Less than 10 hrs. and I'm gone.

That's right. In less than 10 hours I will be off on a new adventure. I've been waiting for this day since I was fourteen years old. For years Rob and I have talked about a Mule Deer hunt in Colorado and we finally put it all together. I have spent the last few weeks packing, repacking, making lists, recycling aluminum cans, sighting in my rifle for the long shot and buying more ammo. I think I was ready a week ago and each day has been pure agony. I have a hard time falling to sleep with all those big bucks stopping at the top of the ridge, silhouetted in the setting sun for that last look, before vanishing into the high desert. I've spent countless hours on Google Earth flying through the draws and coolies looking for that perfect spot in Axial Basin to bag that trophy of a lifetime. The technology we have now is amazing. Google Earth in combination with my GPS has allowed me to mark the canyons and ridges that really look good and then I have created routes to allow us to find those spots in the dark without spending time scouting. I’ve saved copies on my laptop so I can compare Google Earth images to the real thing. I can't help thinking that a vision of a real trophy is just a pipe dream and I should just come down to earth and be happy with a decent forked horn.

One might question all the money and energy I have spent in preparation for the chance to kill poor little Bambi. It isn't the kill that get my juices flowing. It's the whole package, and believe me, the obsession of this whole package is what exemplifies the experience. I am taking more electronic gadgets on this hunt than one would think necessary, but that is part of the fun. You should buy stock in the bunny with all the batteries I have weighing my pack down. Tom and I will be looking at the saved images on my laptop and planning the hunts while lead foot Rob navigates I-80 across the salt flats.

Rob and I are leaving Chico about noon tomorrow and we will spend the first night at Tommy’s house in Pollock Pines. Poor Tom has to work Wednesday, so we will get started very early Thursday morning. The next stop is Nikki and Jeff’s cabin in Midway, Ut. We plan to leave Midway early for the five hour trip to Meeker, but we may take the long route to scout Axial Basin for a few hours.

With luck, the Meeker Hotel will have WIFI so I can keep everyone updated on the hunt. I will post a few photos but the video will have to wait until I get back home.

I’ve posted a few images of the area we will be hunting. Axial Basin is located between two mountain ranges and if we get some weather the deer should be migrating into the basin. The weather forecast shows a change of snow on Monday and again on Wednesday. Daytime highs will be in the mid 50’s and lows in the 20’s.

I’ll try to keep everyone posted.

Time for bed. Pops

The red lines with the dots are tracks I have entered with my GPS and the straight red lines mark the edge of the BLM lands.

A Flying Quail Snake Day

It started pretty slow this morning because I was planning on taking Terry H quail hunting and come to find out he didn't buy his hunting license. So I called Terry A to see what he was up to and he was just finishing a build on a new airplane. Needless to say I spent the next hour or two gluing together a couple of planes and by 1:oo PM we were out in the BLM burning up the batteries. It was kind of windy and hard to really practice the fun stuff so I decided to get a little bold and try to do something we have been talking about for about a year now. There is a sign on the edge of our flying field that has two 4x4 posts about four feet apart which makes a cool little target to fly through. It would be like training your dog to jump through a burning hoop except your dog is a RC plane flying about 15 mph through a hoop of non forgiving solid wood. The fun part is training your thumbs to fly the plane right at you and to complicate things, when the plane is flying at you, left is right and right is left. I always thought I was good at thinking backwards, well any way, the target is about 48 inches wide and about the same height but the grass is about a foot tall or so. There is no missing on this one, so I setup and did about 5 or 6 practice runs, pulling out at the last moment. My plane has been crashed and glued back together so many times and it wasn't really flying straight any more so now was the time to be a hero or die. Well, you guessed it, I did make it through the hoop but I was about three inches too high. The sign ripped the canopy right off and the plane nose dived into the grass. I made it, but not in one piece. I didn't see any structural damage so I just launched it again, with pieces of foam dangling from the fuselage. It could still fly, but barely. (This wasn't my new Blue Extra 300 SHP that I'm so proud of, but an old foamy ready for retirement)

We sat and laughed for a while, then I remembered I put my shotgun behind the seat and I still had enough time to chase a quail or two. I figured this was allot better than walking around the block and watching Sam pee on every bush and mail box. I was wearing shorts and tennis shoes, but that didn't matter because most of the grass was laying down and where I was going there are many trails. I had walked about two miles down the river then up a ravine and was headed back to the truck when Sam's head perked up a little and he headed down the hill to check out a large silver thorn bush. He was making his routine circle of the bush when all of a sudden he jumps up in the air like a goblin just booed him. Immediately I heard the buzzing of a pissed off rattle snake. Sam has never seen a rattle snake so I was a little concerned about what his next move would be. I was screaming at Sam, the rattlesnake was screaming at him too but being a well trained dog he came back to me, looking over his shoulder thinking " what the hell is that". When Sam was clear someone from above unloaded a couple of volleys of number eights and the story ended. (seven rattles and a button) My first thought was "this is a sure sign of global warming, rattle snakes should be hibernating now". My second thought was "shorts and tennis shoes". Time to go home and make dinner for my wife was the next thought. The quail eluded me, the sign ripped off my canopy and a rattle snake sent me home to make dinner for my over worked wife. As luck would have it, when I mentioned that spaghetti sounded good for dinner, Michele said that lasagna was already in the oven. Such is the live of a retired old fart.

To keep up the exercise plan, I am meeting Rob tomorrow at his Pheasant Club and we will certainly have pheasant for dinner. I'm taking my video camera so maybe I can post a short movie with Sam in action. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Jody's Birthday Present

Ok, I admit it. I'm in the worse physical shape I have ever been in my life and after talking to Jody on his birthday I promised to start walking. Jody and Michele's concern is my poor physical condition and my trip to Colorado. I agree, I'm a little on the heavy side and walking up and down hills at 7000 ft may be of some concern and I guess it is never too late to start. So, promises are easy to make but sometimes hard to follow through, especially when no one is around to hold me accountable. I got off the phone with Jody and grabbed my GPS and headed around the block. Being Mr. Techno now, I decided to log my exercise and to prove it I will be posting my progress. My first walk was 1.5 mi with an average speed of 3.6 mph. Sam even had his tongue hanging out when we got back. My GPS has some cool features, such as viewing my track on Google Earth (cool), and reports that show the profile of the track (elevation change) attached is a jpeg of my track in GE and a page in mapsource showing my progress. I guess I started before all the satellites were locked on and the first leg of the walk was missing, which means I actually walked more than 1.5 miles. You probably think I am bored to go to all this trouble but it is still dark outside, the wind is blowing and a light rain is falling. What better time to blog. I will keep everyone updated, which will probably make me stay with the program.
BYW, Cabelas is opening a new store in Reno on Nov. 14th and I got a special invitation, with discounts, to the opening day event. I guess I have spent too much money with them this year.

If you click on the images they will pop up in a new screen so you can get a little more detail. I'm sure you are interested enough to want to see every turn in the road. LOL

13 more days

Well, it is only 13 more days and Rob, Tommy and I are headed for Colorado for the final chance of the year to fill the freezer with venison. I feel like I am in a time warp right now waiting for the big day to come. I still have a few things to get ready but basically I am chomping at the bit to get going. We are really ruffing it on this trip, since the weather can be really brutial this time of year. We are staying at the Meeker Hotel which was built in 1896. Teddy Roosevelt stayed at the Hotel from time to time and I guess the main lobby has lots of history on the walls. The area we will be hunting is about a 30 minute drive north of Meeker. We hope that this will be the start of a family tradition and something to look forward to each year. I hope I can generate enough interest so more members of the family can join us next year. When this adventure is over I can then concentrate on helping with Tadd and Minnie's wedding, which is just around the corner.

Spring Smallmouth at Lake Almanor

Just thought I would post a video of Rob and I bed fishing for smallmouths at Lake Almanor. This is my first video published on youtube and you can tell by how rough it is. Enjoy

Hello Everyone, welcome to my world

I decided this morning to start a blog on my Hunting and Fishing adventures. As probably everyone knows, I'm getting ready for my first out of state hunting trip and my dear wife is claiming I am total abscessed with this new adventure. I totally agree. I'm taking a laptop with me to Colorado and hopefully I can post some photos, if Meeker has a hot spot somewhere. For now I am just posting a few photos of the bucks I saw before bow season and a video or two. It’s been a painful season so far and I hope Colorado will bring a successful close the my Deer Hunting season. I’ll probably post a few photos in the next week to work out the wrinkles of my first blog.