Colorado Photo Submission

Eric Norman thought we needed a little fresh water love back on the blog so he sent us this hog. His buddy sent him this picture from the Blue River in Colorado. I've wanted to fish it and I looked down on it from 10,000 feet this summer... If I'd only known that hogs like this were in there.

Well thanks again Eric and I look forward to seeing what you guys were able to find in Ohio this fall. Wishing you luck from Florida and looking forward to seeing a couple of rack bucks here soon! 

Archery Elk Hunt

For those of you that are curious we did in fact kill a bull elk on our hunting trip out west. We were high up in the Eagles Nest Wilderness area in Summit County Colorado when Brad Grgurich shot his 5 by 5 bull. Believe it or not it was night one when the shooting occurred.

We had just finished a three hour long horseback ride, seven miles up into the mountains, got our tents laid out when we decided to scout some territory. We all broke up into groups of two and went our own ways, scouting different drainages to hunt on. 

Brad described his bull encounter as this (I'm paraphrasing): It was about 5 minutes until being too dark to see and I heard a crack I didn't think much of it because there were so many squirrels around I just figured it was another one. I glanced over just in time to see a bull walking straight towards me. Now my dad had been calling sporadically all night and he was about 70 yards away from me up the hill so it was probably looking for him, but it was coming right at me. I came to full draw and it looked straight at me and thankfully kept walking it turned broadside at about 25 yards and I tried to time the shot because he was moving... Pretty standard Brad. An underwhelming story for what would have had my adrenaline up and had me shaking. He made a fantastic double lung shot on a 700 pound animal, with that shot in mind this elk still ran 1,000 yards across a steep creek bed up the other side and buried itself in some thick pine trees.

The result - 

For the rest of the pictures from the trip accompanied by some background music check out the videos tab on the blog or the website here.

Colorado Elk Hunt

Alpine Fishing: Slate Creek

As some of you may know by now I was away in Colorado for the past week and a half chasing elk around the Eagles Nest Wilderness of Summit County. While the elk hunting wasn't a complete success it did allow me to spend some time chasing another illusive species that I had been craving, wild mountain trout. The watershed we fished was approximately 8,500- 9,000 feet above sea level. A small difference from the 16 feet of elevation I currently live at.. Slate Creek gets legs from Upper Slate Lake (12,000 Feet above sea level) and flows through the Slate Creek Valley, which happened to be within walking distance (3 miles) from our hunting camp. 

We decided after one of our longer, more excruciating excursions into the wilderness that it was time for a break and to see if we couldn't catch a couple fish. It was exactly what we needed, the fishing was excellent the weather broke, and you couldn't imagine a more pristine backdrop. The three mile hike in seems like nothing when I finally was able to break my troutless streak. 

Lucky for the photographs the Brooke Trout were beginning their spawning cycle and boy were the colors vibrant. Bright sunrise orange bellies with dark black mouths brought me back to Alaska and their cousins Dolly Varden. It truly was a trip to remember and this little fishing trip in the middle of it was just the tip of the iceberg.