2nd Day of Elk Hunting

So this morning again I woke up way too early, but this time was different when I went to get out of bed....yep, you guessed it, every muscle in my body ached. Oh my goodness, it took me 15 minutes of stretching to get loosened up. I got the fires blazing and was chomping at the bit to get the day rolling!

We headed out before the sun this morning and were greeted to 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground. Jared and I headed up the mountain. We walked together for about a mile and then split up to make a huge couple mile loop. The plan was to meet back up together in about 1.5 hrs or so over by some ponds. If you look close you can see Jared heading out:


I didnt have nearly as much ground to cover as Jared, so I moved very slowly and sat up at the first real good elky looking spot. Wouldn't you know that 10 minutes later I turned to the right and there was a cow elk staring me down only about 100 yards away!!! We stared at each for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was about 6-8 seconds. I didnt move a muscle, but she took off back into the thicket real quick.

Here is the kicker, back in the thicket there obviously were plenty more elk who didnt see me, but who new it was time to get moving as well. Man are they ever loud crashing through the brush! Anyhow 3 of them took a path up a hill that was in my plain sight and decided to stop halfway up and look around. I raised my gun and put my crosshairs right onto the biggest cow and believe it or not, my heart actually wasnt beating like I thought it would be. I had a good 10 second window to take that shot, but for some reason I knew I wasnt quite ready yet to harvest an elk.

Those 2 cows and a spike buck eventually ran up the hill and out of sight and I just sat there in pure amazement and complete awe. Having that opportunity to harvest an animal and not taking it was actually an experience I will never forget. It was like I was a now a mature elk hunter even though I still basically don't know a thing about elk. I sat for another 10 minutes and just thanked God for that experience. I just can't even describe with words how great that was.

With the very fresh snow, I was so excited to meet back up again with Jared to start tracking where the elk came from, how many there were, and obviously were they went! I slowly made it to our meeting point and actually tracked Jared down a few minutes early, because by then my excitement was escalating.

So as we went back and started tracking the elk, we found out that there were waaay more than just a handful of elk in that zone. There were tracks coming and going all over the place back in there and we found a major bedding zone with well over 40 visible elk beds in the fresh snow!! We thought we were really onto something and we started following tracks to track down our elk!

Here is what the elk beds looked like. They were everywhere and many of them had piles of poop turds nearby. Apparently they do their business while resting:


Well, what we found out real quick was that we are pretty much the worst trackers on the planet. We would be following an elk highway only to basically lose the trails into the thickets. Those elk knew they were being followed cause they would just disappear off the trails and jump into the thicket up or down hills all the time. We tried going into the thick stuff once, but after getting stuck numerous times and falling down a time or two, we realized that every track we followed lead to a dead end! They just disappear......

Here is a pic overlooking the elk valley with the big mountains in the far background:


Kind of disappointed at our tracking and walking abilities we headed back for lunch. I actually forgot what we ate for lunch, but do know for sure it was delicious! We didnt have a bad meal the whole week!

When we got back to camp we found Edwin and the guys hanging Edwins elk. He was out hunting with Josh and harvested a big cow! Josh took this phenomenal photo:


For those who don't know Edwin, he is a 17 year old trapped in a 53 year old body! He is borderline crazy, and always the life of the party. This elk skin was just a few minutes removed from the elk and still nice and warm:



Here is a pic of our guides Adam, Dustin, Josh, along with Dave, Edwin, and Rand.


While we were eating lunch, and having fun taking pictures of Edwin, the guides went out glassing key areas for elk. Josh, Adam, and Dustin found a small herd just bedding down, so we knew exactly which direction we would head after lunch. Thats kind of nice to occasionally skip the whole wandering around aimlessly for a few hours process. It was time to put on the stalk!


The snow was lightly falling and we quietly sneaked in about 1/4 mile to get into position on these elk. It was so cool to get in and set up, the setting was picture perfect! The elk were bedded down in a small clump of scrub oaks about 290 yards across a small crick valley. We were at the top of a ridge hiding in our own clump of scrub oaks.


We waited about 20 minutes and finally some of the elk started stirring. The started walking in a single file line out of the brush and into the open valley. Jared put his scope onto the second cow in line and just as they got to the fence they stopped. Here was a decision....take the cow at 255 yards or see if they will keep on coming right on in. That opportunity only lasted about 10 seconds and we all decided to watch them and see if they would keep coming. This would be just so perfect to get a good clear shot!

Well wouldnt you know that instead of coming on down to the crick valley they decided to turn around and head back into the brush.....ugghhh. It wasnt 5 minutes later and they sniffed us out and all 9 of them hightailed up the mountain into the abyss.... Josh was kind of surprised it took them that long to sniff us out.

We took a gamble and this time it didn't pay off, but again just knowing we could of potentially harvested an elk was a great sense of accomplishment. Both Jared and I were not interested in just flinging bullets. Even if we didn't get another opportunity the rest of the week, we did not regret passing on elk today!

That whole stalk took about 3 hours. We still had about an hour of light left, so Adam and I headed out on a polaris to a new zone. We drove a few miles away and started up a hill. About 30 minutes of hiking and we come up to an opening and sure enough there were some elk. By this time I am thinking man there are elk everywhere. I never dreamed there were so many elk in Colorado.

Anyhow we were about 60 yards away and a little too close for comfort. We never had a chance to get the gun up cleanly. They busted us and headed out. We just simply were too close before we realized how close they were to us. Light was fading fast and we just decided to head back down to the Polaris and head back to camp.

I was so tired I could hardly stay awake for dinner. My legs were feeling alot like jello and I was already getting stiff as we settled in for the evening. I am pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch and I vaguely remember listening to everyone plot various tricks to play on me as I slept. If my hand actually did get placed in a bowl of hot water thank goodness I didnt end up wetting the bed that night.....

With scenery like this, I couldnt wait for the night to get over and get back out into God's country!

Colorado Elk Hunt Begins!

I wake up about 3 am with loud wind and rain beating on the old cabin tin. Agh great, just two hours from my first hunting trip up in the mountains and it sounds like a hurricane outside! Everyone else is sound asleep and I just sit on the couch for the next couple hours. Dean strolls in about 5 am to stoke the fires and I already had em rollin! I bet you they went through twice as much wood as usual the week I was there!

Day in and day out, I think I am probably the only person in the history of elk camp to consistently wake up at least an hour before Dean came in to put some logs on the firs. Yes, I am a freak who for some reason cannot sleep in the mornings. I sleep great at night, but for some reason am always up before the sun every stinkin morning. Brook is extra grateful for our kids to have the same curse as me.....not!

So anyhow by the time we all ate our bacon and eggs, the sun had come up and the rain finally started to turn into snow! We got a late start out of the gate, but by 7:30 am we were headed out into the mountains looking for some elk.

Dave dropped me off onto a 2 mile long ditch and told me to take about 2 hours to walk the ditch and look both up and down for elk and he would meet me at the end of it. It was very thick with scrub oaks and there werent nearly as many clearings in it than I had envisioned. Anyhow after about 30 minutes of walking and I come to nice clearing and just sit and wait. Picture perfect setting and wouldn't you know about 5 minutes later and to my complete disbelief here comes a big bull elk just meandering along!

I watched that elk for about 10 minutes and then he scooted off into the thicket. It is snowing pretty good out by now and I just sit there in awe of seeing such a majestic animal out in the wild up in the mountains! No other elk came out and I moved on to see what was around the next corner. The reason the bull came out, was because I had a cow tag! Supposedly 3rd season in these parts is mainly cows everywhere, but there I was looking at a big bull!! Oh well, next year I go for a bull tag and mule deer tag and cows will be all over the place......

As I get close to the end of the ditch I could see lots of Mule deer tracks in the fresh snow which was super awesome, but then all of a sudden I realized I was up in the midst of a herd of about 15 mule deer scattered all around me. The 4 bucks in the group scampered up the mountain and out of sight, but the ladies and youngins just played the staring game with me for about 15 minutes. Finally they decided to bounce up the hill in unison. For some reason they just seem alot dumber than whitetails...

So while I am having this incredible mountain experience, Jared is having quite an experience of his own! Dave and I dropped him off at supposedly a really good elk crossing for him to just sit and wait and try to catch some elk headed back up into the mountains. They go down at night to feed and up during the day to bed down. Anyhow after a few minutes of looking out for elk, Jared gets an up close and personal encounter with a herd of cows...not cow elk, but actual cows.

When Dave and I went back to pick up Jared, we found a huge herd of cows hanging out right were we left him! Jared had the gps unit and was able to pinpoint the ranch and ended up walking back the 4 miles! That was after he got side tracked from trying to sneak up on a herd of 4 elk the next ridge over.

So anyhow, where we were at there are lots of irrigated cow pastures in the mountains. The elk sneak down into the cow pastures to feed at night and we try to set up in there paths headed back up the mountains in the morning hours. Then during the day we head up the mountains looking for bedded down elk. Thats where Rands elk hunting story begins....

Rand and Edwin were out with Josh glassing at the top of a hill. They spotted 4 elk headed up a path and they took off to sneak into position for a kill. They played the wind perfectly and got within 200 yards. Rand layed down to shoot, but when he was laying down he looked over and saw two different elk just 140 yards away to the left. He quickly changed gears and picked out the cow who was with a spike buck.

His first shot hit a little far back and while the cow was trotting away he put another shot in her hind quarters. His third shot missed and his 4th shot probably over 300 yards away put her down! Rand is 14 years old and this is his second elk hunt!!



Rand was about 8-10 miles away from us, so we were pumped up when we found out he connected on the first morning! He spent the rest of the week looking for black bears and filming our elk hunts!!

We all met up for lunch at noon and gobbled down some of the best chili on the planet.

The snow just kept getting harder as the day progressed and by the time we went back out at about 3 pm it was really coming down!

I went out by myself again that afternoon and walked 1.5 miles up the most scenic old trail you can imagine! About every 150 yards I would come across a clearing littered with beaver dams and small ponds. By then the wind had come to a screaching halt and the quiet heavy snow was just breathtaking unbelievable.





At 5 pm I spotted four cows still bedded down about 500 yards away, but didnt have enough light left to make it worth stalking into position. You have to remember that this was still the first day of the hunt and my legs had already put on some serious miles! So instead of enduring more pain for an iffy chance at a shot, I was blessed with two monster mule deers just staring at each other about 60 yards from me.

Its mule deer season, I just didnt get mule deer tags. Both of them were shooters, but the one on the left was an absolute monster!! They knew I was there watching them, and they didn't care one single bit. Again, they just seem dumb to me, but who knows maybe they are smarter than I think. Anyhow I was blessed beyond what words can describe to experience this day alone up in the scenic mountains.

With the calm and quietness of the heavy snow, there isn't a better way to blot out the world and work back home to just meditate, pray and think. Even though I walked mucho miles, I was completely rejuvenated and will never forget this particular day.

Dave picked me up at our meeting spot at dark and we headed into the lodge for some ribs and taters and finished er off with some chocolate cake!


The cake was the only thing Rand didnt put hot sauce on today:


We all told our stories from the day and I took most of Rands money playing a dice game supposedly called Polish Craps. I bet it wasnt but 8 pm before most all of us were crashed out for the night....

Jamaica Work Trip January 2012!

January 6th 2012 we are coordinating a work team to Jamaica and we still need some more guys to join us for this project! For a little background, from 1994 to 2004 we headed down to Jamaica every January to work on building the Montego Bay campus for the Caribean Christian Centre for the Deaf. When we finished that campus, we just kind of stopped heading down there.


Well, anyhow out of the blue my dad gets a phone call from the Jamaica Deaf Village (which is a few hours from the Montego Bay Campus) last month saying that one of their buildings desperately needs a roof put on it and he was told we were the guys to get er done. Somehow he tracked down my dad's contact information from the Montego Bay people and anyhow now we are assembling a work team and headed for Jamaica! Here is a pic of one of the buildings we built back in the 90's:


Currently we are putting together the roof design and coordinating all the logistics, materials, food, etc for the trip. With a few phone calls and emails to all the folks who used to head down there with us, we have put together a rock solid work team so far, but what we need is still at least 10 more guys to make this possible!! Ladies we will put you to work as well! If you are interested get your passport expedited immediately and give me a call for more details! 309-303-5691 or shoot me an email to nate@hblakemanagement.com.

The cost of the trip is roughly $850 per person which includes airfare, lodging, food, materials, etc. But don't let that inhibit you from coming. We have some folks (and we definitely are looking for more) who cannot make the trip, but will sponsor others to go in their place! Any help is greatly appreciated in making this project possible. The dates are January 6th-13th, but that may possibly change up or down a day.


We will be building the trusses, and setting them onto this roof. Plenty of up in the air work for young adventure seekers and plenty of ground work for the old and wise. The weather is usually mid-80's in Mobay that time of year, but the Deaf Village is up in the mountains so if I remember correctly lower 80's and without the humidity!


The Montego Bay Campus is a 7 acre school facility for deaf children. While attending that school they live on Campus. The Deaf Village (where we will be heading) is a 100 acre village for deaf families to live and work and attend church! Really an awesome place up in the mountains!!

Colorado Elk Hunting at Bar ZX Ranch

So the second day of our adventure had us leaving our motel just after sunrise. It was dark when coming into the mountains the night before so we didn't see much. This time it was light and we were glued to the wildlife and scenery as we traveled through the mountains. We saw lots of big horn sheep, some sort of scrub goats, mule deer, and even some elk! Here are some sheep:


We stopped into a outdoor themed gas station and had some famous Colorado Santiago burritos for breakfast. Lots of other hunters were pouring into Colorado traveling this route as well. The gas station clerk said he would sell more than 200 of those burritos that morning! Anyhow, this truck in particular caught my attention while driving and provided a little chuckle:


Also we hit a traffic jam cause this UPS truck decided to catch on fire:


Finally about 2 pm we met up with Edwin and the gang at a shooting range just outside of Hotchkiss, Colorado. They flew into the airport at Montross about noon. The place we shot at was called Stengels Gun Shop and there we sighted in our guns and took turns trying to ring the gong at 1000 yards.

About an hour of shooting and we headed up to the Bar ZX ranch near Paonia. This place is pretty much one of the coolest places in world, but not because of technology or fancy structures. Pure natural scenic beauty, combined with tons of good ole fashion hard work, ingenuity, and of course home cookin all by the same family for over 100 years is what makes this place uniquely amazing!

The history and the people of the Bar ZX ranch are unlike anything you could dream up or expect from a hunting or fishing outfitter type of service. Dean and his wife Kathy own and operate the ranch and are the most hospital, funny old people you could ever meet. They are down to earth real hardworking people who enjoy sharing their slice of heaven with their clients. While your there, your not a client, your family!

The Bar ZX ranch consists of 640 acres of main land that is owned by the ranch, but then it also has the leasing rights to over 20,000 acres of adjoining land! While the 20,000 acres sounds very impressive, the 640 acres of owned land is actually the gem of Colorado! Dean grew up right there on that mountain and got his education from a little one room school house that still is standing about 2 miles down the road from the ranch entrance. Believe it or not, it actually is uphill both ways to and from that school!! And usually snowy too....

Anyhow Dean started building trout ponds on his ranch back in 1985 and now has 29 of them spread across the ranch and they are all piped together with fresh supplies of glacier spring water flowing in and out of each year round! Simply the most amazing set up on the planet and he built it all with his own two hands and some old used equipment! He has 17 species of trout on the ranch and every year several trout of several species over 20 lbs are landed from his flyfishing only ponds! 10 lbers are very common as you will see in some pictures coming up in some later posts, and 5 lbers are the norm! Unbelievable how he created and learned all that thru trial and error and driving passion for raising trout! Here is a sneak peak pic of fishing with Dean:


So throughout the week of my visit, I was so in awe of everything I was seeing that I pretty much never stopped asking questions about everything. (Chef Todd definitely influencing my normal shy behavior) but anyhow Dean and his crew not only answered my questions, they actually participated 100% with our humor and told lots and lots of stories. Here is a fun photo of Dean and Kathy we spruced up with a pitch fork. I tried to get a serious shot just like that old fashioned painting, but everyone was smiling too much...


Here is a bunch of fun photos of Dean mostly telling his stories....











The Bar ZX ranch is world reknown, world famous, world class, hunting and fishing! But with that being said again its unlike what you would normally think. The main bunk cabin that we all stayed in was built with mostly wood from the property, heated with wood burning stoves, and supplied with water from the local stream. No cell service anywhere close, no long distance phone, no computers, and pretty much no technology from the last 10 years whatsoever. This is the total authentic out West mountain experience! Here are some pics of the living room, also you can note all of Edwins stuff laying around everywhere!




So for those of you wondering how to book a hunt at Bar ZX, it actually usually is filled up every year. The same groups pretty much book the same hunts year in and year out for the last 20 years. Jared and I were fortunate to be invited along for the hunt this year. Occasionally there are some openings, but you would need a good reference or two and would go on a waiting list in order to come and hunt here. Just call me up or email me if you would like Dean's contact information, good luck finding it online!

I took tons of pictures of the ponds, fish, elk, etc, I just will put them in the corresponding days ahead as they were taken. Can't jump the gun too much, got to stay organized so my kids can read this stuff someday! Drake, if you happen to be reading this at some point in the future, about 40 minutes ago you threw up all over my bedroom floor and just 10 minutes ago you puked all over yourself in your crib. Looks to be a fun night at the Herman's tonight...

So anyhow, Kathy cooked us up a Lasagna feast once we got to the ranch. That meal was the perfect opportunity for Rand to start downing his bottles of hot sauce! There we met the hunting guides Josh, Adam, Dustin and Dave and went over game plan for the next morning which was opening day of Colorado's third rifle season!!! My exhaustion eventually overcame my excitement and I was actually able to fall asleep pretty quickly that night!

Snow was in the forecast for the morning (and pretty much every other day)!!

My First Colorado Elk Hunting Trip

Early on Thursday morning November 3rd, Jared and I headed toward the middle of the Colorado Rockies to go Elk hunting. This was my first hunting trip West, and one I definitely will never forget! We did not have cell or internet service while up in the mountains, but now that I am home safe and sound, here are some of the stories, details, pics, and video of our adventure West!

This first pic is just a sneak peak into the type of scenery we encountered up in the mountains! I just felt like I should at least have some sort of cool pic up near the top to break up the monotony of lots of words to get this trip started....


Colorado's third rifle season didn't open up until that Saturday the fifth, but we headed out a couple days early to bring all the gear for the hunting party. We met up with our hunting partners Dave, Edwin, and Rand near Paonia, CO and we brought lots of guns, ammo, camo, 4 wheelers, and pretty much every other gizmo and gadget you could potentially need on a hunting trip in Colorado. All those guys are gear junkies, but Edwin goes way above and beyond with stuff like energy jelly beans, 8 different walking/shooting sticks, several elk cannons and packs and packages of who knows what! I only brought a small duffel bag with clothes, a gun, boots, and a backpack!

Anyhow, by 3 am Jared and I were driving his Ford F250 diesel and pulling Dave's big covered trailer full to the brim. We realized driving down I-80 that gas stations were few and far between so we bought a diesel container and filled it up at our second gas station. Wouldnt you know it was needed before we found our next fuel station!


My good friend and perhaps the best bluegill fisherman in America lives near Lincoln, Nebraska. He owns the website bigbluegill.com and has caught several bluegill over 3 lbs in just the last year! (He did classify my personal lake as the second best bluegill fishing lake in the nation, but I don't have 3 lbers yet!). Here is a pic of him with a 3 lber from Richmond Mill:


Here is a pic of an almost 2 lber from my lake last year. His arms are extended way out, but nonetheless a very nice special hybrid bluegill!


I texted him about an hour away from Lincoln that I was rolling through town and he insisted on buying us lunch. Since it was lunch time it was perfect timing!! A 1.5 lb burrito later and we were back on the road.

We rolled through Denver and about 8 oclock or so we pulled into a little mining town called Idaho Springs for some dinner and a hotel. Or should I say motel... We found a restaurant called the Buffalo Restaurant and Bar.


Click the link above the picture to read more about the history of that place. Kind of amazing really to be that old and to have regular patrons back in the day like Billy the Kid, etc. The food was a bit overpriced, but to experience that atmosphere and history was totally worth it! We downed our $15 buffalo burgers in no time:


Snapped a couple pics because this place was just like eating back in the old time westerns. Lots and lots of really old memorabilia:




There were tons of motels in that historic old mining town in the heart of gold country and we finally settled on one along the banks of some pretty sweet little river. It was about 10 pm by the time we reached the Argo Inn and Suites and it took me 10 minutes to talk the reception lady into giving us a discount for the room for the night. Jared walking in with his Marines shirt on sealed the deal! Here is a pic of the Bear that was guarding our room all night:


I slept great! Just plopped into bed and fell asleep right away with What About Bob playing on TV in the background. We were only in the Hotel about 8 hours and then off towards Paonia....