Bummer, did you see a lot of healthy elk though?
Bummer, did you see a lot of healthy elk though?
I didn't ask them for a health report but there were quite a few bugles going in the morning and evening. It was a pretty cool experience to have with my dad, brother and a couple nephews. We had three other guys with us that were what I'd call "elk junkies". One had hunted the area quite a few times. His dad had taken a buck deer a few years earlier, he snagged a bear a while ago and he'd been on a few other hunts. Elk are funky. They're just coming into rut and the weather seemed to throw them off a wee bit. If you go in after them, you can sneak up on them a little but it's just blind luck when you find them. We used the spotting scopes quite a bit and identified quite a few larger animals. Most are in areas it'll be tough to get my dad into. There's a few they were working on they could get them to. Two groups around us had taken their elk and they were pretty impressive.
I personally only saw one elk. 3 point but he looked pretty good. I saw more buck deer than I've seen cumulatively in my life. I saw at least 60 bucks in the three days I was there. Most were kind of young, but there were about three I would probably take if I had a permit (which sounds like it's about a 20 year occurance?). All four were four points but kind of unique in the way their antlers grew. I did get a glimpse of a group of bigguns but couldn't get good glass on them quick enough to validate what I saw through my Bushnell 10 power binoculars. They were out about 200 yards and were in a clearing long enough to know they were deer and bigger than the four point I was looking at.
We didn't exactly have a "dirty" camp but could have been more bear-proof. The bear that came into our camp was quite educated about coolers and totes in that it'll just knock them around until they spill their contents. She would then invite her cubs to come in and chow down. This is exactly what happened. About 1 am I heard what I hoped was a coon or similar milling around about 20' from my tent under our canopy. Turns out it was the big sow just doing some recon. She must have found what she wanted because she returned after we scared her off with chirping our horns on our cars.
About 2am I awake to hearing someone waking me as they knew I had my Kahr CW9 in my tent with me (7 rounds---9mm). He had a 45 with 7 rounds and was about ready to draw and wanted to get me involved. We decided to try the "Panic" button on another tent's Duramax. That actually got the bears moving out of there but we didn't know for how long. I've not been able to get out and shoot for 3-4 months so I had brought my 30-06 and my AR-15. I was strongly encouraged to load 30 rounds in my AR before we settled back to bed. Pretty interesting laying in a tent, armed pretty well and waiting to find out if momma and two cubs were coming back. Not a lot of sleep was had from that time on.
We were visited by the local DWR guys later the next day warning us about bears in the area. They described this bear and cubs to a "T". We then relayed our story (conveniently leaving out that if the bear came back, it was getting some firepower back) to the ranger. I'm still not sure how I would feel about firing on the bear just trying to scavenge food but if there was true/actual danger to life/limb, I'm lighting that AR up. Not sure how effective 55 grain varmints would be against a sow bear but we thought if I went through 30 rounds and hit 5ish it'd be interesting (maybe not in a good way?).
My nephews needed to be home for school tomorrow so we bailed on mid-day Monday for Moab. They'd quite enjoyed slogging through the mud (I HATE MUD) in my JKU and kept asking me how it compared to "rock crawling". I took them up the first few hills of Hells Revenge Monday night, then ran them up Long Canyon to Dead Horse point today. They wanted to try to drive dirt all the way to Green River. (while that can be done, I wasn't up for it and thought we should just get home)
Observations from the trip:
1) glad I brought a lot of wet weather gear----hated using it ALL the time---Sundays storms were incredibly impressive. The afternoon storm lasted about 40 minutes and the hillside we were on was literally awash with about 1/4" of water. My tent stayed dry somehow.
2) Jeep has a true wheeler on it's hands with the JKU. It went everywhere I pointed it and some places I was a wee bit nervous about. It can rally a little, but really just was pretty sure footed and went where I pointed it unless the road was slick with mud and off-camber. "Drifting" was pretty common on Sunday as we tried to get around. I wouldn't exactly call it "nimble" but for it's size it's really maneuverable. Did I mention I HATE mud? I've spent about $35 at the car washes and still have about $10 to go to get the Jeep mud-free
3) The Abajos (most of my time was spent on Elk Ridge west of the Abajo mtns) are incredible. Just amazing that that oasis is in the middle of that desert. Pretty cool area. I'll be back for sure. I didn't get down to Arch Canyon and some of the other places that seemed interesting but I will.
4) Bears have always made me a bit nervous but now I'm even more wary about "bear-proofing" camp. Well worth your time...
I'll post up some pics when I get back to my normal computer....
