Another Fun Camping Trip

Here are some pictures of our most recent camping trip. It was awesome! We found a gap in the rainy weather. The night wasn't to cold. The fishing was great! It was a very enjoyable trip.

One Amazing Brother

One Amazing Brother

My brother has had some big shoes to fill as he has been growing up . I have been consumed with outdoor activities . That has been a big part of my life as I have grown up . I dreamed about becoming an extreme outdoors man . In my quest to attain this I have become what many people call the crazy hiker . I hike up one mountain down and then up the next . With this I've created this picture of how to be when you grow up for my younger brothers . This picture is far more extreme than what I grew up as . My brother has become my hunting/hiking companion in all this . I just have to reflect how amazing He is through all this . He is far tougher than what I was at his age . We hike through the thickest, steepest, unbearable ground you can imagine and he doesn't say a word of complaint . He doesn't even get jealous even if I find the moose paddles . This picture was taken in some pretty extreme weather . On that day we hiked up a steep mountain . The whole time it was raining like crazy and making us terribly wet . Then just like Northern weather can be it started to get extremely cold and snowy . You would not believe how quickly something like this can become a dangerous situation . You find you self on the top of a mountain so cold and wet you can't strike a match . Even if you do try finding dry tender up there . As you can see in the picture we managed . Kaleb had brought some of those candles that don't go out even if you blow on them . After we dried out then we hiked home over all the wet blow down timber . Hiking sounds kind of deceiving . Sometimes the blow down will be so bad to get through, you have to hike miles jumping from log to log (No exaggeration here up to 15 feet off the ground.). The real point here is that it doesn't seem to matter what kind of conditions, my brother excels in them all .

Mule Deer Myths

I recently visited a friend who shared an opinion that seems quite popular. There are quite a few of these misconceptions floating around. The ones I'm referring to regard mule deer. It seems they believe that mule deer are dumb. Every animal has its own plan of escape. They are all praised for their own abilities. The whitetail has got to be the most alert, the slightest move and their gone. Elk have this amazing ability to appear and disappear like a ghost. No animal, in my opinion, has a plan of escape like a mule deer. Their tactic is to sit on the highest mountain around and peer all the way down. They spot danger while it climbs miles below. Then they use their prepared route and escape. The point is you never catch a glimpse of them before they're gone. Most of the myths are formed from people that have only watched small mule deer bucks. The same idea could be drawn from some one who has only watched small whitetail bucks.

Fall Reminiscence

Hi fellow blogger, I decided to do this post mostly on what has been happening lately.

Hunting season ran from September 05 to November 29. That has consumed most of my time. I'll put some pictures of our hunts on this post. The elk is the grand prize, the one dreamed about all year. Around here harvesting an elk any elk is a huge feat. Its taken a huge amount of dedication. Of the last six years I've hunted here my family has harvested two elk. The only way I can describe it is extremely physically challenging. Too stand any chance at all you must hike dawn too dusk up the steepest, thickest most unforgiving terrain Montana has to offer. Not just once or twice but every day of the 80 day hunting season. Some times you have to literaly run up the mountains to keep up with the elk. At the same time you have to keep constant watch for the competition whom also is in a constant pursuit of the elk namely Grizzly bears,Mountain lions and the top elk predator wolves. At times I've been almost to the elk only to find the wolves got to them first as evident by the chase and then the half eaten elk I found. This year we over came and have a freezer full of meat to show for it. After the hunt I returned to find a beautiful grizzly bear had claimed ownership of the left over elk carcass that lay on the mountain.

More shed hunting pictures

I have been busy shed hunting again. That is why I have not made a post in a while. Here is some pics from today's hike. The top picture is of a female blue grouse. The one under that is a male trying to scare off the competition. Then a pictures of K3 and K1. Finally a picture of some mountains.

My Shed Hunting Adventure

The snow has been melting like crazy the last few days. Because of that, the shed hunters have been in all my favorite spots. To add to the discouragement I had been looking for sheds the past several days and not found a single one. This day would be different though. I gassed up my motorcycle and went up a mountain road. I hid my motorcycle in the bushes and started climbing up the mountain. As soon as I started, I felt God telling me to go on the far side of the mountain. I was having a hard time with this because I was intending on going on the other side of the mountain. After a while, I finally listened and right away I found a huge six point elk antler. I looked for the other side and found a set of white tail antlers. Then I went to the edge of a cliff and started praising God and thanking Him. There are not very many elk in our area so finding an elk antler is a rare privilege. Then God told me there was an elk antler down on the cliff. He told me if I did exactly what He said I would be going home with two elk antlers. I didn't take him seriously at first and decided to go look for the other side of the big elk antlers (I'm holding in the top picture). Mean while, He said "Aren't you going to go get it?". I told Him " How could there be an antler off the cliff ?". "I'm looking for elk antlers not mountain goats". Finally, I gave up and said " OK, OK an elk fell off the cliff ". I did not want to climb down in the steep rocks. I decided to listen. God led me to a chute in the cliff and I went through it. Then He led me through some brakes in the cliffs I kept going and walked right up to a seven point elk antler.
Every big antler I've ever found was because He told me where to find it. If there is any thing I've learned in the past seventeen years of my life it is this. If God tells you to do some thing, do it.

Pictures from Today's Hike

Here is some pictures we took today on our walk. We stumbled upon a unique opportunity. Some cat chasers were out after a lion. We heard the dogs down in the valley so we investigated. We actually beat one of the chasers to the treed lion. This gave us an opportunity to get some good pictures. The reason I call them cat chasers is because hunting season for lions is over. The cat chase season is going on right now. The cat chase season is a very important form of managing mountain lions. It allows us to know information about the lions in the area. It makes lions have a fear of man and reduces attacks. In California this season has been banned and as a result California has a lot of lion attacks. Lions are not hurt in any way during this chase. Once the lion is treed the cat chaser takes pictures and then brings his dogs away so the lion can be on its way.

Just Another Day on the Mountain

Just Another Day on the Mountain.

I bet you were wondering if I would ever make another post again. Well the reason for the delay is that I have been doing more exciting things then blogging. I have been snow shoeing out in the mountains with my brother. Here are some pictures from today's hike. The top picture is of blood that a deer was spilling out of its wounds as it was running away from the wolves. My brother and I followed the the trail for a while. The second from the top is one of the sets of lion tracks we saw. The third from the top is a picture of my brother hiking through the snow. The bottom is a picture of me in front of a nameless mountain.

We had a lot of fun out in the mountains today. We saw three different sets of lion tracks, a lot of wolf tracks, two sets of coyote tracks, and one set of bobcat tracks. Notice we are both carrying 30-06 bolt actions. This day and age I won't travel on the mountain with out a firearm of some kind. I have had a scary experience with every kind of big predator that walks these mountains. You just never know what a lion might do if it is hungry enough and you show up.

Gun Free Zones

In this day and age the news is always talking about some school shooting. Recently there was even a shooting in Glasgow, Montana. All the shootings have one thing in common. They all happened in "Gun Free Zones". Do you honestly think a criminal cares if there is a sign that says "No Guns". When he is about to go in and murder people? Actually all it means is that the people in side are all defenseless. It means that the murderer can walk right in and murder people until the swat team shows up. The most dangerous places in America are "Gun Free Zones". If the pilots flying on 9/11 had guns the twin towers might still be standing. If the Virgina Tech. teachers had guns 32 students might not have died. Shootings could be stopped, hundreds of lives could be saved. The criminals will always have guns. The only thing that "Gun Control" does is make it easier for the criminals.

PETA Trapping Myths

One of PETA's big targets is fur industry. The lies I'm going to talk about revolve around traps. The first thing they lie about is how much pain the animals go through from being caught. This shows me that they know nothing about traps. The most common kind of traps out there today are the foot hold and the conibear. The foot hold catches the animal on the foot pad. The reason for this is to prevent the animal from getting hurt. This way any non target animal can be let go with out injury. The animal I will use for an example is the bobcat. Bobcats have no shoes so they have a tough pad on the bottom of thier feet. They can walk on razor sharp ice and rocks with out getting hurt. Getting caught in a foot hold does not hurt the animal because the trap grasps his foot pad. Its like getting caught on the bottom of your shoe. Conibears kill the animal extremely quickly. The animal is dead before he knows what is going on. How this is inhumane I don't know. PETA also tries to say that there are no trapping laws. This is a complete lie. The FWP closely monitors the season. They make sure no animals are over harvested. They make sure that trapping is done is a ethical and respectful manner.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

PETA the name is deceiving. I'm all for the ethical treatment of animals. This organization has a good idea but it is made up of ignorant people. I'm an example of some one who cares and conserves animals. I strive to make sure they do not receive unnecessary suffering. I have recently looked and read in the PETA website. What I found was that they bashed things that they the obviously knew nothing about. I could go on and on about all of the complete lies they wrote. They made it sound like we hunters shoot endangered animals. This is a complete lie, we take out the excess and the money we spend on licenses conserves the endangered species. The deer that I harvest reduces starving in the hard Montana winters. The problem in Montana is that every winter the mountain ranges get so full of snow that all the deer move in to the valleys. The deer are so confined that they eat all of the food and then go hungry. Last spring I encountered a starving deer. It was weak and feeble. It would not run and and stood there making terrible noises. The point is that control of the population keeps them from worse pain. Taking some out of the equation lets the others survive the winter. Rather than making them all starve. The way it use to be was that the population would be way up and then only a few would survive the winter. Then they would slowly gain in number until there was to many for the food that was available. I hate to think of massive die offs. The FWP uses tag numbers to bring the deer population to the perfect level so that the deer are not out there starving.

Obamunism

What has our country done. This country has always stood for freedom . Communism,Karl Marx first created this Idea. Every one would live with equal wealth. The problem was that this gave the Government to much power. This made the Leaders rich and the ordinary people poor. Obama has said he is going to redistribute the wealth. Does this sound familiar? I wonder if Obama is going to redistribute his wealth.

My familys hunting adventure

My sister's bear she got this year.

The top picture is of a Yaak lion, you can not see it very well.

This year my family harvested eight deer and two bear. Me,my parents and my sister all killed a buck and a doe a piece. My dad and my sister both got their bears. I on the other hand did not get my bear. I would rather not discuss that. We all tried to get an elk but failed. We all had fun and all got to see some cool predators. My dad and sister ran up over a hill after a seeing a patch of fur. They ran over the hill only to come face to face with a big sow grizzly with cubs. Thankfully the grizzly just retreated with her cubs. I had a couple cool encounters with mountain lions. One lion charged me and before I could do any thing the lion slid to a stop. I fired warning shots in to the ground to discourage the lion. The lion left and I quickly got out of the area. Here are some photos of our hunting adventures.

Here is a picture of my deer I got this year. I got him by sneaking through the timber. I saw this buck and a different buck like him in a chase after the same doe. Later that day I found them again this time I got a shot at him. I killed him with a single shot from my Ruger All Weather Ultra Light.

My post

It finally snowed the past couple of days. I was starting to go crazy because of how late it came. I live in Yaak Montana. I have been busy hunting and trapping. My sister and the rest of my family has been making blogs. I have wondered why, how boring why would I want to make a blog. I'm busy or at least I think I'm busy. My days are filled with all kinds of different activities. Why would I want to waste my time on the computer? I could be out there trudging through the deep snow in nineteen below weather. OK, I guess it is a little cold to be doing that. I still don't know why I'm making a blog. I mean why would some one want to waste their time reading about me? I guess they must be bored.