Snow in the forecast -- got the snow blow ready?

We've had a couple of small snow storms so far this year. The forecast for Thursday shows a third on its way! It's going to be cold with a 70% chance of snow. So, got the snow thrower ready to go -- here's a picture of Kristi using it last year. Of course, that means I won't need it, but it's good to be prepared.

I put together a Squidoo lens on how to buy a snow blower -- check it out at New Snow Blowers. It could be a good year to invest or upgrade. According to ExactaWeather.com:

"With low solar activity levels, changes to the Gulf Stream, the negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the general trend for a much colder winter [in the 2011/12 season] after the onset of last year's La Niña, this winter could prove to be a record breaker with extremely cold temperatures and exceptional levels of snow for many parts of the US."

Playing Risk during Thanksgiving Holiday

My family and I usually play some board game or the other during long weekends, holidays, and vacations. We play several, but this last weekend we took some time to play Risk -- The Game of Global Domination. I know lots of people don't like this game, but we've got it down to a level of art and science that lets us reliably complete games in less than three hours. We put on some good music, put out a few nice snacks and drinks, and get down to some friendly dice throwing. This weekend, I was crushed. My wife and sone duked it out with my wife winning the game in the end. We had a great time!

Colorado Pronghorn 2011 -- A Bust, but Fun!

I've never hunted before this year. Been a pretty avid fisherman off-and-on, and love fly fishing for trout in the Colorado Rockies, but not hunting. But, I like shooting and I figured this year I'd start out learning. However, I figured this out in... August. So, that limited my choices on what to attempt this year. Fortunately, the Colorado Division of Wildlife does give some choices to those of us who fail to plan well. Over the counter bull Elk is one of the most well known, but they are also pretty good at posting what unused tags are out there. After some research, I chose to try pronghorn (also known as antelope) and chose to stay close to home and hunt a unit near Hugo Colorado. I optimisitically picked up tags for two does.  I scouted my unit in late September and posted the story under Camping in Hugo Colorado.

I did all sorts of preparation and research. Worked on my rifle skills, as I'm sure you all have read by now. After packing up, my strategy was simple. As I didn't know what I'm doing (still don't), I decided to let the first two days go and start on Monday morning. I had been studying maps and Google Earth for days and had several areas well scoped out, and I had done what I could on my scouting trip to see those.

I left very early Monday morning and was on the trail just before sunrise. On the way down, I saw several pronghorn next to the highway on ridges back lit by the lighening dawn sky. That got my hopes up.  It was cool in the morning, around 40F, but as the day wore on, it got up to 90F. I walked probably five or six miles that first day -- and didn't see a single pronghorn. I did have an encounter with a rattle snake, but that's about it. I left in mid-afternoon to go set up camp in Hugo again.

It was a beautiful evening and I was able to set up camp in a beautiful location. I hunted around doves without luck at dusk and called it a early evening. 

Next day, I was on the trail very early. Still no luck. There were a couple of big game access areas that I hadn't checked, so as the tempteratures broke 85F, I drove around checking those out. Around 2pm, I realised that the wind had really picked up and I needed to race back to check on my camp. Good thing, too. Driving through the State Wildife Area, I found my dining fly a full mile from camp hung up in a barbed-wire fence. Having retreived that (mostly still in usable condition, which is amazing), I arrived to camp to find my dome tent bowed in from sustained wind. I tried to bolster the tent and parked the 4Runner as a wind break. I hoped the wind would die down as I took a short nap. I didn't, but I did successfully hunt for Chukar. After I bagged a bird, though, the wind was picking up more and I realised I needed to move. I packed up and moved camp to a more sheltered, but still very windy area. I cooked dinner using the truck as a wind break and slept in the 4Runner.

Wednesday found my in another area of the game unit. And, it was a good day. I had two stalking oppotunities on small groups of pronghorn. These didn't end successfully, but I did learn a lot and had a great time. The first group I spotted from about a mile away in sage brush on a ridge. I navigated behind hills on what was still a very windy day. I got to about 400 yards to where they eventually bedded down and realized I needed to get around them. Planned my route out but, when I came out above where they had been, they'd taken off. I think some of the cows I had to pass through must of gotten skitish enough that they spooked the pronghorns. I found their tracks and they were at a full run when they left. 

Second group was a surprise. I was walking along a dry riverbed. I picked up my binoculars to look through the brush and cottonwoods and literally saw a buck's head filling the glass as I brought them to my eyes. He was only about 100 yards away looking at me. He spooked of course and he, another buck, and a doe ran several 100 yards into open ground. I knew I couldn't get close enough to them -- absolutely flat ground and almost no sage brush. But, I gave it a try. And, it worked, sort of. I got to about 350 yards. But, the highway was behind them up an incline probably half-a-mile. I had kept trying to change the angle, but they didn't cooperate. I could have taken the shot, but just wasn't comfortable -- I could see cars and trucks going by in the scope and that seemed like a really bad idea. In my manuevers to get to a better spot, they finally spooked and were gone. And so was I. I was out of time and needed to work the next day.

I may hunt the same area next year. If I do, I'll stay longer into Thursday and Friday. I'm sure I would have gotten a doe then. Or, perhaps I'll see if a farmer or rancher will let me hunt the areas next to the ranches I was on -- that's where most the pronghorn went after opening day. Never-the-less, I had a great adventure and can't wait to do it again!

 

 

Tikka T3 -- Awesome

Been some time since I was able to post. I've been very busy and I've got lots of things to post! New rifles, food, camping, games -- so much good stuff going on!

My last post left off as I wondered whether my father-in-law's Springfield had issues or if I needed some remedial marksmanship training. My wonderful wife told me the only way to find out quickly was to go get a new rifle. We went in to Sportsman's Warehouse to check out some of the pre-season bargains they had going. After trying several rifle and scope sets, we decided that the bargains weren't the way to go. They all had one or more of three problems: less than optimal optics (OK, they were pretty bad), rough and non-adjustable triggers, and rough actions (bolts just didn't work smooth). Working with the sales rep, we moved up and started looking at Remington, Savage, and Sako rifles and Nikon and Leupold optics.

In the end, I most liked a Sako Tikka T3 Lite .30-06. Sportsman's Warehouse mounted a Nikon Bushmaster 4-9x scope on it for me. They did a nice job, too. When I got it out to zero at the range a couple of days later, I hit just outside the X ring on my first shot and most of that was because of the 20mph breeze we had going. Just a bit of work and I had consistent groups out to 200M without any problem! Which made me feel good. I do need more practice, but I was happy.

As you can see from the pictures, this is a beautiful weapon. Stainless steel. Very smooth action and trigger. The Bushmaster scope is superb. Together, they weigh on about 8lbs. Which brings up the main challenge. Even shooting 150 grain soft points, this rifle has some serious kick. That's definitely going to take some getting used to -- target reacquistion is tough even keeping both eyes open. Gotta get some more practice in!

Springfield 1903 .30-06

In August, my family took the Colorado hunter education class so we could do some small game hunting this year. We've done that, and had some luck at dove and teal. However, during the class, my wife said she liked the idea of hunting elk. Quite a goal for folks who have never hunted, but it sounded good to me. But, I decided that if we were going to give that a go, we'd best get some other experience first. Did some checking, found that there were still doe pronghorn tags available for some good units in South East Colorado. So, I've picked up two pronghorn tags and hope to go hunting next week.

I was going to try to use my father-in-law's Springfield 1903 .30-06. His rifle is absolutely a beautiful vintage piece. We're not sure what year his rifle is -- he bought it used in 1940 at a pawn shop and the scope mount covers up the serial number so I can't check the age myself (it's a custom mount, so I'm reluctant to mess with it). However, it's probably a 100 year rifle or so. It's got a 1940 vintage scope -- probably 4x by 40mm. We took it up to Parshall on Saturday to zero it. Well, rather, I should say "try" to zero it. I loved shooting it -- recoil was perfect and the action is absolutley smooth. Unfortunately,  I couldn't pull a good enough group even at 25yards to even try adjusting the scope. Which is a serious bummer. First of all, it's a pretty tough hit to my confidence when I'm going on my first big game hunt. Second, I was really liking the idea of using

My wife is always practical and after taking a nap Saturday,she woke up and said -- "Well, you've got to get a new rifle." We've already put a lot of effort into making my trip next week to the areas work and she didn't want me to waste the effort. So, we popped over to Sportsman's Warehouse (love and hate that place -- spend entirely too much money on great stuff every time I go). I figured we'd get a Remington .30-06 combo (rifle + scope) which are running about $400 right now. Unfortunately, I didn't like the scope (eye-relief was very narrow and the optics just didn't have good contrast) and she didn't like the action (decidedly not smooth). I love my wife. She is just.. well, perfect. We went home with a new Tikka T3 Lite with a Nikon Buckmaster 4-9x 40mm. I'm sure this rifle is going to kick quite hard, but it's sub-MOA accurate, the Nikon optics are great, and it's going to be very easy to carry.

So, sometime between now and next week, I've got to get that zero'd. It's going to be a bummer if I find out that it was the shooter afterall (but, then, at least I'd know). More on that later.

Camping in Hugo Colorado

August and September have been intensely busy -- and I lost my battery charger in Las Vegas so I couldn't take any good pictures. Which is why I haven't writen and new posts in several weeks! But, I've got lots of great stories to share and will be posting them and more over the next several weeks.One of the big things going on is we've decided to start hunting.

For the 2011/12 season, one of the things I really want to do is some pronghorn hunting. I've never hunted big game and so this is quite an undertaking, but its been fun. In early September, I decided to go scout the unit I planned on hunting in this year. This is in South Eastern Colorado. For those of you who've never been out there, it's a cross between open grassland and, well, mostly desert. So, you'll understand my surprise when I get half way down there and drive into a murky fog bank that lasted till noon the next day.

Which was fine. Had a nice evening camping in the fog under some trees in the Hugo State Wild Life Area. Got up the next morning and saw all sorts of wild life. Also got a dove (more on that in a later post). But, I think the fog spooked the pronghorn. Only saw a single small group until the afternoon.

Las Vegas was Great!

Well, for the few avid readers I have... Ah, I've got to be honest -- I have no avid readers. But, for those reading this blog today, my Las Vegas vacation was superb. We wrapped up with a nice mix of things to do around Las Vegas and some wonderful night life. We visited Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon, and did a couple shows.

We went out to Hoover Dam relatively early -- we got there about 10:30. This ended up much better than I expected. I thought the dam was still largely shut down for security. However, while we were there, you could drive across it and do an interior tour that is really worth while. Hoover Dam is a tribute to the age when they made it -- Art Deco design in the overall dam all the way to the Terazzo floors inspired by North American Indian designs. I loved seeing the power plants and walking through the tunnels was fun, too. If you go, a few pionters: go early so you can avoid traffic -- it was bad that afternoon; there is parking across the dam, not just at the visitor center; and the longer full tour is worth the wait and extra dollars.

The next day we went out to Red Rock Canyon which is just outside the West side of town. It was absolutely beautiful. I love the colors in Nevada (makes me want to do water color painting again). This 13 mile drive takes about an hour and you'll see a wide range of scenery. There are several great looking hikes, too. However, as it was 105F already when we got there at about 11:00, we pretty much stuck to the car. Not to mention I had broken my left pinky toe the day before on a door jam. It was definitely worth the drive and if we go out again, we'll definitely do some hiking, too.