Enough said.

If you couldn’t guess, our opener didn’t go so hot.  Let me run you through the ups and downs..

Our hunt was originally planned as a 2-4 day Alpine hunt on a local mountain.  Our plan was to hike up on Saturday first thing in the morning so we could take it nice and slow.  Hunting the road system tends to me a lot of company here in J-Town.  Thats why it is important to be up there and stake claim as soon as humanly possible.  This is where our first hitch came on.  Due to some work issues on Butter’s part, we were unable to make our summit attempt until 2:00PM.  Not a good time to get started.

By the time we finally had got started, the clouds started to roll in, and there was a light sprinkle.

We saw one other guy head up the trail before us.  I assume to go hunting as he was carrying a rifle, a pack that appeared to be loaded extremely light.  Bad news from him is he was wearing a cotton t-shirt with blue jeans and xtra-tuffs.

Anyways, I’d never been up this particular trail so I didn’t really know what to expect, but let me tell you, it is a death march.  Or at least it was for me.  Nevermind the rain, I was soaked with sweat.

After a few challenges on the way up, such as  the “4 logs halfway to heaven,” and the dreaded “Hershey squirt ass crack,” we finally made it to the first alpine bench. 
By now the rain was not just a sprinkle, but a full on downpour.  We couldn’t see farther than 50 yards as the clouds had dropped, and we were struggling to find a flat spot to pitch the tent with some protection whilst freezing our asses off.

We finally managed to find a flat spot to pitch the tent.  Now the thing you have to understand is our tent has a mesh roof to allow great ventilation, and you can’t put the rain-fly on until you have the tent pitched.  Thus, the next challenge began.  How fast can we pitch the tent?  It was a good thing we had practiced because we had that bitch pitched in less than 2 minutes, but it wasn’t quick enough.  The inside of the tent was wet, but not nearly as wet as it was outside.  We stashed all of our gear under the vestibles, stripped our wet clothing off, and hopped into the bags.

After about 2 hours, and numerous downpours later we had a decision to make.  Break camp now and call it, and just wait for better weather, or try to buff it out and hope to God we wouldn’t be miserable the next few days.

At the end of it we decided to break camp and beat feet back to the car.  When we broke camp it was about 8:30PM.  We were a tad concerned about how much daylight we had left, but more than that we just wanted off that god-forsaken mountain.

We made it down off the steep part about the time it got pitch black.  About that time my feet started to feel like I was on a death march.  A few wrong turns later we made it to the truck and were even more drenched than we were before.

Long story short, it sucked, but we got other plans in the works since the weather has improved….Now I just gotta mend my wounds…

On any note, we managed to score a sweet ride to the top and started wandering from there.  We started climbing further up another mountain looking for a good vantage point to scope out the surrounding valleys and mountain tops…

 As we started to make our way towards the top we came upon a small alpine pond.  There were a few small deer trails around it, but nothing to get excited about.

 As we neared the top we came upon a small gulley still with snow in it.  We had a good view from there of the backside of the mountain, and some lower terraces.  We sat down to take a break and glass as there were many small ponds and meadows surrounded by fringes.  As I glassed near a small pond I noticed a nice heavy deer trail.  I began to follow the deer trail with my binocs to the treeline when I noticed a deer walking along it.  Now, we must have been about 700-800 yards away and it was moving quick.  I’m not %100 sure but the body size was larger, and since most of the does should have fawns this time of year, I feel pretty confident it was a buck.

We continued with a drudge up the hill.  We were greeted with a wonderful view, but not many other sightings of deer.  We saw a grand total of 4 throughout this evening hike.  One was a definate buck that was about 1400 yards across a HUGE valley in Alder HELL.  Don’t think we’ll be going after him.

All in all the weather was nice and we got some awesome photos.  Not a bad outing?!

We’ve scored a new stick for this season.  A custom .300 Winchester Magnum that should do the job:

Yep, it is the season!

We’re still debating on the location.  We’ve got a few local areas were gonna start checking on.  Reports have been good with an abundance of deer this spring.  The hunt should be a good one.  We scored a new North Face Minibus 23 tent as well as a synthetic bag to test this fall.  The tent weighs in at 5lbs and should be a decent alpine tent as long as it keeps us dry and has relatively light condensation.

On the fishing front, our good partner Ben got us out fishing.  We ended up going out and looking for some flat-fish and we scored a 2 man limit, the biggest weighing in at about 50lbs.  We only had one “oops” during that trip so all in all, it was a huge success.

And last but not least, the Kings are starting to show in Fish Creek.  We managed to get out there today, and after about 4 hours, scored a nice Chromer.  Only saw a total of 2 fish caught during our time there including ours.

We’re looking at doing an evening scout tomorrow evening.  Hoping to maybe see a few day and get a better handle on where to do our alpine hunt.  Stay tuned, theres more coming up!

Unfortunately we can’t say we’ve been up to much.  We’re still hashing plans for the fall hunting.  Only 46 more days till we’re up in the alpine chasing bucks.  We’re prepping a new area, and the scounting has just commenced.  We’re looking to score a dandy this year and we think we’ve got just the spot!

On the fishing front its been dismal.  We finally have our license, though we haven’t even pulled the gear out.  We’re just not hard up for it this year.  Though the Kings are starting to show at the terminal harvest areas and that has us a little excited.

We’re going to do the Sockeye thing, just waiting for the goat-rope show that that always is to slow down.  We did make a pre-season scout on that, as well as watch Butters do a little fly fishing for Dollies….No joy though…

Its misting outside today…Maybe a good day for a hike?!

Now the trick is to find ourselves a spot to go.  Our options are fairly limited.  Theres 2 hunts off our road system, one is archery only, the other, well, you better be ready to put some miles on your feet.  Even with the miles, we’re interrested, and we’ve started our research.  We’ve got a line in with a few people in the “know.”  Just waiting to hear back.  Think we can get a Goat at 700+ yards?  I do.

In addition to a road system hunt, we’ve been considering a boat based hunt up a river just a little south of north, as well as a nice deep Fjord we know about.  We’ll see what time brings.

In the meantime we’ve been watching the Goats from our back yard….

I for one am getting a decent chunk of change back.  That means we gotta get a new toy.  We’ve been thinking about getting a long range hunting rifle, in the likes of a .338 Wildcat….Perhaps the .338 EDGE?  Just maybe….

Anyways, we’ve been talking with Shawn Carlock over at DefensiveEdge.net.  Looking at getting a custom rig done.  It aint gonna be cheap, but when she can spit 300grn bullets out in the likes of 2900FPS we aint complaining….If that wont stop a Brownie in its tracks….I don’t know what will…

Hopefully to get the build done it won’t take half a year….We’ve got our hopes up, but we also aint holdin’ our breath…

We need a break. We’re getting a little cabin fever.  Nothing like the spring fling which should be upcoming…

We’ve got some new things going on that we’ve been diggin’.  A lot of which we can’t speak about, though we can give a hint here and there.

Our Situk 2010 trip is a no go.  With some financial issues on several parties’ fronts keeping it from happening.  Ah well, we got some other things in the works. 

Our life hasn’t included much on the outdoors front as of recently.  Most of our happenings has been on the work front.  Currently taking 2nd place in the DUI enforcement arena.  We’ve been busy.  What can we say?  Gotta keep the roads safe.

We’ll try to keep ya’ll updated a little bit more than we have been.  Spring is just around the corner, the days are getting longer, and we can feel the itch kicking in.  We’re already looking to get a new 5 wt. Switch and we are excited!

Until then….Just a taste of what we’ve been up to…