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Bruce — you actually WORK in Sept.? Foolish man! I long ago figured that one out and arranged my life around it. Of course I haven’t had a new car in more than 40 years nor a “real” house as my wife points out. But who’s complaining! Her, perhaps, but not me. 😛 Rather than the smiling faces of co-workers and the lovely piped-in musuc of the workplace, here is the sort of thing I’m forced to look at — and smell! 😯 — every day this month. Poor us, eh? Best luck, amigo. You deserve it.
You explain it well for me also, TK. I’ve come to enjoy using a game cam off-season and view it as a whole different “sport.” When hunting season comes around I take it down. Even though such a tool is useless for elk, unless you are baiting illegally, I don’t want to feel or have others think I’m using it as a crutch. Modern hunting is so full of crutches they trip would-be hunters up at every turn. I too love the mystery and without it, why bother. In the game cam pic below, taken last month, see the white log (barkless aspen) lying down at the center top? Just behind that is the skeleton of last year’s bull. He was standing in the water when I shot and that’s as far as he got — barely 15 yards. So this year when I sit in the same place in evening ambush I am looking at the bones of last year’s bull and it fills me with confidence in my Ashby-inspired elk setup. That’s a total side-trip of topic, I know, but if a trad bowhunter can’t boast a bit about making near-instant humane kills … well, why not? Now I just hope I haven’t hexed my karma for this year. 😛
You described it perfectly for me as well, Nate. Except I take my one cam down when hunting starts — just a personal thing as I don’t want to think I’m in any way using technology as a crutch. In fact I can’t see how it would help with elk, since they range such huge areas and cannot be patterned. And the elk in a picture one day might be miles away the next. So it’s a summer recreation for me too, mostly for bears, which like a dip in cool water during the heat of the day all summer. As a hunting tool I don’t want or need it. As an off-season hobby of it’s own, Nate nails it. Here’s one from June … enjoying a mud bath.
Nate, we are talking about the bags that come on packs to carry stuff in — not about meat bags, which as you note are essential. I carry two huge, tough cotton meat bags with draw strings at all times in my hunting pack, and two more waiting on my meat pack in the truck. When I kill and quarter an elk I can get all of the meat into those two bags, bone still in, pull the draw strings tight to keep out bugs, and drag them away from the gut pile and stash under a low-limbed shade tree until morning (I most often kill in the evenings) when I return with pack frame and two more bags to break the meat down into packable loads. These are the same bags that a friend and I have twice have packed elk out in without a pack frame — just sling ’em over our shoulders. Here’s a pic of a yearling cow I killed several years ago, maybe 350 pounds live weight, with a game bag spread out to show size. I’ve had some of these bags for twenty years and just wash them and use them again, and again.
