Fall 2016 trip....

Looks like a great trip. When do I get my sabbatical? Also jealous that you got to stay at Slough Creek. The campround and trails there were closed the whole week Dee Dee and I were out in Yellowstone.

The idea of 450 yard shots just seems incredible to an eastern hunter where sightlines rarely reach 100 yards.

A couple of questions: Was it difficult (or expensive) to get an elk tag? I've never really looked into a western big game hunt. Based on how hard it is for a non-resident to get a Maine moose permit, I've just always assumed getting a western elk tag without going through an outfitter would be very difficult.

Did your outfitter fly you directly into the wilderness area you hunted?

Those tiger trout are, of course, an abomination--a sin against nature and nature's god. Imagine creating a sterile Hungarian Partridge/Pheasant hybrid and deliberately introducing it into the heart of the West's best Sage Grouse habitat to provide hunting opportunity. I hope you guys killed and ate a pile of them!
 
Wow, what a trip. The Elk hunt and Jed Smith park, definitely highlights I'm sure. There are some great books about guys in the last 10 years or so bushwhacking and finding unknown Giant redwoods in the backcountry there.


Thanks for sharing.
 
Wow, what a trip. The Elk hunt and Jed Smith park, definitely highlights I'm sure. There are some great books about guys in the last 10 years or so bushwhacking and finding unknown Giant redwoods in the backcountry there.


Thanks for sharing.
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Hey Guys Thanks! I don't do the trips for the accolades, but it does put the whole thing in perspective, so THANKS for the Thanks! I don't think Gus has any idea how lucky he is, when I just a little older than him I was reading Outdoor Life and National Geographic and planting the seeds for trips like this for myself. Amazing world we have to explore.

One of the best parts of the trip was running across people hunting and Gus talking to people about hunting - although I hunt a lot - you just don't see that where we live, so talking to people who share an interest and having the hunting (and fishing) lifestyle so in your face was good.

On a side note, one thing I saw that I loved was all the women in camo in the west, from young girls to women older than me. I'm sure they all don't hunt, but having camo on and hunting as part of the community identity showed what we are missing here in CT and what we lost.

Again, guys, thanks for the comments.

T
 
Wow...is all I can say....you certainly walk the walk.
Can you please get to the part about how you invented velcro, or hit the lotto or something so I don't feel like a cheapskate dad for not doing that sort of thing with my boys?
 
Looks like a great trip. When do I get my sabbatical? Also jealous that you got to stay at Slough Creek. The campround and trails there were closed the whole week Dee Dee and I were out in Yellowstone.

The idea of 450 yard shots just seems incredible to an eastern hunter where sightlines rarely reach 100 yards.

A couple of questions: Was it difficult (or expensive) to get an elk tag? I've never really looked into a western big game hunt. Based on how hard it is for a non-resident to get a Maine moose permit, I've just always assumed getting a western elk tag without going through an outfitter would be very difficult.

Did your outfitter fly you directly into the wilderness area you hunted?

Those tiger trout are, of course, an abomination--a sin against nature and nature's god. Imagine creating a sterile Hungarian Partridge/Pheasant hybrid and deliberately introducing it into the heart of the West's best Sage Grouse habitat to provide hunting opportunity. I hope you guys killed and ate a pile of them!
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Don't be too jealous of us and Slough Creek, it was snowy, cold and wet and all burnt up by that fire - feel better? :)

450 yards, well... I hesitate to say it, but that isn't really all that far. For the past couple years I've been shooting a lot of my deer at 200-250 and if you can hit a deer that far, you can hit an elk at 450. My rest was good, the weather was right and you don't kill if you don't shoot.

As far as tags, I have been studying the process for a couple years and buying points in several states. I put in for a ton of tags for this trip from sheep, to moose to pronghorn to elk and came up with ZERO. I had a tag that I was planning on basing the trip around that for the past many years I was guaranteed to draw given the points I had, but one party with a lot of points put in and broke the curve. With no limited entry tag, you are left with over the counter (OTC) tags. In this unit there are OTC tags and this is what the tag I bought was. OTC units are usually lower quality units with lower success, in this area getting a mature bull like I did is about a 10% success rate (both with and without a guide combined). There was a lot of guide activity in the area where we were with about a dozen guys cycling through the area when we were there all with 100% success on horseback hunts, but my bull was the biggest :). Elk tag price was I think $400 on top of a $150 license.

The flight service that flew us was just a bush pilot, not an outfitter. The Frank Church Wilderness allows air transport to a certain number of strips within the wilderness, just like the "Bob", for example. We hunted within a 3 mile radius of the strip, which is a long ways if you consider packing your meat. It took us 6 man trips for Jen and I to get the 250# of boned out meat and head to the strip, so that equates to 15 miles of hiking per person.

The Tiger Trout are an important management tool to control minnows in this lake (but I think they just must have just got them on a bargain). I lost what would have easily been the Idaho state record Tiger within easy netting distance of the shore one day there. We did eat quite a few of them, they were not as good as cutthroats, but better than whitefish.
 
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The Tiger Trout are an important management tool to control minnows in this lake (but I think they just must have just got them on a bargain). I lost what would have easily been the Idaho state record Tiger within easy netting distance of the shore one day there. We did eat quite a few of them, they were not as good as cutthroats, but better than whitefish.
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Revealing my biases here, but stocking a sterile exotic species to control another introduced exotic species isn't exactly long-term management. If the minnows are an ecological problem, there are other tools, like rotenone, that could be used. I'm sure some would argue that the logistics of reclamation would be difficult, but so are the logistics for fish stocking, which has to be repeated forever if there is to be any long-term benefit. Rant over . . . and I'm sure the competing demands on the local managers are more complicated than I understand.



Thanks for the other information. I'll put it on the dream list and maybe start accumulating points. I guess I need to find a 400 yard rifle range.
 
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The Tiger Trout are an important management tool to control minnows in this lake (but I think they just must have just got them on a bargain). I lost what would have easily been the Idaho state record Tiger within easy netting distance of the shore one day there. We did eat quite a few of them, they were not as good as cutthroats, but better than whitefish.
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Revealing my biases here, but stocking a sterile exotic species to control another introduced exotic species isn't exactly long-term management. If the minnows are an ecological problem, there are other tools, like rotenone, that could be used. I'm sure some would argue that the logistics of reclamation would be difficult, but so are the logistics for fish stocking, which has to be repeated forever if there is to be any long-term benefit. Rant over . . . and I'm sure the competing demands on the local managers are more complicated than I understand.



Thanks for the other information. I'll put it on the dream list and maybe start accumulating points. I guess I need to find a 400 yard rifle range.
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No problem, rant expected and one of the reasons I put that series of pics in there :).
 
What a trip! I'm pretty spoiled but I'll admit to being jealous. I'm going back through to enjoy the photos again. You have the best behaved lab in history as well. ;-)
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Well behaved lab - maybe. I have a funny typical lab story from the trip.... This dog is not a scarfer like my older black one, but he likes a tidbit here and there. I was on the airstrip rushing to get ready before the pilot got there and stirring the elk brains with a hooked wire to dump out (can you see where this is going?). Pilot lands and I dump the brains on the ground and I turned to look at the plane and then look back and no brains. I was sure I was going to be cleaning brains out of the tent, but he kept them down.

He is a good travelling dog and learned a lot about grouse on this trip (he barks at treed ones, I like that). He has some quirks, but what can you expect???
 
Well behaved lab - maybe. I have a funny typical lab story from the trip.... This dog is not a scarfer like my older black one, but he likes a tidbit here and there. I was on the airstrip rushing to get ready before the pilot got there and stirring the elk brains with a hooked wire to dump out (can you see where this is going?). Pilot lands and I dump the brains on the ground and I turned to look at the plane and then look back and no brains. I was sure I was going to be cleaning brains out of the tent, but he kept them down.

He is a good travelling dog and learned a lot about grouse on this trip (he barks at treed ones, I like that). He has some quirks, but what can you expect???
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Just a good old lab, what's not to love? They're my favorite.
 
Great post Tod! Not sure if these will continue as annual posts but I have enjoyed the last couple, both pictures and narrative. Well done on the trips and with Gus.
Merry Christmas!
 
And here I was feeling sorry for you stuck in some out of the reach place, away from contact doing some monotonous research on some uninteresting subject.

How great is it for Gus to be shooting ducks and grouse! Inspiring scenery, trout to eat, little (and big) creepy crawlies, Gus educating a couple young ladies about cave paintings...what didn't that trip have? Oh nice elk too.

I hope Gus didn't give any blue haired snow bird a shock with that outfit. :)

Tim
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Don't be sorry for me :).

We tried pheasants too, but it was not meant to be. Having a pointer would have been nice (first time I ever thought that :).

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Tod,
It looks like you had a great trip and a great time. That is almost a lifetimes worth of trips for some of us! It was nice to vicariously travel along with, again.
Tom
 
Now Now guys,jealousy with get us nowhere LOL. Looks like another great adventure Tod. Thanks for doing such a good job taking us along for the ride.
 
Great post Tod! Not sure if these will continue as annual posts but I have enjoyed the last couple, both pictures and narrative. Well done on the trips and with Gus.
Merry Christmas!
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Thanks Troy, they will continue as long as I have the strength and means to do them! :)

Have a happy Solstice.
 
Tod

Looks like an awesome trip and great pictures, at least the ones that Jen took ;)

Crap has Gus grown. Before long he will be carrying those heavy deeks out to the marsh for you.
 
Tod,
This looks like a fantastic trip for your entire family! The experiences (and memories) look to be incredible. Thanks for sharing (and inspiring). Looking forward to many more reports in the coming years.
 
What a magnificent trip. I was thinking of your son and what his memory bank is now filled with. Thanks for all the splendid photos.
Al
 
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