Zachary Craig Hanson's Blog, page 12

Deploying Tactics - Archery Elk 2022

Six days. Six days is what I had this year to try and seal the deal on my third year of going after archery elk in September. As a DIY hunt, this one would be different and saw my hunting buddy and I employing tactics we had picked up in years prior working with top-notch outfitters, and would include:

Quickly changing locations and topography until we found elk.

Leveraging OnX maps for e-scouting and boundary marking.

Bear defense.

Our own calling with reeds and bugle tubes.

Praying.

Lots of miles both on foot and behind the wheel.

More praying.

The Location

Our tags were for the Island Park region in the Eastern part of the state that butts up against Wyoming and Montana. In fact, our meetup point was just a short thirty minute drive to old-faithful and you could tell the town of Island Park was built around seasonal tourism to Yellowstone Park. However, we were not going to be going to the park, instead we were focused on navigating the grizzly bear-riddled woods near the Madison Range following along the Continental Divide.

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Looking like a Garmin ad.

Knowing that we had several areas to check out, we arbitrarily picked a location off our list for our first evening and set out to find a wallow we had previously scouted. This area had been overrun by high-mountain open-range cattle and for a few hours we sat amongst vocal bovine until we realized that we would likely not be getting any elk encounters that night. After a quick walkabout we found what looked like a bobcat den with feathers-galore spread about in a macabre an ominous way and made our way out of the woods and back to our trucks.

With no luck on night one, we picked out another area on our map and went to set up camp nearby so we could hit it at first light in the morning. Similarly, though, the morning was a bust with no signs of elk and none returning our pleading calls into the dank darkness of the pines

Mountain lion prints following a young fawn.

It wasn’t until day three and our third location that we finally heard the sweet sweet call of an elk bugling back at us and we knew the chase was on. For the rest of the hunt, we spent our time in this area working a herd that we could hear in the dense vegetation, but never actually got eyes on. Miles were put on our boots and we tried every trick in our small playbook, which included sitting in blinds over an active wallow for hours on end, cutting off the heard, and stalking known bedding areas at mid day.

The Problem(s)

All of our efforts during the week were being hampered by two key events. Warm weather and a full moon. The former, warm weather, was something we had known was coming. It has been exceedingly hot here in Idaho for the past two months and the break in the heat wave was not looking like it would relent before our hunt. We knew this would mean that the elk would be moving less and seeking shelter from the burning rays during the day giving us a smaller window in which to hunt.

Cold nights gave way to hot days.

To exacerbate the heat, we were also hunting during the full moon. Aside from the added threat of wear-wolves, this was presenting a very real problem where with the added light at night, the elk were rutting during the “safe” night-time hours. I thought this would truly be hogwash, but one of the first nights of our hunt we spent the afternoon hunting the periphery of H****man State Park and didn’t see or hear a single elk… Until later that night. Right as rain, once the bright light of the moon hit, we heard an elk rip a bugle at about 10:30 pm, and they kept it up all night. They gave a small window of chase opportunity at first light around 6:45 am, but it didn’t last long before they all worked their way back into the safety of the park and quieted down after a long and eventful night for them.

‘Frag Out’

Throwing out the weather and astrological problems, we also had a rough start in general. Our first morning we were excited and in my truck heading to a trail head at about 4:30 am. My partner in crime was in the passenger seat and working to get his boots on when we heard a sound that neither of our pre-coffee brains were able to register.

“Pssssssssssssssssshhhht”

Curious as to what the noise was, I turned to my buddy who had a shocked look on his face and just yelled, “BEAR SPRAY!”

Those words aren’t something you generally want to hear anywhere, but especially when you are cruising in a closed cab at 40 mph at 4:30 am. About the time he uttered those words my brain connected the dots and my throat began to close quicker than expected. I pulled over, struggled with my seat belt, and eventually rolled out of the cab to breath some of the relieving cold morning air and figure out what the heck happened.

Laughing, we both couldn’t believe that we had unintentionally bear sprayed ourselves— with my buddies pants and leg taking the full blast. It turns out that the bear spray canister my partner had grabbed was missing the safety latch, and when he went to put on his boot, his heel struck the trigger of the can that was in his bino pack — yeehaw!

Fully awake, we tried our best to air out the truck and then proceeded to the trail head a few miles away with our heads hanging out of the windows like some goofy cartoon characters. The only thing we could think from a positive perspective was that we were pre-sprayed with bear deterrent, which may keep any grizzly’s from attacking us without the need to even discharge our spray!

The impact site… sadly his bare leg didn’t fair much better.Near Misses

Despite the weather, mishaps, and other challenges we were on two different occasions able to call in elk within bow range. One of the mornings, we awoke from camp and got ready, only for me to let out a bugle and hear four bulls calling back. The issue with this scenario was that three of the four bulls were on the Montana side of the continental divide (thanks, OnX), and only one was in Idaho where we could legally take him.

With some deft maneuvering, we were able to work our way around this group—with the wind never quite being in our favor—to try and work the Idaho bull. Blasting our way through thick vegetation and beautiful aspen patches, we got into a position where we thought we could call this beast in.

With a series of cow calls, we could hear the bull getting worked up and making his way in our direction. Once the raking of his antlers became louder, I positioned myself behind a pine tree and ranged the tree line that I was hoping he would emerge from. 50 yards. A long, but doable shot, for me to take.

As his presence was being felt and the breaking of limbs was getting louder, I nocked an arrow onto my bow and prepped for a relatively close encounter. Yet, as he neared the tree line, the same issue I have run into on every spot and stalk hunt I have ever done occurred— the wind shifted. Then, with the snap of a finger, the bull caught our scent and disappeared as if he had never been there. Tough break.

Calling out to anyone who would listen.Solo Trek

After the first five days of hunting together, my buddy and I both had some business to attend to back west and packed up our gear to go home. My job was to get back to full-time daddying and round out my paternity leave with a list of chores longer than you could ever imagine (mostly chopping wood for the impending winter at the cabin). As I pulled in to the driveway I felt relief to see my two babies and to help out my amazing wife who had spent the last 5 days taking care of a four week old infant and our toddler daughter — yet, after a nights rest, my amazing wife encouraged me to take another day or two to drive back out and see if I couldn’t have more luck with the cooling temperatures and waning moon.

After some mental wrestling and latent feelings of guilt, I took her up on her offer and re-packed my truck to head back out for another day and a half of hunting. Once back up into the high-country I was focused and determined to give it my all in that time frame. The one morning I had was amazing. Bugles were not too distant and I was able to lay chase to at least one bull who was willing to play the game. I chased him for a total of about 5 miles through steep terrain which taxed my body in a way that felt ‘worthy’ of the time I was now spending away from my family. However, in the same fashion of the bull my buddy and I called in a few days prior, this guy would not quite commit and never presented me with a shot.

Later that evening the wind turned on, gusting at more than 30mph for hours on end, shutting down any effective hunting. So, I went and sat a wallow for a few hours, turned up a few grouse, and bumped into a moose that scared the crap out of me. After the moose and with the wind still ripping I sat to glass up a nearby hillside only to quickly locate a very large Grizzly bear poking around in the area I had hunted just a few hours prior. With that sign, I decided to call the hunt good and get back to my wife and kids and put the pin on a great few days of hard bow hunting.

Stumbling on to the wrong quarry.The Outcome is not the Goal

Though I have now closed the chapter on my third year of ‘unsuccessful’ bow hunting for elk in the Rocky Mountains, I am not discouraged. This sport is hard and doing it yourself is even harder. Being able to replicate and leverage mouth calls to bring in huge beasts to within bow range will never get old, and Septembers will always be reserved for that experience. I can’t wait to evolve and eventually bring my entire family out to drop camps around the state and give them the joy of hearing the bone-rattling bugles of the coolest dang animals out there— elk.

Getting a bugle back to one of my calls.

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Torched Plans

With less than two weeks until my first bow hunt of this season, things are getting a little dicy. Ya see, every late summer/early fall in the Pacific North West carries with it the challenge of dry conditions, lightning, and the inevitable possibility of forest fires springing up in the wilderness that we hunt.

For the town we live in, Atlanta, this season has been (thankfully) slow… Not too many fires to speak of and none that have immediately threatened town or any structures. However, some of the areas that we love to visit have not been so fortunate.

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Due east of our town, there is the Ross Fork fire, which is burning up a large portion of Idaho’s GMU 43… An area that myself and a close friend hunted last year with an early season deer depredation tag. The irony is that we hiked in from the backside and had to traverse an area (Leggit Lake) that was burned badly two years ago. This unit is pine rich and absolutely stunning — hard to imagine the thousands of acres there that are now burning.

Hiking to unit 43 through Leggit Creek Trail Looking from Unit 39 into unit 43 (All of that timber is currently burning)

To the north of town there is the Everly Fire burning at the north end of the Queens River hiking loop. The Queens River trailhead is just five miles before you enter our little town and is a beautiful piece of country. Just two years ago (pre-babies) my wife and I, with our two friends, hiked that area in early July. Thankfully this fire seems contained by the rocky nature of the Everly alpine lake which may help diffuse the spread.

Queens River loop heading toward Everly Lake

Then lastly, the inevitable happened and I got word that a new fire kicked off this week right where we plan to elk hunt. Started by lightning, the fire is at about 45 acres and is spreading directly to the areas where my buddy had been scouting for us a few weeks back. Silver lining is that with the proximity to Henry’s lake, the Sawtell Peak fire is getting blasted with frequent water dumps from the few aircraft assigned to it.

What does this mean for our hunt? Frankly, I don’t know. Fingers are crossed that the fire can be contained and we can push on as planned… what will be interesting though is to see what will happen to the animal patterns. Will they change? Will animals be pushed out, or in? Time will tell and hopefully by this time next week I am packing my bags and heading east.

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Fishin' for somethin'

Hunting season is almost here, and though I didn’t draw an early season antelope tag this year, I am counting down the days until I head eastward to go hunt elk on the Yellowstone border. In preparation I have (finally) been shooting my bow and breaking in my boots all between daddy/daughter dates while my wife tends to our ravenously hungry little newborn.

Shooting bows and doing hill sprints in the Boise foothills.

Yet, as the hunt preparations comes to a head, the late summer heat and newborn-related sleep deprivation has caused me to start to dream of cooler water related activities — mainly fishing. These thoughts were spurred by digging through our freezer and finding several small whole trout from the Yuba river up near our cabin. Those fish were gifts from a local resident who wasn’t planning to eat them, and made me *think* about getting my own fishing rod to play around with.

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Prepping these guys for a brine before the smoker.

In fact, outside of my one unsuccessful steelhead fishing trip last February, I have never actually caught my own fish! I have, however, clubbed a single trout on the head with a stick while out elk hunting late last year. It was an act that caught me by surprise and made me feel like a true mountain man.

I had been following a creek bottom in the sawtooth wilderness during the late season rifle hunt in mid-November and kept seeing a small trout swim in circles. After watching him for nearly an hour, I decided to put down my rifle and do my best to catch the fish. Taking my glove off, I plunged my hands into the icy water to try and catch the slippery bar of soap.

Clearly, that tactic was never going to work, but my advances seemed to matter none to him and he kept swimming in the same vicinity. So, I went to grab a medium sized stick lying on the bank under a thin layer of snow. With club in hand, I expected nothing to happen as I smacked it on the water close to the fish and was surprised when I saw him float to the top and start to get carried away by the current. Like a neanderthal, I trudged through the cold water to try and catch him before he was out of sight so that he could find a place on our smoker when I got home.

My first and only clubbed trout.

To me, though, it’s pretty amazing what water can provide and I do miss being near lakes, swamps, and the ocean near where I grew up. Taking a boat out on water can provide just as much of a perception change as getting lost deep in the woods of the Northwest. In fact, the last time I was out on a boat was during a trip to the Oregon coast my wife and I took before the birth of our first child a few years ago. We ended up going out to catch some coastline delicacies, crab, and getting them cooked up for a great meal!

Blue steel heading out into the bay (where the watermelons grow).

All-in-all I think it’s high time my family and I get out onto the water and get some good ol’ seafood to augment our mostly meat based diet. It will also be another opportunity for me to gain some skills in an area where my baseline is, well, zero.

Oregon crab caught by my wife.

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Droppin' Pins

We are close to 15 days until the start of the 2022 general archery elk season. The time of year that brought me to Idaho and the time of year I love the most. Cool mornings, warm afternoons, and the ability to hunt elk, deer, and black bear. Yet, instead of being out in the woods scouting the area I plan to hunt, I am trapped in suburbia lamenting the traffic and awaiting the birth of my second child. Now, that last point may sound like it’s laced with frustration (well, the traffic and dense population does suck), but it’s not… I couldn’t be more happy to add a new future hunting buddy to the mix… BUT, I won’t be having another fall baby if I can help it… Thankfully, though, my DIY hunting partner has come to save the proverbial day. Like some sort of caped superhero he started to light up my phone this last week with a now omnipresent logo in the hunting community, OnX maps:

OnX Maps making life easier!

Yes, my text messages were blowing up as my hunting partner was scouring the woods on foot to find the best areas in our East Idaho hunting unit. The pins he would drop and send to me were all a part of our emerging planned surgical strike on elk during the rut. Each time I would click the little red box with a white X I would get excited to see what topographical surprise lay on the other end of the digital yellow brick road. He shared camp spots, wallows, rubs, known herds, and a bunch of other detail that one can usually only get through being somewhere in person.

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Dense timber near our campsite

Though I usually bemoan technology writ large (…and have focused on trying to live a more digitally sanitized life…) I would be a huge liar if I didn’t say that technology has been my life line this pre-season. Receiving the digital pixels of where we would be hunting allowed me to visualize the area, understand the elevation, and get an idea on the density of vegetation and how animals may travel in the area. Then with actual pictures of the terrain itself to mentally couple with the topographical maps, I have a pretty good idea of what I am getting into and will have a shorter ramp up time once I am boots on the ground.

Fresh Elk Rub If nothing else the meadows, pines, fir, and aspens will be nice to look at!

Of course nothing beats the real thing when preparing, but for many people who don’t live out west this is the norm. Find an area, buy a tag, and spend countless months e-scouting. To be frank, I had never had to do that much as I have always hunted areas that I spend time in year round, but my current pre-daddy redux situation has opened my eyes to a new way of hunt preparation and one that I will likely be employing when I fan out to new states to hunt over the next few years.

Aside from a second child and a new area to hunt in… this upcoming season also brings another element that I have not had to contend with since moving to Idaho… Grizzly Bear. Yep, my central Idaho location *allegedly* holds no grizz and I have been fortunate enough to only have intimate experiences with black bear… who are usually pretty skittish, save for one angry mama bear I ran into in the White Cloud Wilderness. But, this year I will have to be extra vigilant and will be packing both my bear spray and Ruger Super Redhawk .44 magnum.

According to my friends at Idaho Fish and Game, the area we are hunting has what is considered a “dense” population of these feller’s and should add an extra element to the hunt. Taking proper and quick care of any meat we may get will be vital and we will have to keep our heads on a swivel to avoid getting “Hugh Glass’d”. Potential mauling aside, we are pumped for the season and have zero expectations on our success. That may sound counter-intuitive, but with less preparation going into this year’s hunt, there also seems to be way less pressure built up around the experience. A double edged sword that I am sure to unpack in my post-hunt recap.

Anyhoo — It’s time to go shoot my bow and do some burpees, but I will leave you with this picture of a beautiful moose my friend stumbled on while scouting our unit:

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New Book!

So, the updates have been slow the past few weeks for several reasons:

My wife and I are in full temporary nesting mode as we wait on our second child’s birth any day now;

I am in the final stages of publishing my memoir, and';

I am finally focused on getting prepped for my September elk hunt.

But, as I am emerging from the fog of (book) war, I wanted to share a few things. First of which is the final cover design of my book! I am super excited after working with my publisher’s cover designer to come up with something that I believe is really cool:

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It captures everything that I wanted it to, down to the details of the microchip extending out into natural branches for the border. Overall, super impressed and excited to share this book in stores.

And though I am finalizing the last bits of the internal layout, the targeted release date is set for Tuesday October, 11th. It will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at most other large book retailers (yay!).

That said, one question I keep getting from people I talk to about the book is, “How did you write your book?” which is often followed by, “I have an idea for a one but I don’t know where to start.”

Those same questions plagued me for years until I finally sat down in 2017 and wrote my first book — which was a pure experience in discipline and over-editing for a product that I now look back on as “just OK.”

So, for this project I sought help. I ended up shopping my abstract around for sometime before landing with Lioncrest publishers and getting the chance to sit down with New York Time’s Best Selling Author, Tucker Max. Sitting with him I was able to talk through and learn about what it really takes to write a book that people actually want to read. (He actually has a book on these methodologies for those interested)

The biggest takeaway? You need to get your ideas on paper, fast. What that means in reality is that you need to get a rough outline and then start writing. And when you write you DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go back and re-read or edit any single line until you are done getting every thought out of your head.

This type of exercise was new to me as when I used to write (even this blog), I would scribble out a sentence or two, and then immediately want to edit it to make it sound better… What Tucker was asking for was not only new, but it was also extremely hard. The discipline to not re-read what I had written the day before was nearly unbearable when I started, but after a few weeks it became second nature.

That approach, coupled with discipline to wake up every morning for six weeks and pound out 400-3000 words, was what got me over the finish line so quickly. Now, the steps that followed having a 47,000 word vomit draft completed were equal parts frustrating and difficult, but I will cover those forays into the world of editing in a later post.

Until then, I will be getting back into mountain-shape and waiting for the birth of our second child!

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Bear-y Exciting

With Spring bear season ending 12 days ago, I finally got a chance to go and pull my remaining trail cams and sift through the thousands of photos (mostly of leaves and rain)…

So, this post is just a collection of some of the coolest photos! What I love about these photos is it shows how healthy the bear population is right behind our home and in Idaho writ large. Such cool animals! There are also a few other fun photos as a bonus of deer, elk, and other critters!

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Nice black bear roaming around! Bigger bruiser cruising through in the middle of the night. Cool color phase bear. Young bear seeing if there is anything to eat in the barrel. Little yearling poking around. Big ol’ butt on a bigger boar. Beautiful color phase bear. Young one getting in a nice stretch. Nice looking bull elk being extra creepy. Someone found the trail cam. I smell a new disney movie!

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Suppressed Thoughts

After monkeying around in Boise for the past few weeks my family and I were excited to get back to the cabin for our last full week of peace and solitude before we enter final prep for baby number two’s arrival. We were lucky enough to have some close friends and hunting buddies join us for the first bit of the weekend to celebrate July 4th.

To kick off the celebrations we all decided that our time would be best spent out in the woods with our little families. We also figured it would be a great time to get some elk training in by carrying our kids in heavy packs… Something I was pining for since my back is slowly healing from my recent bulged disc.

On Sunday morning, we loaded up the crew and hit the trail for a nice long early morning hike with our little mini-me’s attached to our backs. It was a lot of fun and my daughter loved it. She pointed out every flower we passed and was in awe of the river and birds that were surrounding us. My shoulders and legs, however, quickly reminded me that I am far from the shape that I should be in for the upcoming season. This little jaunt gave me some motivation to double down on my rehab in order to get back into the swing of summer training ASAP.

The other fun thing we got to do this weekend was to spend time hanging out and sending some lead down range. Now, this is not a wholly uncommon occurrence for us given that we have a 500 yard steel gun range out of our back door, but today was a bit different. Ya see, last Wednesday uncle sam finally pulled through and I was able to pick up my first in a series of suppressors that I have ordered for my handguns, carbines, and hunting rifles.

Suppressors in the USA have an odd stigma. They were popularized by movies such as James Bond and Jason Bourne and are now ubiquitous in the special operations community, but they also serve a great purpose to the civilian population— especially hunters. Each one of us is only blessed with two ears (if we are lucky) and preserving the internal workings of those organs is vital. Shooting large caliber rifles, pistols, and carbines with any sort of frequency can start to take a toll on your hearing even when you wear proper ear protection. So, attaching a perfectly legal suppressor to all of those tools makes great sense when you want to train more, but also keep your hearing in tip top shape.

That said, obtaining a suppressor is an absolute beast in this country. Waaaaaayyyyy back in in 1934, the newly created National Firearms Act introduced a $200 tax stamp that had to be purchased with the sell of any new firearm to ensure that the owner was properly registered. Overtime this started to apply to suppressors and the excise tax in the form of a tax stamp stayed consistent ever since that time.

However, purchasing a suppressor in 2022 is not just as easy as paying the $200 tax stamp and walking out of the store with your “can”. In order to be registered with the NFA, you must create a trust. For me, I used website that helped me create my family gun trust — They took some info and sent me a whole stack of papers on thick card stock that had to be notarized. Once that was done it was time to go to the local sheriffs office to get a whole set of finger print cards created (You will need two for each silencer you want to purchase) and then to Walgreens to get passport sized photos.

Prepping to shoot the suppressed B&T 9mm GHM

Once you do all of that legwork it’s time to go to your favorite gun store to pick out what suppressor(s) you want. At the time of purchase your store owners will likely charge you a small fee to process your paperwork (~$20). You will hand them copies of your trust, two finger print cards, and two photos. They then will go onto the ATF’s newly created digital system’s website to input the particulars of the suppressor you are purchasing as well as all of your info.

Up until this past January when the ATF rolled out their new digital system, the store would send in copies of your info via snail mail and you would be waiting for ten months or more to get information back as to whether you passed their screening. Now, if everything checks out, you can get your Tax Stamp and suppressor in as little as seven weeks (which was the case for me).

Home defense preparedness… don’t want to wake up the baby!

Overall it is a great investment and can truly help you in the back country as your large caliber hunting rifles will have reduced recoil and quieter shots — which has many secondary benefits of which I will go over in a later post.

All-in-all we had a great weekend celebrating our freedoms, enjoying the smell of gunpowder, and spending time with great friends!

September is Coming...

The sinking of the titanic must have been a sight to behold… and I managed to pull off my best reenactment of that sinking ship in the aqua-tots swim parking lot a few days ago. You, see for the past few weeks my wife and I have been battling COVID and stomach bugs and in that melee I managed to bulge my L4 disc while clearing logs off of our cabin property.

Why does that suck? Well, for starters… it has triggered a bunch of other muscular issues in my back, which included the upper-back spasm that put me on the asphalt in that aqua-tots parking lot, but more so it has almost completely halted my normal working out.

Usually this time of year I am just starting to kick my fall Elk hunting training into high gear. I start to pair back on jiu jitsu to avoid injury and dive into a heavy and high volume workout program from Mountain Tough Fitness. It is called their 45-70 program and it consists of leveraging your hunting pack as your main lifting tool and leverages sandbags to simulate weights. Aside from the packs, it also throws in a metric crap ton of lunges, runs, and pull-ups for good measure. I’ve used it for the past two years and have felt ready to rock n’ roll each September when archery season for Elk kicks off…

But, as Murphy would have it, I am currently in “Learn to treat your body better and focus on longevity” mode as the years of wrestling, ultra running, and jiu jitsu seem to have finally caught up to me. Despite the physical hurdles, the truth is that the mental hurdle is way harder for me to tackle. All I want to do is go out my front door and sweat and suffer until I wanna curl up and quit… and then do it again. However, that’s just not happening.

So, I am trying some new things to try and rehab my back (the smart way) and get back into my heavier training a little later this year — hopefully in time to be ready for those bugling September elk. To do that, I joined the Y. Yes, while we are in Boise waiting on baby #2 I have retaken up my main childhood sport of swimming. Every day I am trying to get in at least 1500-2000 yards of pool work in, in hopes of staying fit and stretched out. After the pool work I am pushing myself to stretch in the hot tub and then top it off with a few cycles of the steam room broken up by a cold shower.

The awesome Boise YMCA Aquatic Center.

To me, the process feels painfully slow, but I am hopeful that within a few weeks I will be able to add in some light weights and start to shoot my bow with more frequency to prep for the upcoming season(s). For those out there who are dealing with injuries or just plain getting older… let me know how you deal with these things :-)