Yeah, the views were incredible, I will make it a priority to go out more often.

Maligne Lake:

*it's a HUGE image. you can see me fishing on the very right middle in white hoodie.

Awesome picture.

Beautiful!

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My new money pit!

Was fly fishing the Poudre river around Ft. Collins last week. Didn't catch any trout, but a nice rainbow jumped right in front of me, seemingly to laugh at my failure to catch him.

Also, I guess i wandered onto someone else's property, because a lady came out of her house to yell at me to stay on the other side of the river. She was so mad at me that she had first let her giant German Shepherds out to come scare me off. As I was still in the river, they didn't bother me.

Leaving the canyon, a different lady who had been waiting on the side of the road stepped out in the middle and motioned for us to stop. After we rolled our window down, she gave us a speech about how she doesn't come speeding by our house, etc. We were well UNDER the speed limit. She did the same thing to the person behind us.

Mountain folk can be weird...

Not sure what the laws are in Colorado but in Montana it is public property to the high water mark. If it is similar in CO I would have been tempted to tell her you would be calling the Game Warden to see what he had to say about harassing a law abiding sportsman, which is also technically illegal in MT.
In any case it is good to know what the property rights are wherever you are. It is different everywhere and some people can get really stupid and pissy about it.

i believe colorado still has the bad laws of owning the river bottom and the water above. and you may only float it if you dont touch bottom. no standing in the river bordering pvt property where it is owned through the river bottom.
so him standing in the water he is trespassing. unbelievable but true.

Tomorrow is the rifle opener in Montana for Elk/Deer. Youngest son has a permit that allows the taking of a bull elk in our area which is a pretty special, long draw, kind of thing. He has taken three weeks of leave to go find his bull. Hopefully we find one and he nails it tomorrow!

good luck with the bull. may you always get to shoot the bull.

even though you have less elk over on your side of the state it is easier to find them in the more open territory. nothing worse than in the thick woods trying to get to see one of the darn things when they dont want to, out side of the rut.

Thanks Ray. We are going to do our best! 😁

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Eat or be eaten. Or eat and be eaten.



If you can't tell, that is a trout that ate my lure and subsequently got mostly eaten by a shark while I was reeling it in.

BTW, I owe a serious update. On Monday the youngest boy got his bull! I will add pictures and type out a better story when I am on a real computer. But, it was a frickin toad! 7X6, big mass, big spread, rough gross score was 374 3/8 and we actually think it will go a bit higher when the real scorer does it. Best part, besides a LOT of good meat, it died about 75 yards from where we could go with a truck! So we hooked up ropes, dragged with the truck, backed up to a little rocky shelf and slid him in whole

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Getting ready to head out in a few minutes. But wanted to try to get at least a picture posted






Was never so glad to see a Ford with friends to help


My view while the battle was going on

lol battle

its going to be a let down all the other after that thing. unbelievable for that to have gotten so big out there.

Lol, there was quite a bit of discussion about him being ruined from this point forward. The kid did the same thing with his first ever caught walleye which was a 14 pound lunker the likes of which I will likely never see. Luckily he is a very level headed young man who takes that sort of thing in stride and realizes what the deal is there. Good trait for an Air Traffic Controller, Lol.

We are quite fortunate to have very good sized elk around this part of the state. That one is a monster for sure, but, by no means the biggest I have seen in this part of the country. We know we have a classmate of his who got a 400+ bull this fall and we have heard rumors that the possible new state record was taken not far from here as well. A few year ago when Chuck Adams had the world record Archery elk it is was taken from an area not too far from here as well. For gosh sake don't tell anyone.

Here is the rest of the trip report for the boys elk.

The guppy is in the AirForce and stationed in Idaho. He took every bit of leave he had to give himself 3 weeks to get fill his bull tag. The goal was to get it sooner so he could go back and save some leave time. That worked out well.

Opening day was last weekend Saturday. We went out and covered a lot of ground and saw no elk. We got ahold of a friend that night who had access to some private land that sometimes holds elk and could get us in there. We met Sunday morning and the caravan headed out. The only elk we saw was a group of five that one of the other people saw briefly but couldn't see what they were exactly. Our friend talked to the landowner in the afternoon and was told that there was a group of 5 bulls that was hanging out in the general area where the others were seen and that one was "a big bastard". The landowner was also gracious enough to give permission for the guppy and I to go in on our own to access his property as well.

So, Monday morning we headed out early. We spotted a really nice Mule deer buck on the way that I almost couldn't help but go after but we pushed on. Checked one area at first light that we were told by that landowner had a group of elk coming into it every night and he also had given us permission to get elk there. No elk there this morning though. So we headed back to see if we could find the elk on the property we were on the day before. The guppy and I split up, I dropped him off close to where the guy had seen the group the day before Out hope was they would still be around and that it was the group of 5 bulls. I drove up and around and walked out on a ridge to the north of him. I got out to a nice perch overlooking a nice open area and set up to see what would show up.

After sitting for a bit a text comes in from Fishette, for some reason I had coverage right there. As I am texting her back I hear a shot pretty close to me to my right, right where the guppy is and we are the only two people in there so I KNOW he is shooting. I text Fishette and we wait. 5 minute later still no shot and I have not seen anything come out my way. I text Fishette that it is either a clean miss or something dead. About as soon as I send I hear another shot!!!! I text Fishette and then hear 4 more shots fairly close together. She is out of her mind as am I. I then hear a guttural bellering and just know its the bull. Then everything is silent. I wait a while, text the guppy to try and see if he gets it and can tell me what is going on, no answer. I head back to the truck to go back to our meeting place to see if he heads there. Just as I get to the truck his text comes in and he tells me he got him and it's the BIG ONE!!! I get in and bust ass to get to where he told me to meet up with him. I find him and we share the biggest, longest and best hug we have ever shared. Complete with blubbering and tears of joy.

He was sneaking through and spotted a smaller 5X5 and was pinned down trying not to spook him and see if there were others. he snuck and crawled to a better place and spotted something through the trees. It was about 50 yards and he couldn't tell at first but then he turned his head and he knew it was a good one. He lined it up and the first shot was fired. The bull walked a ways and he had to track and follow him. He caught up and could tell he was wounded and the rest of the shooting commenced.

After he gave me the quick story We got ahold of Fishette to let her know we needed help and she called the calvery to come help. We went in and he was just off the private property on some BLM land but only about 75 yards from the fence. SCORE!! We got him dressed out, which with an elk is a chore in itself. Drove back to the main road to meet the crew. Not only did we have manly help to get him out and loaded but Fishette got her Mom and the guppys cousin along as well to come see. So it was a whole neat thing with that as well.

We hooked the elk up to the truck with ropes and pulled him to to the private property. Note, cannot drive off-road on BLM. Drug him a little ways to a little rock outcropping, backed the friends truck up and pulled the elk in whole!

Drove back to town, showed him off to a few people and went to another friends house to show hm. He was a hunting mentor to both of us and so it was a pretty big thing for him too. He just had a knee replacement and could not be with us. Got the bull caped/skinned out and hung to cool. We ran the cape and head to the taxidermist.

Next day I cut the backstraps out along with the neck meat, quartered the rest and got it hung in our friends walkin cooler. Hanging the quarters by myself just about did me in. So heavy and awkward. But got it done. We go the chops cut and neck meet in the freezer that night. Went back Thursday and cut and packaged the rest. Just processing the quarters took about 4 hours. Go everything into my freezer and all the hard work was done.

Oh ya, Got a Whitetail doe the other morning!



She is delicious! Backstraps!!!

Congrats to the Boy.
I let out an audible expletive at the sight of that rack.

oh so nice. not to confuse, those are the elks back straps not the deer's. what happened to the loins?

is that shed attached to your house. you got insulation or vapor barrier on the walls but nothing on the roof. doesnt it sweat?

When I walked up and first saw him I had to stop and turn around with my breath taken away. It is hard to explain the feeling. I have watched that boy grow up, taught him to love hunting and fishing and being outside enjoying the beauty of it all. It is not the biggest elk I have ever seen but it is a rare trophy and very likely the beat one anyone in the family will ever get. He did it on his own and I couldn't be more proud of him? Not just with this but with the man he has become. It all rushed together in that moment and it was a bigger rush than anything I have ever had.

Now my oldest, who has never hunted comes to hunt with me next week. I am looking forward to that every bit as much!

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Nope, those are from the deer. The elk chops are quite a bit larger. We had elk tenderloins the next night. Fed 5 people and there actually is more left over that is going to be enjoyed later.

The shed where the deer is hanging is actually not attached to the house. It is a stand alone "shop" just below the house with that overhanging car port. We call it "the small shop" since there is a larger shop on our place that the previous owner used to work on semi trucks. Both shops are pretty well insulated with the exception of that car port where I hang things. I keep the boats, along with some friends things in the big shop and use small one as a garage

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too much meat for those to be just the back straps from that doe. you got a nuclear reactor nearby making everything grow by you or what..

i am starting to feel inadequate in my part of the state.