Sunday, April 17, 2011

A LOT of work for a couple antlers!

Spent a couple days in New Mexico where I hunted last year looking for sheds.

They had a very mild winter this year as far as snowfall so the sheds are supposedly all way up high. Spent 10 hours looking before I found these 2 on my way back to camp the first day with about an hour of sunlight left but couldn't find the other sides so I went back to try to find the other sides the next day, and spent 5 hours looking and came up empty. All said and done I was hoofing it for 16 hours and found these 2 sheds! At least they are decent ones.

I got so excited when I finally found them that I forgot to take pictures of them as they laid. This is the closest thing I have, sitting on my backpack waiting to get strapped on.
Here they are strapped on my pack. Heading back down the trail as the sun was setting.

I got to try out some of the new gear I've been buying off Camofire and I think it is going to work out pretty well. I got the Trekker poles at Cabelas and they really do work!

Still haven't figured out my boots. Either I have wimpy feet or I'm not meant to climb up and down such steep loose slopes. Wore a couple big ol blisters in just 2 days.

A LOT of work for a couple of sheds when it was all said and done. I for sure got my exercise! One last scenery shot.

That's it for now. Nathan

Saturday, April 9, 2011

A very timely post!

Wow, I'm actually making a post about TODAY!

Made a whirlwind trip down to the land today with Eli and one of his friends and got lucky and found some shed antlers! I've spent hours and hours looking for shed antlers over the years and average about 1 shed found for every 2 or 3 hours of looking. Today I practically stepped on some!

Right off the bat I stepped out of the truck and saw this: I found another little shed about 10 seconds later within 10 feet of that one and then looked around some more but didn't find anything.

Eli and his friend were getting restless so we went to go check on a trail camera and as we were driving off I spotted another shed from the truck! It ended up being the other side of the first shed I found making my 2nd matched set I've ever found on my place.

Here's what it looked like as it laid. We looked for another 30 minutes or so but didn't find anything else of course since we were looking. I've been meaning to hinge cut some trees so I decided to try it. I used my sawzall on this tree and pulled it over.

Eli wasn't actually crying in this picture, that is actually a smile, but he was hot and had actually been crying earlier, he doesn't like cactus! The hinge cut seemed to go pretty well though! We all ended up hot and tired, but overall it was a great success. I found 4 sheds in less than an hour of looking and got all the cameras checked and feeders filled. Plus Cathy and Eli's friends mom got a break for the afternoon!

Here's the end result back at the house. Oh well, I'm just proud of myself for actually being current for once! I still have a ton of stuff to go back and update though!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Way behind on my posting!

Okay, well it is somewhat expected, but somehow I got way behind on my posts!

Each year I try to tell myself that I am going to be better about posting on a consistent basis, and each year I will go a month or more without updating my blog. Oh well, I guess there are more important things in life than keeping my blog up to date!

One of the reasons that I don't post more frequently is because I personally get more enjoyment reading other people's blogs and posts on discussion forums if they have pictures to go along with the story. Lately it seems that either the pictures that I take don't turn out quite as well as I want them to, or they are on a memory card at the house or some other factor that makes getting the picture posted along with the narrative difficult, so I just don't end up posting anything on that topic. I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and write up the narrative and get it posted regardless of whether I have a picture or not though. After all, when it is all said and done, this blog truly is more of my personal online diary than anything that people are actually waiting on pins and needles for me to get it updated!

So with that said, I'm going to start posting on a regular basis again with or without pictures included. Of course it is going to help that my busy season at work is slowing down and I'll actually have a little more time to get it done too.

So take this as a warning shot across the bow, I'm going to try to start posting again. I would like to make a post on processing a pig, I took my friends from Wyoming on a successful pig hunt as well, plus I am thinking about putting up some posts on all the different hunts that I'm applying for this year and some other fun stuff like that. I've also bought some new gear that I'll try to either do some reviews on or something like that.

That's it for now, Nathan