Iccyman001\'s 2015 Hunting Journal

[iccyman001]

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my 2015 hunting journal. 2014 was a fantastic year. The best statement that I can use for my 2014 season was \"You get out what you put in.\" I put in days of scouting, hours of overhead scouting on google maps, hours of reading books/forums and listening to people about hunting.
Because of all of this, I was able to shoot my first elk ever with a bow, and two beautiful bucks while ground hunting, with a bow. All of these were public land kills.

So lets talk about 2015.

I will start with my potential hunts this year:
- Right now I have draws in for NM ELK, ANTELOPE, BEAR, and MULE DEER.
- Then I have Idaho. Idaho is mostly likely going to be a possible for a few reasons. If I draw NM and the two hunting partners that I put in for it with don\'t, then I am hunting NM and ID. If none of us draw NM, then we are going to ID. The only way I don\'t really see ID happening is if we all draw NM.
- Possible Turkey hunt in NM.
- Whitetail Oklahoma.
- Turkey hunt Oklahoma.
- Possible Whitetail hunt Missouri.
- Possible Turkey hunt in Missouri.
- Possible Whitetail hunt in Nebraska.

Then we have lots of hog, dove, and quail hunting.

Some important dates for me:
Feb 28th I find out if I drew bear for NM.
April 28th I find out if I drew for Antelope, Mule deer, or Elk.
Sometime in April I can apply for the Oklahoma Elk and Muzzleloader controlled hunts I would love to draw.
July I find out if I draw the Oklahoma controlled hunts.
Then obviously dates for when hunting seasons start...


Some of my goals this year:
- Number 1 and most important, I want to have fun. I want to meet new people, share stories, share knowledge, share the passion....
I was born and raised on hunting and it\'s life style. I want to continue passing this tradition on. I want to help people grow as hunters, get their first kill, and also have just as much fun.
- Learn more about elk hunting. I\'m a hands on kind of guy. This forum has helped me grow SO much with elk hunting and hunting in general. Last year I only had one day in the woods for elk hunting though. I am not complaining, but I need more to become a more effective elk hunter.
- I want to take another mature whitetail buck. I was fortunate enough to take the biggest whitetail I found off of public land in Oklahoma and it was such a feeling that I cannot explain. So this year I would like to do the same thing. Find mature bucks, pattern them, and take them with a bow.


I could name so many, but you will learn them as I go.

I can tell you I will write a lot, post lots of pictures, and bring you into my world.




So.... enjoy...

 

[iccyman001]

I think I started this a little too early, but I will start throwing in some updates!

I actually changed up my mule hunt application and added a muzzleloader hunt.
It\'s a restricted muzzleloader hunt so I can only use old school stuff. It\'ll be my third choice and has a very high success rate at being drawn.
It\'s also in a great unit that has some nice reset mulies!


So thanks to the help of Pete, I have been looking around for a nice gun to purchase. It\'s actually getting me antsy to buy it.


Tomorrow I am heading out for a quick quail hunt and I am pretty pumped about that!



Finally, I am going shed hunting next weekend, so I am VERY happy about that. I\'m taking my fianc? and our two puppies.
It\'s still a bit early, but we want some hiking time and we may luck out :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Tomorrow is the first shed hunt of the year in Oklahoma!
It\'s early, but we are antsy to do some hiking and shed searching!

The quail hunting is coming to an end out there too, so I want to run my cameras for a month or two in a few new spots to catch straggler horned bucks. Then I will take them back out at the end of march. Then they can go back out early july!


I\'ve been searching arial maps all day and my bags are packed!



I\'ll be back tomorrow night with stories :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Well, the shed hunting was a really good time. My puppies had a great adventure, Alyssa had lots of fun, and I got to scout and shed hunt.
We covered about 5-8 miles in both new and old areas. I also hung up three cameras to catch some late season bucks before they all drop their sheds.
I put on at my honey hole and two in a new draw that I\'ve been very interested in. It\'s a giant ridge that seems to funnel from a few different draws and feeding areas.


I hope to see some new cool bucks on it in a few weeks.

It was still very early for them to be dropping their stuff, but I did find a piece of an older shed.




Very sleepy dogs..

 

[iccyman001]

Well, today I got my fire restarted!

I went and picked up my european mount from my buck that I shot in 2014.
I hate posting pictures, because it doesn\'t do justice, but here is it!







I will post more when I hang it up. I am very pleased and I love this bladed buck, very cool horns!
Is it whitetail season yet?

 

[cohunter14]

Looks great Dan! :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Thank you Derek!


Man, two days in a row of happiness. Yesterday I got my first mount and today I found out my trail camera picture of my shooting my deer is in the running for some cool prizes on AT.

You all may remember, but if not...










I entered the third picture of the series and it was selected for the top 10 of the contest. That was out of well over 450 entries!



SO that was pretty cool.


Also, only 2 more days until NM bear draw results are out.... :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

NM bear results are today.....


I am not holding my breath because its so few tags, but BOYYYY WOULD I BE EXCITED :upthumb:

 

[cohunter14]

Good luck! :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Thanks Derek!

No luck on the draw, but that\'s ok

April 28th is the big date! Antelope, Mulies, and ELK!

 

[F M]

My vote is in for number 3. :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

My vote is in for number 3. :upthumb:

Thanks Francis!!!!!


I am VERY excited we have dates coming together.... :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

What an exciting, fun filled, and adventurous day I had yesterday.
Yesterday I woke up at 3AM to start a day of shed hunting, turkey scouting, deer scouting, trail cam checking, and hiking. What I got was that and so much more....

Alan (vthokee) and I left New Mexico at 4am and started our trek out to Oklahoma. Nothing crazy about the ride out, but we did get to stop and get dunkin donuts.... YUM :upthumb: :dance2:

We made it to Oklahoma and decided to check my 3 game cameras first.
The idea was to check those and see if we saw any bucks with antlers still hanging or if they had already dropped. Then we would make our plan from there.

The first spot we checked was my honey hole. It\'s a spot that has tons of does around that I get on camera almost daily, then when the rut picks up, it\'s magical.
Sure enough... plenty of does, and no bucks to be seen. Oh well, I kind of figured that because it\'s mostly does until the rut.

Then we went to another spot that Alyssa and I had found. I wasn\'t sure what was using the draw, so I put two cameras up to see what we would catch.

Well, after walking by the first camera that I hide so well, we checked it\'s SD card. Someone (me) forgot to take it off of video mode, and I had 34 videos to sort though. Most of them were all does and one was me walking right by the camera....

No worries, lets go check the other side, hopefully there will be bucks on that camera to tell us if the antlers have dropped.....


NOPE, more does :think:

So, plan number 1 to determine if the bucks had dropped their antlers was a bust, so time for a new game plan.








some unwanted preds







So... we decided to go look for turkeys now....

 

[iccyman001]

So, this year will be my first year ever trying to turkey hunt by myself.
I have mentioned that I have been on one turkey hunt in my life and my friend took me. He set up the decoys, called me in a jake, and I shot it.

Well now I am antsy to try this out on my own and I plan on using my bow.
Where I hunt there is not a giant population of turkeys, but there are some. They are nice RIOs and I plan on taking one.

Anyways, I told Alan that I knew where some were, so we went to that area. As I was walking over to show him where they roost, he almost died from a heart attack when a covy of about 30 quail took off 3 inches from him.... :lol:

After I showed him were they roosted, I wanted to show him where they like to hangout. As we started to crest a small hill leading to the field they like to play in, we saw them!!!!

We hit the deck and crawled up a little closer. We were about 60 yards from about 9-11 turkeys. From what we counted we saw 5-7 hens and 4 toms.
TWO VERY MATURE ONES.

So Alan started making some calls and we just watched. At this time I was thinking to myself \"let me take some pictures with my cam....\"

Guess who forgot their camera at home.

Rule #1 and lesson #1 of the year. DONT LEAVE HOME WITHOUT A CAMERA..... here is why.

The turkeys never saw us, but 7-9 of them walked off. The two mature toms just sat their strutting and looking at each other.
Alan and I backed out and went over to a different spot to see them.

This is where lesson #1 really hurt.....


Here are these two LARGE and MATURE Toms, both beautiful with the chameleon type colors and VERY large beards....
They started FIGHTING right in front of it. For about 10 minutes we watched them peck, bite, wing slap, neck wrap, strangle, and just all out battle each other. This was one of those amazing moments where it was just you and mother nature enjoying life.
WHAT A COOL THING TO SEE. I sat there dazed in the binoculars as the large beards swung around and I was instantly hooked and ready for April 6th...


We backed out because we didn\'t want to spook them, but man, what beautiful birds.....

I will dream about them until I see them at the end of my mathews.



Time to scout and shed hunt.....

 

[iccyman001]

Alan and I (plus my puppies) spent the next four hours hiking all throughout the fun terrain.
We found tons of new spots, tons of sign, and TWO SHEDS that were from last year or older.






After we did most of our hiking, we wanted to check one last spot that Alan had found the year before.
About a quarter of a mile away from the spot, my truck started making a noise.


It sounded like the belt was wet, so we drove to the spot and went in to explore.

After our final hike we went to the truck and started it up.
I thought to myself \"hey no more squeaking!


Then I said out loud.... \"hey, no power steering...\"

Then I looked at my dash... \"battery not charging\"


We all know where this is going.......


The noise was probably a pulley or tension/idler arm that froze up. Then as soon as I started it, SNAP.

So here we are 20+ miles in the woods, 40 minutes from the nearest town, 1 hour from the nearest town with a parts store (which I will remind you was not open), 3 hours from the nearest chevy dealership (which was also not open this late on a Saturday) and five and a half hours from home....


Lesson #2 of the year. Don\'t forget your tools at home and carry a spare belt in your box.


So here we are with so many options. Park at a hotel and sort it out monday, drive as far as we can and wait for it to die, drive to that dealership and have someone come get us, etc etc...


Well guys, the choice was made and we just started driving, hoping to make it as far as we could. Well guess what...


The Chevy Duramax made it all the way home with battery to spare.....

When we started the joinery we had sunlight, but we were really worried that once the lights kicked on, it would drain the batteries.

NOPE. Didn\'t even phase the batts.



So, all in all it was a fantastic trip:
- We saw many turkeys
- We saw about 11 deer
- We found sheds
- We hiked about 8-10 miles
- We found new spots
- The dogs had a BALL
- We had does on camera

and most important was we had fun in the woods.







sleepy heads

 

[cohunter14]

Sounds like a great trip Dan! Glad you made it back without issue :upthumb:

 

[iccyman001]

Sounds like a great trip Dan! Glad you made it back without issue :upthumb:

Thanks Derek! It was a great time.
Now I just need to do some truck overhauling so it\'s good for the year :dance2:

 

[iccyman001]

Well, things are starting to get VERY exciting.

We have:
- 20 days until Oklahoma turkey season opens and I will be out there opening day!
- Less than a month and I will be driving out to Kansas to meet up with a good bunch of guys to do some turkey hunting.
I\'m very excited to meet Tim, Francis, Gary, Scott, and his son. I am extra excited to learn some great turkey tips from very experienced hunters.
- Then a month and a few days until New Mexico draw results where I am waiting on a possible elk, antelope, mule deer, oryx, and barberry sheep hunt!

It\'s still super early in 2015, but I already know it\'ll be a fantastic year :upthumb:
I\'ve been kicking my workouts into high gear, prepping my bow, shooting, and getting my gear ready.

If you thought I had a good year last year, you are in for a treat. I am going to post more in the journal, take WAY more pictures (thanks to Wills posts) and so much more.

 

[Zpd307]

less than a month away. I suppose I should start getting my gear gathered up....

 

[iccyman001]

I cannot wait.

I am excited for some good hearty meals.
Francis and I were talking about some meal ideas.... feel free to kick in some more!
Steaks, burgers, elk sloppy joes, etc etc etc...

Beware turkeys!