We’ve covered a ton of ground in the past few days. Hunting with the approach of splitting our team up and glassing as much country as possible. We’ve spotted quite a few mature bulls and been out from dawn to dusk for a few straight days. Three of our group members had to leave camp this morning so we had a nice pork chop dinner last night and rather than scout, we took the evening off to organize our gear and enjoy the great company.
It was a beautiful day with temps in the 50s and 60s....a nice change from the earlier high 80s. Mark is out solo today checking out an area south of Tony Grove, Blind Hollow. He's following an Aspen covered ridge from Tony Grove to the road. I'm meeting him at a designated trail head at 8pm. It would be great to see an elk quarter in tow. I'm optimistic and will be bringing an ice-cold beer to greet him. I'll let you know tomorrow if it served a celebratory or simply carb replacing purpose.
I picked up Katie from the airport and away we went... stopping to check in with some friends in Ogden and drop off some extra gear.... we made a quick detour at the grocery store in Logan and headed for the hills. We decided to make use of an opening in the Tony Grove Campground and basecamp out of there for a few days. We've settled into a great scouting pattern of glassing both mornings and evenings and hitting the hills during the day in search of sign.... we're consistently finding 5 new bulls a day.... but we haven't found anything exceptional....... YET!
I was about 15 minutes behind schedule once I got to my chosen spot.
Within 5 minutes I had a bachelor herd of three bulls located.... ah! It feels good to finally be here, not to mention actually finding elk on the first morning of scouting. Two small raghorns ( A 5x5 and a 6x6) and nice mature 5x5 with long beams...I found a great mule deer buck in the canyon as well. On my way back to the trailhead I spotted a bachelor herd of 5 mule deer feeding amongst the wildflowers out in the open. One really nice buck with them. After a practice stalk... (I made it to 45 yards from the good buck) I headed to another glassing point to view where I'd come from... I found a big bull moose after 10 minutes.... man Utah has game everywhere!!! I got back to the truck around 11:45 and took to the road...
Having grown up hunting in Montana, Mark Seacat has been blessed with the opportunity to pursue Elk, Deer, and Antelope on a yearly basis. He’s harvested great bulls with his bow and rifle while hunting on public land there. “I’ve always dreamed of hunting states like Utah and New Mexico for elk, but until this season I’d never applied for the draws there,” Mark said. Drawing a Utah Limited Entry Elk tag with ZERO bonus points is quite the lottery, but wait till you find out the whole story.