KT's Journal 2

[Kt29]

July 8th of this year was a particular bad day. Besides having a tornado I lost my best hunting buddy, a treasured family member, and just a great dog, my lab Moose. He was 14 years old. Sure its hard to describe ones pet. They seem almost to be like people. Why not though, they are just as much a part of ones life as anything or anyone else. Old Moosie had a pretty interesting start to our family. Back in 1995 my son Chris and I got back home from an elk hunting trip. One of his first of many. When we got into the house, we heard this yippin going on. OMG I thought, my wife Jan has gone and done it. For weeks she had been talking about getting a lap dog. Now she had finally done it. After alittle searching we found the source of the yipping. A tiny, almost white little furry puppy. Well, I told Chris, It's not a poodle. What do you think it is.
We didn't know what he was. Jan was still gone at work so we would have to wait till she got home to find out. When she got home the questioning started. Well, she said. I'm not really sure what he is. I went to the Safeway grocery store and when I came out, there was some kids in the parking lot with a box full of puppies they were wanting to give away. So I picked the smallest one. Well, from that start, as they say, the rest is history. He was now part of the family. As he grew and grew, it became more apparent that, at the least, he was mostly yellow lab. He grew into one fine beautiful and loving dog. I don't think that he ever once growled or snapped at anyone. He especially loved kids and they loved him. As the next year rolled around, I thought, let's see if he'll hunt. He did, and that started a very great relationship there. Old Moose traveled many thousands of miles on hunting and fishing trips, and spent many a week in elk hunting camps. He was always ready and eager to go, no matter what the journey. Everyone that ever came over always looked forward to seeing Moosie. Our family really misses him. It was really tough loosing him.
Well, goodbye Moosie. We all miss you very much. You are forever deeply etched in our Hearts and Memories. You will always be very special.

[Kt29]

Sunday August 30th--My buddy Russ came over about 08:30 and we headed out for Indian Creek to spend the day shooting prairie dogs.
Temps., very pleasant, about 73 degrees with clear blue skies. The prairie winds were at full song though, which made for a very challenging shoot. Prairie dogs were everywhere for a couple of miles. Russ and I spent the day sneaking over ridges, setting up, and shooting till the dogs wouldn't come up anymore. Then we would move on to the next ridge.
Did a lot of missing for sure, but also misted alot of dogs. Russ and I were both using .223's and bipods. Never seen another soul today. It was great. Did have some antelope drop in on us, as well as a burrowing owl, and a fly by by a golden eagle. The day went to fast. Was just plain great to be out today. A great day on the prairie.


Tuesday- Sept. 1st----Today was the opener for our dove season. Loaded up Dakota at 5:00 this afternoon and headed down the road for a late afternoon shoot. Headed to a small stock dam that we had shot over before. Had only a few doves fly by. "Did shoot and miss one. Kept seeing doves flying over a small ridge about 300 yards north of me. Headed over there with about a half hour of light left. Found there was a small pond here that I had not known about. Doves were coming and going, especially when we scared up all the ones sitting by the pond.
As it turned out, we had a very fun shoot for about 25 minutes or so. Managed to knock down four birds. They all fell in the tall grass, and Dakota found them all. "Good Girl" May try this place tomorrow evening again if things work out. Today sorta was like sitting by a duck pond and shooting at very tiny incoming ducks. Sure was great to be out in the field again with the 20 ga. and my little girl Dakota. This is what life is all about.

[Kt29]

Was able to get out again this late afternoon for some doves. Went out to the same spot as yesterday. Got there at 6:00 PM. Temp about 80 degrees with clear blue skies and wind out of NW about 10-15. Doves were flying on and off the whole time we were there till 7:15. Managed to shoot a box of 7 1/2's and bring down 7 birds. Dakota found and retrieved all birds. One came down in the stock dam. No problem swimming out and retrieving it. Probably could have shot several boxes of shells today. Found the incoming birds with the wind were just way to fast for me to hit. Shot many a shell proving that. Most birds were shot after they swung into the wind. Was an excellent day dove hunting, at least for prairie doves.

[Kt29]

Dakota and I headed out again this late afternoon, to hunt some more doves. Got to our little spot by the stockdam a little after six. Clear blue skies again today with temps. at 82 when we left the house. Lots of birds flying today. Harvest is finally in full swing now and there seems to be more birds around. Dakota really is taking to this dove hunting. She sits next to me in anticipation for a retrieve. My shooting was somewhat better today. By the end of shooting time had downed 15 birds in under a box of shells including a miraculous double. One bird was not retrieved. Dakota looked hard, but couldn't come up with it. Certainly not an Argentina hunt, I'll take a bunch of shooting at birds any time.
Another great and fun day on the prairie.

[Kt29]

Spent another late afternoon at our dove shooting spot down by the pond. Just a beautiful late afternoon. Clear blue skies, slight breeze, and about 70 degrees. Lots of doves flying this afternoon. Dakota is really lovin this dove stuff. She got to make four water retrieves today. Man is that fun to watch. Though she has never seen a duck, it will be interesting to see what happens if I'm able to get her out duck hunting this fall. Its fun to watch her when we get to our spot. At first she runs around sniffing anything and everything. After the first shot, she is right there at my side watching birds. When she spots some coming in, she starts getting pretty excited. At the sound of the gun going off, she's off after the bird. That's been a real training lesson for her, as she has now learned the true meaning of "No Bird". We have been able to practice that scenario many times so far. Left the pond at 7:00. Had 14 birds in the bag. All birds were found and retrieved today. Was one of those days when one just didn't want to go home. As an extra bonus today, there were absolutely no bugs out. Man, I really love this time of year.

[Kt29]

After a long wet weekend, was able to make it out this morning to hunt up some sharptail grouse. Dakota and I left the house about 7:00 this morning. Temps. already at 61 degrees with winds already out of the south at 25 MPH, and RL, pretty high. Lookin like its going to be a very warm week in contrast to our very cool and wet summer. Drove to one of my favorite grouse spots about ten minutes down the road. Vegetation to high to drive the last half mile. Dakota was ready to go as was I. We walked down to the field to were to hunt. Walking will be hard this year as the vegetative growth as been astronomical. When we got into the field, Dakota immediatiely got onto some birds, which turned out to be pheasants. Was great to see a young brood of pheasants. Not sure I would see any this year. Made one edge of the field and found no more birds. After we got to the end of our second pass through the field, we stopped at the edge of the field to water up.
As I was standing there, I was thinking to myself, how hard it was going to be to find any birds this year since the winter kill was horrendous this year. Also was thinking about how hard it was going to be to locate any birds, as nearly 50 percent of the grain fields around here have not been harvested yet. I have never seen this late of a harvest of grains ever. Here it is mid September and everywhere you look, unharvested fields. A tremendous crop this year, but late in developing and lately alot of rain has prevented harvesting. Nothing easy in this country. Well, about the time I was done contemplating what to do next, up came a flock of sharptails, about 12 or 14. They were across the fence in an unharvested wheat field. They hit the 25 MPH wind and were gone. There was some lead following them, but to no avail. It was nice at least to know that I could find a bird and that there were still some around. Right now, there is just to much country to hunt that contains way to many acres of unharvested grains. This will be a very tough hunting year for birds no doubt. One must take the good with the bad. Previous years have just been outstanding. Dakota and I made out way back to the truck along an old two-track that ran alongside of a harvested wheat field. On the walk, one sharptail spooked that had been out in the field feeding. Was surprised to see a lone bird this time of year. Was no chance at a shot at this bird. As we got back up to the truck, Dakota got birdy again. She got into another small family group of pheasants. She got them all put up. Was a nice way to end the hunt. We were both happy. I saw some more pheasants and she got to work them. I must say that by now, it was getting really warm and my butt was really draggin. We loaded up and drove over to another field that I like to hunt, just to check it out. I could see that this would be another case where we would have to walk in quite aways just to start hunting. Will see what tomorrow brings, but it is supposed to be close to 90. This field also has an unharvested wheatfield on two sides, and an unharvested sunflower field on another. Finding a bird will be difficult yet. Still it was great to get out today. We both enjoyed the morning.

[4Pointer]

THEY ARE SOME GREAT PIC'S BUDDY,, SORRY I MISSED THEM...

[Kt29]

Sept 14, 2009 20:20:26 GMT -5 4Pointer said:

THEY ARE SOME GREAT PIC'S BUDDY,, SORRY I MISSED THEM...

Thanks Larry. It was really hard loosing him.

[Kt29]

Decided this morning to head out to the rifle range and test out a few more loads. Thought about going grouse hunting, but again this morning it was warming up very fast again. Left the house about 6:20 and got to the range at 6:45. Skies were bright blue, temp. at 55 and winds out of south about 5 MPH. About a mile from the range I encountered a flock of huns that were siting on the road graveling up. Was nice to see them, but didn't have a shotgun along. When I got to the range, I set up to shoot at 100 yards. Took along a few 75 gr. V-Max loads for the 6MM. Tried out the first load, which was load #7 for H4350 powder. Best I could shoot with it was 1" groups. Switched back to my best load #6. Averaged 0.48" groups with this load. Guess it is still my best load. In reality, probably is good enough. But I'm always comparing this rifle I built to my old Ruger 6MM. Thas was an awesome rifle. It was always good for shooting 0.30" groups. I may never get this rifle to shoot that good, but it is sure fun trying. Also brought along some 100 gr. Sierra Prohunters that I plan on eventually using for deer hunting. I have not done any load development at all for this load. My one and only load shoots right around 0.75". Today it shot 0.80". Still not all that bad for a rifle that I built. I'm sure I will start tinkering with this load this fall, and see how good I can get it. As the temps. were again steadily rising this morning, I allowed a five minute cool down peroid between shots. To make the five minutes between shots go faster, I brought along the Henry .22LR. Just for fun, I selected the steel target out at 200 yards to shoot at. After some playing around, I was finally able to hit the metal. It doesn't make much of a ping at 200 yards though. But shooting at it with iron sights was alot of fun. Was kinda fun to know that I good hit it. As I was packing up to leave, I noticed that the farmer that was working the wheat field on the south border of the range parking lot showed up. It was Curt, my neighbors brother. 'Went and talked with him alittle. He was in the process of baling the wheat straw in the just completed harvested field. Asked him how the yield was on this field. He said this field had run 72 bushels per acre, which is just a historic high yield. Last year this field was not even harvested, as growth never even got as high as the previous years stubble. Last year was a desperately bad year for a grain farmer in this part of the world. Was a very nice early morning at the range. Dakota was along, and she had a great time checking stuff out.

[Kt29]

Yestday morning, my buddy Dave came over at 6:45 A.M. and we headed up North to look for some sharptails. Was just a beautiful morning. Clear skies, no wind, and about 50 degrees. Dave brought along his golden retriever, Sonny. We hit two nice fields. Temp. was warming up very fast. I hunted in my shirt sleeves. We were not able to find any birds this morning. As it was warming up very fast, we quit at about 9:00. The dogs were getting pretty hot.

This morning Dakota and I headed out to look for some sharptails. Again, it was a very beautiful morning. Clear skies again, with no wind and rising temps., just about like yesterday. Went over to a field SW of the house. Dakota got birdy early on in the hunt but found no birds. After about 45 minutes she got birdy again. With a little searching, she put up a single sharptail, which I managed to hit. Bird was found and retrieved. Was somewhat anusual to find only one single bird. I'm guessing with the super nice weather, the birds have been leaving their bedding spots at sun up to go out to feed. Probably this bird snoozed in alittle to long. This was the first bird of the season. At least now we won't be skunked this year. As the temps. were really warming up fast again, we shut down at 9:00 and headed for home. Was a beautiful morning.

[Kt29]

Entry for Saturday November 14th

Going out today to hunt for a Mule Deer buck along with my buddy Russ and his son Dave. Dave has the buck tag and is home from college to be able to hunt today. Last week they hunted and Russ was able to get a nice mule deer buck. Today is Dave's last chance to hunt as he must go back to college tomorrow and the following weekend he has National Guard training, which is also the last weekend of deer rifle season. I am tagging along to help Dave find that buck. I do have a doe tag for this unit, so will be carrying my rifle, but have no plans on shooting a deer. This hunt is all about Dave.

The morning broke clear and crisp. 17 degrees out on my thermometer. Spent awhile waiting for Russ to show up. Finally at 0700 Russ calls. Running late he says. Two more stops and we'll be there. Nothing new here. S.O.P. for Russ. Finally at 0730 Russ shows up and we head out for the badlands. Somewheres alittle after 8:00 we get to where we want to be. We gear up and all head out. As Russ has shot his deer with rifle already he still has a bow tag, so he packed along his Mathews Switchback, just in case. After about a half hour hike we were where we wanted to be. We were back in Davis Creek, in the middle of thousands of public ground acres and there was not another soul to be found for miles. Winds were light and generally out of the North, so the plan was to start our spot and stalk hunt going North into the wind. By now the sun had been up for awhile and temps. now somewheres around 32 degrees. With the warming sun, one could now start to smell the aromas of the sagebrush, cedars, and junipers. It all felt good. We were all pretty excited about the day. Everything felt good.

The above pic is the area in the Badlands that we were hunting.


Russ felt the need to get a pic of me for the hunt.


The above pic was our first spot to stop and glass. Across the draw we spotted a doe bedded down in a small opening towards center of the pic. We watched her for awhile hoping that there may be a buck bedded somewheres near. She was at 245 yards across the draw. The only down side of these spot in stalks in this country, is that you can see across and into the draws but you can't see much below you, but that's part of the hunt. After some glassing we spotted a small buck moving up the ridge north of where the doe was. We watched him go over the hill. We picked up and moved on continueing going north. We crossed out of this drainage in the area where the small buck went over the hill. It was a great feeling to be into deer right away. Dave was really excited.


The above pic is of Russ and Dave glassing over another likely area.


In the above pic we spotted another doe bedded down. We could see it looking to the North. We spent quite abit of time glassing in hopes of possibibly spotting a buck that she may have been looking at. Not seeing any we started moving slowly, changing our view angle of the doe, still hoping to spot a buck. The anticipation of spotting a buck is electrifying.
Suddenly Russ, who is on point, stops suddenly and is down on his knees pointing. Exploding out of the cedar pocket not 50' in front of Russ is a very nice 4X4 muley. And I do mean exploding. In the blink of an eye he was around the point, down off the ridge and gone into one of the myriads of cedar draws. Dave never had a chance to get a shot. We probably had been within 40 yards of that buck for better than a half hour. Held up in that cedar pocket as he was, there was no chance of us spotting him. The whole event left our adrenalin level on high. We'd been busted big time. Let know one ever say that a mulie just moves along at a poegoe stick pace. This old boy had afterburners and used them. We looked the country over below us for awhile in hopes of spotting him, but to no avail. It was approximately 11:00 when we jumped him. We decided we would drop down to the bottom of the draw and take a break, have a snack and some water and plan our next move. After our break our plan was to go up over into the basin where we had spotted the last doe laying down. By now the winds were beginning to shift to the south and we were starting to get along ways from the truck. We would stalk into the next basin and hunt South into the wind back more towards the direction of the truck. As we started into the flats of the basin we spotted movement. It was the doe that had been bedded down. We could slowly see it moving off through the cedars. Than it was gone. Not much we could have done not to spook it as we had to cross out of this basin. When we got to the top of this basin we pulled up to glass the basin down before us. We immediately spotted another doe bedded down in a small flats just above a small cedar draw. We again watched it in hopes of spotting a buck as was looking to the north at something. After watching her for awhile, we spotted movement to the south right at the end of a spot where two cedar draws dumped into the main flats of the basin. Here, at somewhat of a trot came a small buck, he was headed out of the basin and right in our direction. We thought this was somewhat odd, but them we saw a coyote about a hundred yards behind him, than another coyote. The little buck headed over the ridge into the basin that we had just left. The coyotes got to the end of the draw and immediately turned back to the East. As it was getting later, we decided to drop down to the draw where the doe was. Dave would stay up higher on the ridge in case we busted out a shootable buck. Russ and I dropped down to the flats where the doe was. It wasn't long and we spotted the doe up and moving north of us and going back to the west. She had her fawn with her. We got within 50 yards of her. She was great to see, but no more bucks. Dave came down and joined us at the bottom of the basin. We got out the topo map and figured out exactly where we were and planned our next move. We decided we would keep on our Southern direction, as by now we were getting a pretty good breeze straight out of the south. The only other thing we had to decide was which side of the basin we would stalk on. We decided on the East side. With that plan we continued up the bottom of the basin till we started hitting the juniper and cedar pockets. We left the bottom of the basin and started slowly making our way up the East side of the basin towards the top of the basin. We stopped and talked alittle. We were excited. We could just feel deer around us. It was very exhillorating. We had just crossed out of a small cedar pocket part way up the ridge. Russ was down pointing. There he is whispered Russ. Ours eyes were glued at the side of the ridge in front of us. And there he was, a very nice buck making his way down the ridge, and coming right towards us. He was slowly moving and looking down the ridge at something. I spotted another small buck just above another small cedar draw that was in front of us. That buck was headed towards the smaller buck and the cedar draw.
We watched him slowly move closer and closer. Dave now had his rifle up on Russ's polecat and had the buck in his sights, waiting for the shot to present itself. It soon became evident that there would be no broadside shot at this buck as it was heading down into the draw along with the smaller buck. Russ told Dave that he's better take the buck chest on before it dropped down to low to get a good shot. I lasered the buck at 201 yards. Dave took steady aim. We never heard the report from the Browning Abolt. Dave delivered the 110 grain Accubond from his 25-06 to a perfect bullseye. It was now 1:30. The big muley never took another step. He went straight down. There a moment of silence as what had just happened, and than alot of excietement as to what did happen. Wow! It's just hard to describe how exciting the moment was. It will be a memory that I will have forever. Dave and Russ were beside themselfs. We had all hunted hard and with a solid plan. Dave was at a loss of words. Seeing a young man like Dave bring down this nice buck was very heartwarming. Especially when he and his Dad are great friends. What a Great hunt. Russ may have even been more excited than Dave.

Pic of Dave's buck down.

The above pic is the location from where we were when Dave shot the buck.

A pic of one happy young man, Dave with his buck.

Now that we had the buck down, we had to figure out where we were and how to get back to the truck. We got out the topo again and located where the truck was. In order to get the buck out, we badly needed the deer cart in the back of Russ's truck. Dave's mission was to find his way back to the truck, get the cart and bring it back to us. Russ and I would drag the deer off the ridge and down to the bottom of the basin and down the basin to a spot where we thought we needed to head out of the basin back to the truck. And that is what we did. When we got to a spot where dragging started to be uphill, that was where we stopped. We spent some time marveling about just how great the day way. At one point in time we had two Golden eagles come soaring overhead. A punctuation to our hunt for sure. What a cool deal.


The above pic is of Russ and Dave loading the cart. Once loaded we began our trek back to the truck. Dave had scouted the route back to the truck. So it was just amatter of pushing and pulling our way back. Finally Dave says. The trucks just up over this next hill. And it was, what a great feeling it was to be back at the truck. It was now 4:00 and the temp. was back down to 37 degrees. The sun was just starting to set over the Little Missoure river to the west. Teddy Roosevelt once called this area home. We are more than happy to call this our home.
A Great Hunt with Great friends, makes a Memorable Great Day.
Congrats Davey on your Great Buck.