calling in toms. 

Every group of hens had a tom or two with them and those toms were completely uninterested in our calling/decoys. One hen in particular was quite vocal. Just for fun I decided to mimic her. Every time she called I would call back with the same tone and cadence. That piqued her curiosity and she came right towards us, a big tom followed just a few steps behind her.

The hen walked right up to our decoys and gave them a good look. The tom followed as well, at one point only a few steps from our blind. I waited for him to walk into one of the blind windows for a five yard shot, but he angled away from us as the hen lost interest in our decoys. 

I was sitting in the blind with Kelly. We had to do some major improvising with the windows to get a shot at this turkey before he was out of our lives. Kelly dropped the window that he was sitting by as I tried to position myself to shoot out that side of the blind. Kelly couldn't get out of my way. As I drew I had to make sure that my limb wasn't going to hit the blind, hit Kelly, or hit Kelly's bow. At full draw I noticed my bow quiver basically resting on Kelly's shoulder. I figured I would be fine, so I started focusing my attention on the strutting gobbler, who was now facing us at 15 yards or so.

In the picture below you can see in blue where I actually hit the turkey, and in red where I was aiming. I'm a firm believer in aiming at an imaginary intersection drawn directly up from the turkey's legs, and horizontal to the middle of his body.

This is not the turkey that I shot, but this is the best picture in my 

library that shows the body position of the turkey I shot.

My shot was only inches from my aiming point. I could see that I took out the turkeys far leg and felt completely confident that he would die in a very short amount of time. He hobbled off the field and laid in some trees lining a creek we were sitting near.

We hung tight in our blind, flung a few more arrows (none connected), and got out a few hours later to retrieve my turkey. To my surprise he was still alive, but very weak. I simply cannot believe how tough these birds can be. My arrow entered a few inches to the right of his beard, and exited through his left thigh. 

Danny was about 1/2 mile away in a blind with Chad. He can pull back his compound once every few hours, still recovering from a shoulder surgery he had after deer season. One shot was all he needed to kill this jake. Danny is about sick and tired of shooting wheels and cannot wait to get his recurve back in his hands.

 

Andy appeared to be in the best spot from what I could tell, but somehow all the turkeys skirted him by 50 yards or so. Late in the morning he threw a few loud yelps at a gobbler across the field. That tom sprinted across the field but hung up at 35 yards. Andy, who hasn't shot an arrow in months, let one go from his Morrison recurve at 35 yards. He couldn't have placed it any more perfect than he did, and his bird was dead within seconds.

I returned for a follow up trip the following weekend, but a tornado spoiled our plans. Thankfully this massive tornado missed us by about a mile. The storm that brought this tornado turned into a blowing snow storm overnight, with 15 degree temps and 40mph wind gusts. The hunt was a bust, but I still had a blast with a few good friends. 

More turkey hunting stories to follow!

Tyler's Nebraska Turkey

Good customer Tyler Arnold sent us this story about his first turkey with a recurve. He did it the hard way too, no blind with a stickbow!

Check out his story and his bird:

RMSGear,

Hey thought I would share a pic of the bird I shot on Easter Sunday.  I was hunting by myself so I don't have a  very good picture with me and the bird. It was my first turkey with a recurve. It was an awesome hunt.  

The hunt took place up in Nebraska. I spotted the birds around 11am and decided to make a move on them.  They had a fire up there last summer which burned up a lot of their ground but the turkeys are still hanging around there.  I got down in a little burned up cedar draw and set my decoy up and started to call.  Within a few minutes the flock was on its way.  I posted up behind a burned up cedar and waited for the action.  I had six big toms and a dozen hens come within 12 yards but I couldn't get a shot without spooking them, so I stayed patient and waited for the rest of them to come.  A tom finally strutted by around 15 yards but there was too many branches in the way to shoot.  He strutted over towards my decoy but I still couldn't get a shot.  I waited and he came back by in front of me and stopped at 15 yards in full strut.  I leaned out around the tree I was sitting behind, picked a spot and let it fly.  I hit him right at the base of the neck he ran up the hill about 20 yards and hit the dirt.  It was an awesome hunt and one I will never forget.  That Blackwidow recurve has been very good to me!

Thanks,

Tyler 

Wyatt's first turkey!

Check out Wyatt's first traditional bow kill! He made an outstanding shot on this big tom during the Nebraska opener.

The first day of the season Wyatt was sitting in a blind by himself. He had turkeys completely surrounding him, with several only a few yards away. Wyatt was very conscious of making a good shot and chose not to shoot an arrow that first day. The next time around he gained his confidence and let the arrows fly!

Congrats Wyatt! What a great bird and an exciting first animal with a longbow!

Wyatt was shooting a 53# Pronghorn longbow. Carbon Express Heritage arrows, and a Magnus Stinger broadhead.