Another Lul

Fishing is picking up. The water temps are good. The only problem is the wind right now. My last trip was Tuesday and we had gusts over thirty...supposed to have been 45. My guys were never-evers and even with the worst conditions possible for a new-comer, we still caught a few good ones and a bunch of tweeners. They were also elk hunting so they had to get off the river early. Not a bad day to end on but I'd like a few more cracks at guiding this year before I start stripping line off the reels and getting ready for next season.

As for the hunting, they hadn't been seeing much for elk, which is understandable given the conditions. There's no snow up high and the highs are in the sixties still during the day. That won't make them move much. The deer are still a week out of rut so the big boys aren't moving until late at night. They should get into it in the next couple weeks and then we will start seeing the monsters randomly showing up where you hadn't been seeing them. If you're seeing does now, you'll see the bucks soon enough. And the ducks? The locals are gone and the Northern flight is still up North. We need snow in Canada.

The other day I did take my taxidermist out for whitetails. She had surgery on her knee and can't get around fully yet so I took her to some private land I've been hunting birds on. An hour into it she took a good buck. One shot, right through the lungs and then it rolled all the way down into a coulee. I think I need a wench on my truck.

So we loaded it up and I decided to take a walk to another drainage I had seen some good bucks the week before. I glassed across the drainage and saw a couple grazing on the other side. We slid along the ridge and got behind an outcropping of big boulders. As we approached the boulders to get a better look at the deer across the drainage, an antler popped up between the rocks. There was a big 5X5 whitetail hiding out in the rocks. He jumped up, scaring the crap out of me, and took off. I thought he'd go straight down hill so I jumped up on the rocks to get a shot. He deaked me and circled up hill and then back around us. When we first saw him he was only about ten feet away. As he circled, I ran around the corner of the rocks. He busted out of some brush that encased the boulders at about 30 yards. I got him in the scope and squeezed off a couple rounds but before I could even think about what was happening he had quickly put a couple hundred yards between us. We watched him run non-stop for about a mile and a half down the drainage, up another coulee, over a hill and then down the main creek bottom. Didn't touch him. I hope I see him again when the rut starts.

Keep 'em where they live...