Our Whitetail season starts this Saturday and I am going nuts waiting for it to begin. This is the first hunting season I have owned an ATV and I spent last weekend scouting our hunting place with the AC 500. It has been so useful in so many ways already. I don't know how I ever got along without it!!!

My thought for this post was for all of you fellow hunters to share a story about how your ATV helped you in regards to hunting.

My first noticed benefit was during scouting. We hunt about 375 acres of which about half is timber and the timber is on the other side of a creek\river (depending on recent rain) from where we can get our trucks. The amount of ground I was able to cover while looking for sign of deer last weekend was unbelievable. Not only that but I was able to cross the river without getting my feet wet. I found a great spot in an area I've never walked to before & spooked up a nice big buck who was working on a scrape. That's the first scrape I've seen on this property!! After following his trail for a little while I found another!! I think I'll set my stand up on his little highway between those scrapes.

Anyways, let's hear about your hunting stories, I don't even care if they are ATV related, anything about hunting is good right now.

Lance

 

Catlance:
Best of luck with your hunt, hope it works out for the best. I just returned from an awesome, but rather dissappointing elk hunt. Could have had two different elk, on two different occassions, but it just wasn't in the cards I guess. The first was just dumb luck. She came out about 75 yards above me, but with the low branches I was in, it was a bad shot. I stepped down lower to get a better angle, and slipped in the mud, fell clear down to the bottom of the creek bed. As I was sliding down on my rear end, I had pulled up on her, but she jumped into the thicker trees, and all I had was a shot in the hind end. Didn't want to loose that much meat, so I never fired. Ended up wet, in the bottom of a small stream.

Next chance was completely ruined by 3 guys on atv's. My partner and I both had our crosshairs on two different elk. problem was, they were in some heavy cover about 250 yards out. They were working out towards the clearing, so we waited. Everything was working out well, till these other idiots showed up. The atv's themselves didn't bother the elk, but when the guys started yelling and screaming, they jumped up and took off the other direction, back into the trees, couldn't get a shot off. Man, we were extremely mad, to say the least.

Another guy shot a cow, and as we were following the blood trail, we arrived just in time to see a couple guys from the camp below us load her up into their truck and drive off. That took the cake, and all hell broke loose.

Aside from the several mishaps, it was a great time. I did get to haul half of a spike for a guy way up in the high country, and tow out a 450 with the other half at the same time. We both were riding double, each with half an elk, and he just got high centered, and then stuck in some deep snow/mud stuff. I was really happy to help, and he was very glad I was there, so it worked out great. I didn't know any of the guys, just saw them having troubles down below and stopped to see if they could use a hand. They said they had an elk down about 5 miles up, and were working on getting it out, so I said I'd give them a hand, and we went from there. That was really great to see, and take part in, even though our own camp didn't get anything.

Anyway, hope your hunt turns out a lot better than mine did! Either way, it should be fun no matter what. If you really get down to it, it's the hunt itself that is so gratifying. Bagging something is just icing on the cake. It's always awesome to have the chance to enjoy our great outdoors on both atv's, and by foot, whether carrying a rifle, or spotting scope.

BTW-ELECTION DAY IS TOMORROW, EVERYBODY GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

Mike

 

Cowboy,

Sounds like you had an interesting & fun extended weekend. I got a call from a friend last Thursday night, he was in Glenwood Springs, CO (my hometown) and the guys he went out there with to go elk hunting had broken their rig (exploded transfer case in a '99 Suburban). He knew I was from there & asked me if I knew anyone who would haul their trailer with supplies up into the flat-tops, drop them off so they could hunt, then come back up on Monday & pick them up. Needless to say, that didn't work out, so the next day they offered to buy me an elk tag ($300) if I would drive out there (14 hours) & pull their trailer into the mountains & back down again. It was an interesting proposal as I haven't been elk hunting in about 15 years but the last minuteness of it & the fact that they were going to hunt on public BLM land turned me off (not to mention the 30 some hours of driving in 4 days). The stories you tell of dealings with other hunters scare me & **** me off. I just don't trust most other people as far as hunting goes. I prefer to know who is around & where they are while hunting. Anyways, by staying home I got to get out & scout for Whitetail. Maybe in a year or so I'll be able to plan out an elk hunting trip, maybe do a private ranch hunt or something like that, the Cat I'm sure will be a big part of that trip though.

Thanks for your story.

Lance