Packing a bit extra for my High Country Bowhunt

[Family Tradition]

Heading up for the first (maybe last) High Country hunt of the season and for the first time ever I'm packing in my Ace in the hole #1 best buddy and super spotter/scouter.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/MSASSER/Lora.jpg

We had originaly planned a group backpacking trip but as one couple after another backed out and with the Archery season in full swing I went into used car salesman mode and sold her on the idea of bagging our original plan and heading off into big boy country with me for 4 days of fun over the Labor Day Weekend.

Lets just say I missed my calling. http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smiley-devil.gif

High Country hunting with your best friend and a Nalgene full of Merlot = Oh yeah baby!


She has it all, Glasses up game as well as in2blacktail, more sex apeal than Arrowslinger and I wont have to deal with a month of Brokeback Mtn jokes after I get back.

Only down side is she said she wont pack out any dinks! http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smiley-hitting-self.gif

Pressure is on.

FT

[Backcountry]

Sounds like a great hunting partner... I&#39;m blessed with one that&#39;s a great glasser, and more of a backpakcer than I&#39;ll ever be (a couple years ago she solo&#39;d the whole JMT in one fell swoop... all 220+ miles of it)... it gets better... mine even has the courtesy to humor me and dress appropriately (she HATES wearing camo)!

Picture from Moke Wilderness, east side of Moke Peak, 2005 archery season.

[Family Tradition]

Nice!

We have talked of doing the JMT but thinking of breaking it up in sections. Kids + long treks = not happinin for a while.

My gal will put up with all the camo, scent control ect ect she just wont let me talk her into buying her own tags. Done several A zone hunts with me in the past but no HC hunts, just backpack trips so this is gonna be a new thing.

One OCD hunter in the family is enough or so she says.

Graveyard Peak 11,454 - D7


http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/MSASSER/Graveyardpeak.jpg

FT

[in2blacktail]

Way cool!! http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smiley_10sign.gif I am so jealous!

[hunting1]

I wish my wife liked the outdoors more! You are lucky!

[THE ROMAN ARCHER]

congrats on your great partners guy&#39;s! my wife supports my hunting 100% and scouts for game animals when were on the trails too, i am so lucky!...................tra

[tdbob]

http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smiley_10sign.gif You guys really scored!!!

[jerkee]

Good luck FT! You and Backcountry are lucky men. My wife keeps trying to convince me that she needs to start a season where women can draw weeklong shopping sprees throughout the year.

[Schoettgen]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jerkee @ Aug 23 2006, 09:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=740989)</div>
Good luck FT! You and Backcountry are lucky men. My wife keeps trying to convince me that she needs to start a season where women can draw weeklong shopping sprees throughout the year.[/b]

Tell your wife IF the spree was only a week, and then the season closed until drawn again, I would be all for it. http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smiley-ugly-lol-bashing-sign.gif

[Backcountry]

Hey FT, let&#39;s try to plan a BYOB (bring yer own babe) backpacking trip sometime next May or June. Brandy and I are really into get back in the high, high country while there is still a ton of snow on the ground, and before the bugs get bad. Have you been back up into the north fork of Big Pine Creek near the Palisades (just west of Big Pine)? Epic geomorphology and epic fishing... I&#39;ve caught a grand slam (rainbow, brook, brown, and golden) out of Second Lake (picture below of Temple Crag taken from my camp at Second Lake). Plus, it&#39;s an area worth considering for hunting, as it&#39;s one of the few X zones where archery only tags never sell out (because the sucess rate is about 0 to 4%, and the terrain makes grown men cry, but there are some HUGE bucks up in there).

http://www.jesseshunting.com/photopost/data/554/13239TempleCrag.jpg

[Family Tradition]

Unless she has started the nursing program we would be all over it.

I thought pretty hard about getting that tag this year but without a partner and very little experience in the area I opted out. That said with a summer full of scouting I would think we could up that % by a bit.

FT

[Backcountry]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Family Tradition @ Aug 23 2006, 08:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=741264)</div>
Unless she has started the nursing program we would be all over it.

I thought pretty hard about getting that tag this year but without a partner and very little experience in the area I opted out. That said with a summer full of scouting I would think we could up that % by a bit.[/b]

I seriously considered that tag last year... seriously. Very tough hunt. Brian&#39;s stories about hunting with you make it sound like my worry will be keeping up with you (I&#39;ll starting training now by cutting back to just 2 Coors Lights every evening).

You see Jerkee&#39;s pics of that big bachelor group of bucks.? Go back and read some of my posts about backpacking in Big Pine Creek. I&#39;ve seen a couple some monsters back there, similar moonscape, but steeper, and I have no qualmns about blabbing it here because there is a reason why sucess hovers between 0 and 4% annually... terrain... the great equilizer, and the fact that most hunters aren&#39;t in shape to handle a hunt like that (even with horses), let alone just the grueling hike in... if you are not tough mentally and physically, you&#39;re starting out behind the 8-ball... not a place for an inexperienced backpacker, or an inexperienced hunter to cut their teeth... no way would I try it now because I&#39;m in lard-butt mode and would definately need to have a fitness plan in place prior to commiting to something like that (guess who is gonna be the big four-oh next year?). Plus, with my new business I think it may be a year before I can take off for a week and let the company run itself.

But who knows, I can dream, right?

[Family Tradition]

Jerkee&#39;s pics.............

I have more of his big bucks saved than any other poster by a long shot.

Plus he is the first one I went to when thinking of getting that tag.

Next year I&#39;ll put that in as my 2nd choice right after G3. Gotta dream. Ok maybe my first choice but G3 is hard not to write down.

As for the fitness DEAL.

A year is a long time. You could go from a doughboy to a navy seal in that time if you realy want it. Even with your new business. I know, I did it myself after letting myself go for a few years and I still drank a beer or two when I felt like it.

As you well know the skills are the true marker. Doesn&#39;t matter how fit you are if you dont know what to do with it once you get there.

Let me know on both topics, the hunt and getting in shape. I&#39;d love to make a go at that hunt and do it right.

FT

[Family Tradition]

Oh yeah

On the mental skills front.

Check out the book "The Mental Game of Baseball" by H.A. Dorfman

Applies to all sports and once you learn to use the skills it teaches you will find yourself being more aware of making your own success and how to get there.

A good read even for the non-baseball lovers out there.

FT

[jerkee]

Just a quick FYI, at this time of the year both forks of Big Pine Creek are more of a fawning ground than anything else. Ask Yort40 about his experiences in there during archery season. In his own words he would have scored a trophy if he held a "backpackers" tag. Most of these zones hold huge bucks, it&#39;s a matter of coordinating the time of the year w/ the location that counts.

BC- Trust me the area we hunt is steep, the pics we choose to post don&#39;t do it justice.

[Family Tradition]

Thanks for the FYI always good info

Steep as in Spiderman steep or worse?

FT

[Family Tradition]

Here is a pic of the lil cubs just about tree line.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/MSASSER/snacks.jpg



Dad needed a break so they let me have a snack.

[jerkee]

Steep enough that when I got home and went to bed I started dreaming about falling off granite ledges. It caused me to jump and grab ahold of the headboard like some kind of freak...thought the wife was going to make me sleep in the garage &#39;till I could recover.

Really though it&#39;s as steep as you want it to be.

[Backcountry]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jerkee @ Aug 23 2006, 11:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=741328)</div>
Really though it&#39;s as steep as you want it to be.[/b]
That&#39;s what I figured... there are so many places like that in the Sierras where you can look at one direction and it&#39;s rolling moonscape, and you look in the other three directions and you&#39;re cliffed-in!


I would like to hear Yort40&#39;s take on that area... I never hunted it, but have backapcked it a few times, and seen some doozies each time, and that&#39;s when I wasn&#39;t looking too hard... I think all my trips up there were confined to June and July, and that may not have much bearing come August. The backpackers pretty much stay confined to the valley floors around the lakes, and the marked trails, except heading up the benches to the Palisade Glacier (where they roam about like maggots on a dead cat), and I don&#39;t think there are many (any?) deer right up by the glacier because there are so damn mnay people coming and going through there.

If I was gonna go in blind and not scout, I&#39;de hunt the slopes above 5th, 6th, and 7th lakes, or the canyon of the south fork of BP Creek. But then, only a fool would put any stock in sucess to hunt that area without a few scouting trips.