Day prior to my first weekend of hunting!

Check this out, this is perfect. So in getting ready to go hunting, I ended up in a sporting goods store to get some replacement blades for my broadheads. While in the sporting goods store, I ended up grabbing some game bags as well as a "Hoochie Momma" cow call. But while I was hovering there by the blades, I couldn't remember what grain I was shooting! So I didn't know what size blades to get. I ended up going with the 125 grain blades, thinking they "looked right." I got home, ripped open the package and instantly tried to replace my blades. Too long by about 1 millimeter! I shoot two different weights of the same broadhead, I'm not sure why. I had a pretty good chance of choosing the correct weight, but leave it to me to screw that up. Ok, so it was a terrible trip to the sporting goods store as far as driving was concerned...seriously took me 30 minutes to go about 5 miles. Rather than go back and exchange them, I decided to get online and order them, which is what I did...pretty lazy, but I figure if I ever get 125 grain heads...I'll be good to go! (That's the positive side.) This left six to ten days for them to arrive. I waited patiently.

Yesterday I finally got around to putting the new blades on, which fit perfectly of course. While preparing my pack and getting things together, organized, scent free...I got into a small pocket of my pack and...to my surprise, found TWO PACKS of 100 grain replacement blades. Fantasmo! I'm ROLLING in small razors now.

I'm starting to get pretty excited about hunting. I have done some reconnaissance by truck and even more analysis via maps and GIS data. I narrowed down my search by looking at chunks of land that didn't have motorized trails or roads within a quarter mile of them. Then I got in and looked at the topography using contours, aerial photos, Triangular Irregular Networks (TINS are essentially Hillshades in a more angular format, but gives a nice breakdown of elevations using color), as well as Hillshades. I found a place that met this criterion that is six square miles of land! It has two trails traversing along it, making any sort of pack-out easier. It has undulating hills, saddles, long ridges, creeks, benches...everything an elk could ask for...plus, it's within about an hour’s drive of my house. But, it will probably take longer in the dark. I asked some trusted “locals” what they thought of that area and they said it was VERY good elk hunting…so my pulse quickened and I cannot wait to get out and explore.

I also did some online research on elk populations in the area (provided by the Idaho Fish and Game.) Statistics for the units I’m hunting look decent. They are running an average of about 15% success, with most of the archery kills coming in the way of bulls; which is surprising to me. I got to thinking the other day that I had a chance last fall to pursue some cows, but was so intent on the bull bugling over the hill, that I completely forgot that I could kill a cow! Not so this year, I learned a good lesson with that one. Bull fever comes on fast!

First adventure comes tomorrow!