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This is not a challenge…
I thought it would be neat to see pictures from a hunt that you think “tried your metal”. Everyone is different and used to different challenges. So one person’s tough hunt may be another’s easy time.
So here’s a picture from my toughest hunt. I am a low lander and have spent most of my life below 500ft. I have a friend in CO so I go every few years for mule deer bow season and slog around with my sorry lungs.
But this hunt was different. It was not a bow hunt. But it was challenging. We hunted the late elk season in Colorado. Stayed above 10k ft. (except for packing out meat). I walked 60 miles in 10 days with a 60lb pack and lost 20 lbs. It was a cow only hunt and I managed to harvest the only cow we saw on the trip. Cold Cold Cold, Snow Snow Snow. I took the picture, so am not in it.
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Certainly a hunt at altitude is tough even if you have prepared for it but sometimes there are other challenges that can make an otherwise ordinary hunt tough. There is the mental factor. Plays an important role in our confidence.
Here is a pic of a buck I took at a time that my confidence had been shaken by losing a couple of animals and I was beginning to seriously doubt that I should continue to bow hunt. On top of that, the buck was chasing a doe and had stopped broadside in front of me, attention fixed on the doe, as I released the arrow he went after the doe again and I can’t describe the feeling I had when I saw my arrow strike him in the ham. His haunches dropped to the ground but he regained his footing and walked off with my arrow protruding from his ham. To my amazement and releif moments later he was kicking on his side, the femoral artery cut by my Bear Razorhead which had penetrated both hams. These animals are so unpedictable.
And then there can be physical limitations that we may have that can make things tough for us. Here is a pic of the last deer I took with the muzzleloader. This was 3 years after lung surgery but I went and rattled him in to 15 paces and placed a .45 roundball in his neck dropping him in his tracks. Then I dragged him out and got him home all by myself. I was proud of that day but I knew I could not keep doing that safely.
Not to discount those who have pursued game at altitude or packed game out many miles because I know it is physically challenging. I drug the hair off my first deer because I was as far back in the Nat forest as I could get!
Duncan
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Good thread Steve! I like that picture from CO, looks cold! Sounds like a memorable trip.
I accompanied a lady friend of mine and her husband on a mountain goat hunt. We spotted goats one morning and around lunch decided to make a play on one, we figured we could get up the mountain, get the goat and back down before the end of the day so away we went. She got her goat, but by the time we got it dressed and loaded into the packs and started down the mountain darkness overcame us and the route down was too dangerous to do in the dark so we spent the night on the side of the mountain, unprepared, and it rained and snowed all night with the temperature hovering just above freezing. A miserable night! We stayed awake all night feeding the fire (by morning all that was left to burn was green fir boughs), scared to go to sleep lest the fire die.
Here’s the hunter and her goat, and her sitting at the fire where we spent the night (notice the embers kept rolling downhill, lol):
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Well I cant top anything posted above, but like you said steve it is not a competition! So here is what I got
It is a video still of dad and I diggin out the spot for out tent, the warmest it got the next 4 days was 20 degrees. And the wind only died down for a couple hours one day. Tuesday we slept in because of the 40mph winds that you could feel through the canvas tent. But we did find deer. I seriously thought I could catch a fox, but that never happened. It was hard to walk up the mountains because there was 6-10 inches of hard snow left over from the big storm we got in december. It was tough.
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