Keeping the duck dog busy. Final update, 10/26.

tod osier

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I've been keeping busy with the duck dog in the nearly duckless West.

I'm on my first solo road trip in a long while. Beaver and I headed West a month ago and we have been scouting and hunting in preparation for the archery elk opener.

They call Montana big sky country, but I say - pfffft, Wyoming has some skies too.
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Beaver has been a machine. He is the oddest, most loving, lovable, curious and somehow begrudgingly tractable dog. He is in the running for best dog ever award.
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Needs lot of fetching.
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He is even featured at Cabela's
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Napping in the wilds on a break.
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Had some hot weather.
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Lots of nice views.
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We spent the last weeks of August scouting for elk. We found sign.

Warm and steamy, we found the elk that made the deposit about 5 minutes later.
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Warm and steamy donor. Interacting with this elk, I knew Beav and I could get it done. This was the proof I needed that I could kill an archery elk with a dog at my side.
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Found several wallows. Nice for a dog to cool off in if you want your dog (and your bed, eventually) to smell like anaerobic mud and elk piss.
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I'd like to know what his nose is telling him.
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More rubs.
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Earlier in August when the bulls were loosing their velvet, we found a lot of it. Beaver was particularly interested in it, like jerky maybe.
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Elk on the hoof, bumped from their bed.
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Season opened September 1 and the temps were hot and the action was slow, but there was action. I heard bugles most days and saw elk and lots of fresh sign and interacted with some bulls.

We sat water holes several mornings and afternoons when it was so hot. There was a bull using a wallow that we sat and had several close encounters. These moose visited several times. We also saw a radio collared mule deer and fawn.
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With the change in temps (much cooler) and with the entrance of an early how cow, the mountainside I was on came alive. The bull I was on was displaying to a bedded cow that had been pushed all over the mountainside by multiple bulls (could hear them screaming). I pushed them until she bedded down and wouldn't move. In our given setup, I tried to thread the needle through a perfect vital sized gap made of 4 trunks (2 horizontal and 2 vertical) and came up short. 20 minutes later I was able to get it right through the same window.
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First blood. It took 50 yards to start, but once it did, there was no question how it would end.
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Archery success. This was a pretty good unit that took quite a few points, but I decided that the first 6x6 in range would not get passed on. I got to experience what I was looking for, far beyond what I was hoping. I had multiple days of bugling bulls and worked several over the days, with this one screaming more than I could have imagined.
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As found.
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Progress by midnight.
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Meat stacked to chill in the freezing temps. It was glorious, the frost appeared by 9 pm, but it did not get much below freezing, so the meat chilled quickly, but didn't freeze.
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Celebratory bourbon at 1 am!
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Reward lunch after missing dinner the day before packing meat.
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Trip is going well is the report. I'm cutting meat for the freezer for the next couple days.
 
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Wow, congratulations!
That's an excellent archery bull. What an adventure...and nice beaver.
 
Tod,

Thanks for sharing your hunt. I had been wondering what you were up to this year. You know, you could have swung thru Shell Rock and lightened your load just a bit on your way home. [;)]
Love the fall in the mountains. One year my elk hunt got interrupted by 25 inches of snow overnight.

Nice bull and great story. You shooting a cross bow?
 
TimJ said:
Wow, congratulations!
That's an excellent archery bull. What an adventure...and nice beaver.

Thanks Tim, good to see you here!

The Beaver jokes have not gotten old! I still laugh (to myself) every time.
 
Huntindave McCann said:
Tod,

Thanks for sharing your hunt. I had been wondering what you were up to this year. You know, you could have swung thru Shell Rock and lightened your load just a bit on your way home. [;)]
Love the fall in the mountains. One year my elk hunt got interrupted by 25 inches of snow overnight.

Nice bull and great story. You shooting a cross bow?

Thanks Dave. Well here is your chance, I'm not headed home for another several weeks, I'll stop by!!!! :).

I have 2 pronghorn tags to fill and I want to get Beaver on some sage grouse!!!! Lot of plans ahead. If I get bored I may even fish, since they give you a free license with your elk tag.

Yes on the crossbow. I like everything about it, except carrying it.
 
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Those pictures are so vivid I think I can even smell the dung. What a trip! Holy jeez what a trip! Congratulations. Dang, you don't half ass any trip out west. Great stuff

Eric
 
That is a great looking bull and by all means you sure earned it. Congratulations, Tod. Your pictures were outstanding. Thanks for the story.
Al

Out of plain curiosity, how far did you have to pack the meat to your truck? Hopefully not too far.
 
Thank you for sharing this! i enjoyed your pictures and your dog looks so happy! congrats on the Elk!
 
Eric Patterson said:
Those pictures are so vivid I think I can even smell the dung. What a trip! Holy jeez what a trip! Congratulations. Dang, you don't half ass any trip out west. Great stuff

Eric

To not half ass some things, you have to half ass others - and I'm not particularly good at compromise so there is always a struggle, but I'm glad I'm able to make it work.

Thanks!
 
Al Hansen said:
That is a great looking bull and by all means you sure earned it. Congratulations, Tod. Your pictures were outstanding. Thanks for the story.
Al

Out of plain curiosity, how far did you have to pack the meat to your truck? Hopefully not too far.

Thanks Al, it is amazing what photos a phone will take these days. Love always having a camera on me.

As you know, sometimes the real "trophy" is how close to the truck you get a big animal down. I'd been hunting back a mile or two off the road, but I ran into this action very close to the truck AND he ran downhill in his death run, through windblown timber to die at the edge of a meadow. Pack out was 10 minutes from animal to truck without a load and a little more with 80-90 pounds on my back. :).
 
Awesome Tod!!!! That's a very nice bull and pretty cool that Beaver is hunting with you so well. How much longer are you out there?

For sure WY has some wide open, gorgeous scenery. The woods are also pretty open. See any grouse?
 
Dani said:
Awesome Tod!!!! That's a very nice bull and pretty cool that Beaver is hunting with you so well. How much longer are you out there?
Dani said:
For sure WY has some wide open, gorgeous scenery. The woods are also pretty open. See any grouse?


Thanks Dani, I'm super pleased with the bull and it was really great having Beaver with me. The first close bugle he heard at the start of the season was a really aggressive mean sounding bull right at dark and Beaver looked at me like WTF was that animal????? it is going to eat us??? ??!!? and he wanted to head for the truck.

I have a really open schedule this fall, I could stay all fall if I wanted, but the cold and missing home will push me east before that. I'd like to stay through September. Sage grouse opens up the 17 and runs through the 30th, we have found some good numbers of sage grouse in a couple pockets. As far as regular grouse (mountain grouse - ruffs and duskys) we have put on way over 100 miles hunting and scouting in what looks like prime habitat and if my count is right, we have seen 10 or 12. Two groups of ruffs and 2 of blues. I also have the 2 antelope tags, and I want to make that hunt last as long as possible, since those tags were a lot of points to draw.

We had a little "bump in the road" today. Beaver tore a toenail running off some steam fetching. We just got back from the vet, who took the whole nail off under sedation. She thought he would be good as new in a couple days (minus the nail). This is the second nail he tore, I hope this is the end of it.

Patient under sedation.
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Huntindave McCann said:
Work smarter, not harder.

I thought it was pretty smart to shoot him a quarter mile from the truck and have him run towards the truck. :).

Beaver is a hurtin' unit now, he isn't travoising anything for a couple days.
 
tod osier said:
We had a little "bump in the road" today. Beaver tore a toenail running off some steam fetching. We just got back from the vet, who took the whole nail off under sedation. She thought he would be good as new in a couple days (minus the nail). This is the second nail he tore, I hope this is the end of it.

Ouch
 
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