Scouting II

And the scouting continues; I'm hunting before I'm hunting and after yesterdays trip I will be still 'hunting' before I'm hunting. Sara joined me yesterday for my scouting trip on horseback-that's the way to go. We covered around 15miles of terrain. The ride was great-beautiful country, great company, the kids were with their dads and no time limit to be home. Unfortunately, though, despite what looked like ideal area for deer to be, we saw nothing!! Take that back, we did find the remains to a 2 point buck that had been dead I would guess from last year-not very promising; water also seemed to be lacking-that's very important. The draws that I thought we would find a spring in because of the healthy vegetation had no surface water in them, hence the reason that there were no signs of deer to be found.

We actually rode up to the right of this point

Heading towards the mountains in Pumpernickle Valley

The truck stops here and the ride begins!

The trail to the base of the mountains to where we are going. I couldn't get closer with the truck and trailer due to a couple of ditches that were to deep-the worse one was literally 6-8ft deep!!! But with horses, this was no problem!

Almost all geared up and ready to go. Poor girls had no idea what they were in for.

The only catastrophe of the day. Lena put her head down as I was 'glassing' the area and stepped on the rein. When she brought her head up, one of the leather straps on the headstall snapped! All of a sudden, it was hanging around her neck instead of her head. Thankfully, I was able to put it back together with what was left and we continued our ride. This was about halfway into our ride.

We decided to take a lunch break around 11:30 after we got up on top a 'hill'. This is the view we had to the southwest.

These are the rocks that we sat on and had lunch while enjoying the view. I decided that I would like this rock pile in my yard but I haven't figured out how to make that possible especially since some of the rocks are bigger than the biggest haul trucks out there. I'll keep dreaming about it though. Gives me a reason to go 'trail' riding again.

Lena's opinion of the trip so far. Nina was just happy that we stopped and kept her opinions to herself.

Tied to a 'hitching post' and enjoying the break.

Sara

Pretty in pink!

Ummm..........I informed her that smoking was bad and that it wouldn't get her out of taking these long rides-she eventually dropped the stick.

Me on a rock, enjoying the view, soaking up some sun, out where I love to be with a great sister!!

After the stick, she thought she would try the rock instead. She's like a little kid-everything has to go in the mouth!

Almost down onto the 'flats'. The trip down was a bit steep so the horses were happy to get on level ground.

Back at the trailer. They were so happy to be able to stop and finally get a ride themselves.

While Nina is no 'spring chicken', you wouldn't know it with the way she will cover the ground but even she needs a much deserved break.

Stayed tuned for more to come!

Scouting

For those of you that don't know, I was fortunate to draw a deer tag this year, however, do to the fact that I got sick in June and then took 2 months to recover, I am only now getting out to do some scouting. I wouldn't be quite so concerned about it had a gotten an area that I was familiar with but that is not the case this year so I have a couple weeks to find the deer before the season starts and yesterday was my first day out. Getting out was very enjoyable though and I love exploring new places. We didn't see any deer and unfortunately there wasn't any fresh signs but it may be a place to consider later in the season, especially if there is a lot of pressure elsewhere. We did get to see some pronghorn, I didn't realize that there were any in that area and the time spent with my honey is always nice.

We started way down there. The trip up was interesting. The 'roads' that are around here really aren't roads anymore. We had to get off the 4 wheeler at one point and drive it up the hillside as it was to steep for us to stay on and then to top it off, we almost couldn't get it up the dirt burm that was on the side of the road that we were trying to get to-it was scary and fun all at the same time!!!

The 'road' heading back down after we had got to the top and hiked around for a while. This was Bryan's view on the way back down. The view was amazing at the top-you could see across the valley in all directions.

This was my view straight ahead on the way back down. Not bad, but I have to say that mountain sides were more interesting.