2008 Turkey Hunt

Lenn and I finally made it to our turkey hunt this year. We did it last weekend over Memorial Day. We put in for the late hunt this year thinking the weather would be better. You can see that we mis-judged that one.

.

This ended up being one of those trips that just seemed like everything went wrong for us. We got a very late start on Friday because I had to work. I hit traffic in Farmington and we pretty much had it all the way to Monticello Ut. Once we got to Spanish Fork and off the freeway we thought we had smooth sailing. But a deadly accident had us parked in Spanish Fork Canyon for about 2 hours. We rolled in to Monticello after dark. We stopped by to get the trailer keys from my dad and headed up the mountain to get some sleep and finally hit the pillow at 1 am.

Now the ground was a little damp when we went to bed but this is what we woke up to at 5:30 on Saturday morning. There was about 6 inches of snow and it did not even think about melting until later that afternoon.

.

I walked out pretty early and walked off the hill to yell out some locater calls. I did not hear one response in about 20 minutes of calling. Now we are still pretty new to Turkey hunting but it is my guess that they don't like snow too much. When I did not get a response from a turkey on those calls I knew it was going to be a difficult hunt for us.

After failed calling and feeling like we were on a fall deer hunt we got to chopping some wood to warm our bones and come up with a game plan. Lucky for us dad had some leftover wood from the winter in his shed that we brought up with us the night before so we had good dry wood to start with.
This shot above has a good shot of the nights storm in the background. Lenn is getting some morning sun waiting for my boy scout fire to start. You can see all the deer tracks on the right. We saw hundreds of deer on this trip.
We packed a lot of cold weather hunt gear and good thing for it. We pretty much wore our coats the whole hunt. This is a good shot of Lenn with his Mossberg Shotgun
This is the paved road that runs around the Blue Mountains. We were hoping for plows but they stayed off the mountain today. This is where we spent most of Saturday morning. We had taken a little walk down off the hill from our camp and did not see any sign of turkey. After that we jumped in the truck to see if we could see any signs of turkey crossing the road. We were worried that they had headed down the mountain into some private ground. We were able to spot a few hens and a couple of young jakes. We figured they had dropped a little but they were still working their way through the snow. You can hardly see here but there is a hen in the picture about. This is my form of Where's Waldo
You can see in this picture that the snow started melting by the afternoon. Even Lenn could take off his winter cap. By now we had gone out and set up a couple of times to see if we could get lucky and call one in or be in a spot that one would come wandering by. Because of the short hours the night before I think we both did more napping in the scrub oak then hunting.
This is a hound dog that wandered into our camp while we were eating lunch. The bear hunt was going on at the same time we were there. This one got seperated and looked like he had been on the mountain a few days. We fed him to see if we could get him to hang around and he did not even take the time to chew it. He even broke open Lenn's Dr. Pepper box and tore off some cardboard and started eating that. After about 20 minutes sniffing around he took off and we did not see him the rest of the trip.
This is a good shot of Lenn set up in a stand of Scrub Oak. This spot is only about 100 feet from where he killed his first Turkey 8 years ago. There was fresh sign all over this bottom and we had hopped that a gobbler would come through. But again we were skunked and after three days of hunting we called it a trip and headed north. We came out empty handed but it was a great trip anyways.

Out for a stroll in Logan Canyon

Amy and the kids went down to Provo last Friday so to kill some time I decided to head out and give my new hunting boots a good test. I drove up to 2nd dam, crossed the road and walked up into the Junipers and on into a little slot canyon.

There was plenty of feed in this area and I had seen some deer here while fishing 2nd dam so I thought I might even find me a horn or too. But no luck. I hope that I am not as bad at finding horns as I am at fishing.
The pics may not be as sharp as usual and that is because Amy had the camera in Provo. But I took these with my new phone and they turned out pretty good. The picture above and the ones below are all of the cliffs above 2nd dam.
Once again, no horns but there was plenty of sign. A lot of bed areas and deer crap. While I was taking the picture below I doe quietly walked under some rocks I was standing on. She was the only thing I saw. I was at my highest point in the canyon on the picture below.

Jeeping Moab with Dan

It was about time for a “spring break.” I had been itchin to get away to spend some time behind the wheel and in the warmth. The cold northern Utah snow chased us all the way to Price and the wind found its way right into the Moab valley. We knew it wouldn’t last thought and it really didn’t. By late last Thursday night, the wind had stopped and the stars were out in Moab. Though it was a little cold at night, it was well worth it. The pics below were taken at various locations around Grand County. Take a look at the awesome colors.

.

.

Standing on the shelf at Gemini Bridges

Looking into the bottoms under the bridges
I had to get the absolute best view I could….Can you blame me?
Tusher Tunnel, and interesting formation that seems to have been created by two giant spires that collapsed on one another
OK, now the fun really begins. I am trying to get the sway bar disconnected as we head into the Kane Creek trail.
The first trail break. It was probably a good thing too things got fairly rough just around the corner.
Here we are down in the bottom of Kane Creek Canyon. As you can see there was plenty of water. The trees were green and in some cases the water was up to the bottoms of the doors. It made for some fun driving.
Here we are making the long push out of the bottom of the canyon. I am not trying to squeeze through a tight spot. That wall on the far side of the jeep is actually about 100 yards away and there is an 200 foot drop less than a foot from the drivers side. Yes, when I was done I did need to clean out the shorts.
This might give you some perspective. Notice the group of ATVs in the background.
.
.
All in all this was a great trip. We saw some awesome country, tested the jeep and ate some good food. Not to mention, the “April Action” car show was going on and the hot rods were all over town
.
.

post by Dan