Colorado semi-live mule deer hunt
Mule Deer
Contributors to this thread:
How about it Lou? Last year was painful without it!
I texted with Lou the other day....
He is hunting now, but sorry guys, no Semi-Live hunt story this year
Thanks, guys. I decided not to do one this year for a number of reasons. It does change the way I hunt, and because I'm writing and publishing a lot more to help with hunting expenses (after quitting the corporate world), I've changed my focus a bit. Also, the whole live hunt concept has become diluted since I started doing them years ago. Everybody with a phone and a pulse seems to be doing them now, and most are pretty bad.
But I am hunting. The November part of the season started yesterday and I'm onto a couple really good bucks. They're in wandering mode right now, following does in the morning, then roaming away. Hopefully something good will happen. I have a lot of time.
Thanks again for the interest, and I may post updates periodically on this thread if the thread owner will permit it! :)
Good luck Lou! Always look forward to your stories of this hunt.
I didn't think it was cold enough yet for him.... usually when the monkey's brass drops off and goes rolling down the hill....
Hey. Wait just a second....
You mean there are folks who PAY YOU to write up a hunt???? Holy flippin' cow.... the world has gone to hell in a hand basket....
Luck Lou.
(I'm thinkin' if we beg and grovel he might toss us who are livin' vicariously a scrap or two.... works with Coach now and then....)
Please update whenever you feel like it. Best of luck to one of the few left who does it the right way!
Good luck Lou. We know they will be in trouble if they get in range!
Good luck Lou. We know they will be in trouble if they get in range!
Oh I was hoping for the live hunt too.I really miss those threads, was some good reading.
Good luck Lou!
Best of luck Lou, your threads have always been some of the best.
That slacker retired and now he doesn't have time to do a live hunt? Really? Screw that I'm never retiring! Mike
Sounds to me like he sold out and said "screw my Bowsite friends". Probably going be on some pro staff for deer hats and butt face masks or whatever...
:-) Good luck, Lou!!!
elkmtngear's Link
Always looking forward to your adventures Lou, wherever and whenever they are published. Keep us in the loop!
Best of Luck, Jeff (Bowsite Sponsor)
Can we at least get a teaser as to what happened?
Well, the Cliff Note version is that I hunted very hard. The buck-doe ratio was goofed up this year, so rattling wasn't effective. The -20 deep freeze sort of wrecked the best week of pre-rut. The deer weren't following any sort of predictable patterns at all, but wandering here and there.
I had almosts with four big bucks just out of my range. Shot at one on the edge of my range but he got out of the way of the arrow. I passed up a bunch of smaller bucks close up. Decoyed in quite a few with the hat, Montanas and the Elk Mountain Slip. Just not the right buck in range.
I screwed around this elk season, got greedy, and didnt kill an elk for the first time in many years. My wife kept reminding me that the meat supply in the freezer was dwindling. So a couple days ago I had a good ambush on a herd, passed up a 3 point to let him grow up, and shot a great big doe. By that time I was damn happy to hang something in the garage.
First doe I've shot in 41 years, since my first one with a Wing recurve back in 73. It was a weird season for me, but that's how bowhunting sometimes goes.
That should make for a great write up for your writing career! Enjoy the doe! C
That's cool Lou! We love your stories. Your one hell of a hunter.
Congrats on bringing home some meat when the chips were down!
Thanks, guys. I'm well beyond the point where I needed to shoot the buck to prove something. I had a great hunt for a big buck, just didn't quite get it done.
At that point in the season I was purely meat hunting, because eating fish gets old after awhile!
Could've shot this guy early, a minute or so after I took the photo, but wanted him to grow up.
Sunrise on the last morning of a great season!
"Everybody with a phone and a pulse seems to be doing them now, and most are pretty bad. "
Dammit - I knew I should not have posted my Semi-live Ohio hunt!
Keep at it Lou - and good luck... Oh and amazing pictures, hope to see something like that someday.
"but that's how bowhunting sometimes goes"
yep. wouldn't have it any other way.
Congrats on the eater. Sometimes it's good to get back to the essence of hunting, giving thanks for that.
And congrats on one more great season out there chasing things. We're lucky enough just to have that.
WRT the -20...... sorry, that's all I can muster..... =D
Lou it always seemed like a lot of work to pull off a good semi live hunt . best of luck on paying the bills .
TD, you're right - I've gotten so wrapped up in hunting for the most difficult/biggest that deer hunting for meat was a whole "new" thing. I almost always have an elk or two in the freezer so it doesn't matter. This time I actually felt pressure.
I did give a little "extra" thanks for this one. I'm not religious, but spiritual. I was as buzzed about knocking her over as with some of the truly big bucks in the past.
Well, almost... :)
Lou, those are some great looking bucks that you got to play with. Congrats on a great season.
I don't know but i seemed to get nightly updates when i asked !!
Willieboat, I don't know you!
Julius, those were the medium bucks. I was too busy trying to kill the big ones to take photos. :)
First you ruin plains mule deer hunting.
Then you ruin Bowsite.
Where does it end Lou?
Where does it end?
Congrats on the freezer full Lou. Looks like you had a great time. Just send me a PM before next years plains hunt and I'll tag along as your camera man, then maybe we can see the BIG bucks! ;)
Its a whole lot cheaper to mount them "coulda" killed bucks and kill does for meat. I bet this season has the fire burning for next. To of bowsites finest skunked on elk and one got his first. Makes me want to revisit the "odds" thread again. Oh well, there is still the southern rut and turkeys so you can still come out good with a lot of luck.
"you can still come out good with a lot of luck."
I'm almost positive that's what happened in Montana! ;)
TBM, easy to see why you have no sponsors, no recognition. What is the point of your post, besides more gloating?
I passed up a dozen bulls. If that constitutes a "skunk" to you, then you need even more help. I wouldn't kill a gullible little juvenile bull like yours, but it was a good beginner elk for you. I was happy for you at first, before you let it go to your head.
As far as mounting bucks, I'll never mount another muley. I have one looking at me that's bigger than anything in your wettest of wet dreams. Several, in fact. I hunt mature muleys for the challenge. They make your southern turkeys and whitetails seem as difficult as finding a fat chick at a Waffle House.
Lou that was a very well-reasoned response. You are not the only one who was rooting for the first-time elk hunter and was at first happy with the success. Then many of us hoped the other shoe wouldn't drop - but it did and THATS when the true colors really came out. A leopard can't change its spots. You can try putting lipstick on a pig but it will still be a pig. Any chance of ever gaining that relevance so desperately needed or any sort of respect was permanently squandered.
"They make your southern turkeys and whitetails seem as difficult as finding a fat chick at a Waffle House."
Lmao! I love bowsite!
Lou, there's a Waffle House on Mulberry. Now that I'm single again, would you mind meeting me there and showing me how it's done?
Thanks for the pictures Lou! I love pictures of mule deer and the places they live. My favorite animal to pursue. In my youth I used to pursue fat chicks at the Waffle House but I've moved on to maybe not bigger but better things!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks, guys. I've been busy putting away hunting clothes and gear given to me by sponsors for free/comped hunts, and just got back on. ;-)
Merry Christmas to you all, and enjoy this holiday season with your families! As has been driven home to me in this past year, life, health, and happiness are precious gifts to not be taken for granted.
" fat chick at a Waffle House " Beer just shot out my nose Lou !!!
Hey Lou, while you were gone this buck came through my yard.
Welcome home. Lets have lunch asap. Paul
That's a dandy, Paul! I haven't seen him. Hopefully he survives our traffic. Tom had a wounded cactus buck die in his yard last week.
Since I didn't kill an elk, I'm on the lookout for fresh roadkill on Highway 1. ;-)
What is up with this thread? Is there something I'm missing here? An inside joke or something?
Lou, god bless you man. That's some funny shiet!
"What is up with this thread? Is there something I'm missing here? An inside joke or something?"
Sounds like some post season blues...we all go through em. Seasons out and time for honey do 's and snow shoveling for most in the country. This is the one time of year it's good to be a southern man....another month of deer hunting during the rut...3 weeks off and tturkey season starts. Yep...it's prime trash talking time in Alabama....and I almost forgot...Roll Tide!!!
Lou congrats on getting some meat in the freezer. That is how my whitetail season ended as well and happy enough about it. Maybe next year I'll connect on another nice buck. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Nice pics as usual.
Drummond, this is like a Seinfeld episode. One of the longest threads about "nothing" on the Bowsite for quite awhile.
Sometimes the thread peers over the cliff into the abyss of less than nothing and loses its balance, but then somebody posts something that grabs it by the belt loops and yanks it back up onto the edge.
I thought every day was trash day in Alabama. Sort like "direct recycling", where southerners throw beer cans and Popeyes sacks out the window and into the borrow pits at 70 mph. And isn't a "Crimson tide" the one that kills all the fish?
Best time of the year to be a southern man is whatever day the welfare check arrives, with a Skynyrd cover band playing at the bowling alley that night. That's like Christmas and 4th of July all at once!
"Yep...it's prime trash talking time in Alabama....and I almost forgot...Roll Tide!!!"
Maybe TBM can answer this age old question. After an Alabama divorce, is the couple still considered brother and sister??
Lou...let it go, don't sink to other people's levels.
Thousands of bowhunters are in the same boat, ending the season without a good buck, bull, bear or boar because of decisions they've made.
Some have passed dozens of good animals waiting for a great one. Some handicapped themselves with the equipment they use. Some gave more freely of their time helping other hunters than they did for themselves.
Probably no buck for me in Kansas this year, but I honestly wouldn't trade a net Booner for myself for a few of the smiles I saw this year.
I guess I'm just not in on the joke. Didn't get it but it's not the first time and certainly won't be the last
Hope everybody had a merry christmas
X-2, what Ermine said, love your posts, have a great 2015, Peter.