Hunting / Finding

 I knew that I had to write a post after beginning the hunt.  Monday was the first day of early Elk.  I went on my own because my hunting partner needed to rest.  

When I got to the area, more people than I was comfortable with were already hunting.  So I spent the majority of my hunt going from area to area and confirming who owns what property still, and exploring where which animals were spending their time.

I started on the Gardners property north of 532, but there was 6-8 trucks of people in at 8am when I arrived.  I moved up to the Gardners north property but there was 4-5 trucks there.  So I drove to the east side of the north area to scope the land.  I watched two groups of hunters walking back to their trucks but didn't see many animals.

After that I drove up to the Joworskis, talked to Jim for a bit.  He told me that Larry's property has elk on it right now.  So over to Larry I went.  He had already given all permission out but he carved out a day for me to work his north property on friday.

Here are some photos of driving out to the hunting area at sun up.

After that, for a short while I was appreciating the cattle being moved out of the one section.  The farm hands were pushing the herd down the road towards a loading area.

Then I drove past these fence posts half a douzen times trying to get this murder while they were sitting.  But I didn't catch the photos when I had the opportunity.  I only got two action photos of them flying away and one shot of a single crow moving up to the top of a power pole to get away from me.

Lastly, as always, i drove past the McPhersens and there were mulie on the east face of this hill.  Without fail I find deer on this side of the hill on the highway.

So now to the sad part.  On the last ten minutes of the drive home I started thinking about Arta's reactions / feelings when I would be hunting.  It was a different pride that I didn't always see from her.  It made me cry pretty hard for the last ten minutes of the drive trying to deconstruct this idea.  I loved that she loved that I hunted.  It's a difficult thing to express.  It was a bit like a piece of her that I got to keep to myself.  I hunted, she beamed when I would tell her stories like the one above.  She was like a hunting partner to me in many ways.  

That's enough sharing for now.