11-07-2017, 02:44 AM
Hey curt,
We never got more than a mile from the roads. Most of the time we were within a half mile and one of the deer we got was seen from the road and my daughter walked a few steps off of the road and shot it.
I think we did better than most groups, but we probably had a home field advantage too. We generally have a 100% success rate each year. The benefit of living in Garden City is that I can see well in advance of the season what the deer numbers are like for any given area that we hunt. Knowing ahead of time that the numbers are down in very localized areas helped in knowing what areas to not waste time in. Most of the areas up here still held plenty of deer, but understanding their local haunts and habits made a huge difference. In other words, knowing where NOT to waste time made a big difference since it allowed us to hunt in more productive spots.
As far as elk are concerned, I am currently hunting with my brother and daughter for muzzleloader spike elk and just tonight we saw several different herds and about 60-70 elk total this evening. 4 were spikes, but we left them alone this evening so that we can hunt them tomorrow morning in better conditions. I have noticed no reduction in elk numbers this year....they seem as plentiful as ever in the areas that I hunt on the Cache and Rich units, but as previously stated the deer numbers are down a bit and I think we will see the real damage next season rather than what we saw this season, but I hope I'm wrong.
Mike
[signature]
We never got more than a mile from the roads. Most of the time we were within a half mile and one of the deer we got was seen from the road and my daughter walked a few steps off of the road and shot it.
I think we did better than most groups, but we probably had a home field advantage too. We generally have a 100% success rate each year. The benefit of living in Garden City is that I can see well in advance of the season what the deer numbers are like for any given area that we hunt. Knowing ahead of time that the numbers are down in very localized areas helped in knowing what areas to not waste time in. Most of the areas up here still held plenty of deer, but understanding their local haunts and habits made a huge difference. In other words, knowing where NOT to waste time made a big difference since it allowed us to hunt in more productive spots.
As far as elk are concerned, I am currently hunting with my brother and daughter for muzzleloader spike elk and just tonight we saw several different herds and about 60-70 elk total this evening. 4 were spikes, but we left them alone this evening so that we can hunt them tomorrow morning in better conditions. I have noticed no reduction in elk numbers this year....they seem as plentiful as ever in the areas that I hunt on the Cache and Rich units, but as previously stated the deer numbers are down a bit and I think we will see the real damage next season rather than what we saw this season, but I hope I'm wrong.
Mike
[signature]