As August ends my fishing gear gets put away for the hunting season to start chasing elk with bow and rifle along with some shotgun time for upland birds. On Monday the 15th of September my hunting partner and I headed to Wyoming to chase elk with our bows after drawing a western region general tag. I had scouted a new to us area in late July and found several groups of elk, so expectations were high. The 1st evening we found a good group with a nice 6x in the herd but to far away at that time of the evening to do anything with, so we watched them and headed back to camp with the discussion about how to approach it in the am. While eating dinner we changed plans and decided to go back there on Tuesday evening to see if they did the same thing and that am we would check out the valley below the ridge we had seen them on to see if access was better from below. That afternoon we went back to the spot we had seen them from and it was a no show for the elk and on Wednesday am we went in from the valley below to see if we could locate them. Other then a bull moose no elk were seen and few tracks, so that afternoon we decided to check out another area north of camp. We took the SXS up a road to an area that looked nice and saw another couple moose, on the way back down Bill made a comment about all the dust that was blowing up the canyon we were camped in. I looked over and said that looks like smoke and then a big black cloud billowed up, shortly after a kid on a dirt bike that was headed up the hill to hunt stopped next to us as we pulled over to let him by and he asked if we new who owned a Utah RV and Toyota truck, and I said that is us. He then said I don’t know how to tell you, but your having a bad day and then showed us video of the camper and truck on fire. When we got to camp this is what we found, probably less the 15mins from when we saw the 1st smoke.
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The only thing on in the RV was the propane fridge so guessing it was the source, the kids parents had called the FD and then let me use his truck to go call my wife to come get us as there was no cell service where we were at. Other than our hunting packs, optics and clothes we were wearing and the SXS everything else was gone. Wife got there about 10:20pm and took us home and the next couple of days we were calling the insurance companies and then taking my partner back to his house in Truckee, Ca.
The discussion at the house prior to the fire was weather we were going to sell the Class C and by a 5th wheel for a 2 month trip to Alaska next summer, so after the insurance settled on the Class C amount we purchased a new 5er. While this was going on I ordered some new gear that had been lost and am still in the process of ID’ing all the items lost and costs (this side of the claim has been a royal PIA)
Headed back to the units in Wyoming for the rifle opener for 5 days staying in a hotel during this trip, only saw a couple elk that were way out of rifle range and tons of hunters so came home to get ready to help a neighbor that is an outfitter that guides a CWMU (have been doing this the past 5 years). During the break we picked up the new 5er and brought it home and got it ready for the 2 weeks of deer hunts with the outfitter
New 5th wheel
While I’m getting ready to go Dave. (The outfitter) calls me and asks me to cook for the 2 groups coming in as our normal cook had to retire due to some health issues. I said yes and then spent a bunch of time making up a menu and shopping for the hunts. The day before we leave Dave calls and asks if I want a deer tag as someone canceled and it’s to late to replace the hunter. He goes down to a DWR office with the vouchers and gets the tags right before the hunt as people backing out is not uncommon. So after the 1st group was done we had about 2 days before the next group showed up and I was able to get this buck.
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2nd group finished up yesterday and now I’m back home and looking at the weather with possible plans to go back over to Wyoming and fill the elk tag with a cow.
