Trail Cams

I tested out my trail cams to check for any issues. The first one I got in '08, a Bushnell Trail Sentry, worked well for 2 1/2 months of solid field time and gave my the info I needed to decide that this particular location was THE spot to begin my hunt. But when I tried it for the next years deer hunt, it gave me a handful of pix (one was a worthy 4-pt.) and then quit working properly. I tried the checks that Buhnell gave me and now I need to send it in for repair.

The Wildview camera still works well though. The quality isn't up to my "photographer" standards but it is a good tattletale and tells me what I need to know.

The new StealthCam Unit however is a real treat. It is smaller, has higher resolution, a zoom feature and did some very good work in the chicken run test. (I put the cams up at dad's chicken coop since there is plenty of activity there.) There were no pix of predators though.

Now I need to come up with some security for the cams now. I think I got really lucky that they didn't get molested being in the field for so long last time. There was only one day that a human came into view on one cam. He wiggled it but let it be. I can't say the same for the elk though. I will post some vids later that show what elk are like when no one is watching.

Redemption

After the sore ending to the last Limited Entry Manti bull elk hunt in 2008, I was too disappointed, even a little disoriented, to blog about it. I wanted so badly to do it again or help someone else with the knowledge I gained in the process. With a 5 year waiting period and years of collecting points at 1 per year, I figured I'd be in my 60's before I drew an LE elk tag again, especially if I wanted to put in enough to get a deer tag somewhere in the mean time.

Then along comes the Hunting Expo. It's a separate drawing that doesn't use the points that are accrued, nor do the waiting periods apply. Good old buddy Ryan won an elk tag from the Expo the year after he drew an LE elk tag so I thought it was a good idea to enter this year with the same goal in mind. I have a tendency to win things from time to time. Of all the hunts I entered, lo and behold, I find out via a congratulatory text from Ryan's brother Mark that I won a do-over of the Manti Archery LE bull hunt this year! How cool is that? Can you imagine how stoked I am?

Now I get to put together a master plan of scouting and hunting. Maybe this time it will go better.