I had grand plans to hunt a couple of new areas this year. I’ve scouted those areas, bought new maps that cover them, and come up with schemes to ambush the game I was planning to hunt there.
But fate had different ideas. None of us who put in for those areas as a party drew. We all ended up with general elk and deer licenses. So that means we’re all going to have to hunt an entirely different area this year.
The good news is that we have an area picked out that is general for both elk and deer, so we can hunt both in the same place. It’s also fairly close, so if we don’t get our tags filled when we go out in the archery season, we’ll probably be able to go back during the rifle season and try it again.
But we’ve put a lot of effort into hunting those limited quota areas. We’ve already spent quite a bit of time up there checking things out, mapping out some likely places to find game, and picking out some places to set up camp.
We were all optimistic about drawing, so we didn’t even consider any other areas. Now that we’ve all come up empty, it’s time to face the facts and go check out the general area we were hoping we wouldn’t have to fall back on.
I’m not entirely discouraged, though. This means I have a built-in excuse to get outside and tramp around in the wilds. Since I haven’t hunted that area before, I’ll need to spend as much time as I can out there. I’ll need to learn the land as best I can before I get up there this fall, and have a good idea of where I can find elk and deer and where to camp.
I’m up for the challenge, especially if it means a few extra trips up there this summer. I’m almost happy that I didn’t draw those limited quota tags.
