UNBROKEN

so [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] that's opening morning colorado 2020 september 2nd i was greeted by frost inside my sawtooth this morning on the walls of the tent so it's a jelly one we've already got two deer about 80 or 100 yards bedded below us here a little dick buck and a doe haven't seen anything big yet but i'm gonna keep glassing and uh i've got high hopes here i would turn something up good this year turn this year around make it a year instead of coveting face masks make it a year the giant bug it's a really good the deer handful years these bucks have been dropping out of the basin down into the jack pines and into the timber and been thwarting my stalking efforts by doing that because once i get into the timbers you know you're just kind of sneaking and peeking it's pretty low percentage but these deer are moving back further into the basin and there's a lot of nice room rock shelves in there and i've stocked bucks in the past in there so if these deer keep doing what they're doing heading up in there and then bed down we might have a good uh good opportunity later this morning dude he looks twice as big in the shadow that's a heck of a deer [Music] well it's 20 to 11 and we had 15 bucks over on that hillside and they're scattered out all over there there was one really nice big four point had a kind of goofy front fork on his right side and he actually came down off the ridge embedded down in some willows so he kind of went out of play um one of the other big bucks is a nice three point is bedded almost all the way to the top of the mountain and uh he's the highest buck up there and i'm debating whether to put a stalk on him you know you see a buck that is just you know a giant would be by far the biggest buck i've ever taken with a stick bow and he's in the same basin and you're going to go after a buck that's significantly smaller but still a really good deer there's always that man the bird in the hand versus the you know and so i think i'm gonna do the bird in the hand and i not leave it to chance that tomorrow or the next day or later in the week that that deer might bed in a spot that i can stalk them because i've got a stock in a good position right now and at minimum if it doesn't play out we'll get some cool footage so i think that right there is enough of a criteria there to go after them [Music] so i'm using a couple of game bags as a signal here so i'm going to be i'm a long ways away from these deer and i'm not going to be able to see them so if that buck gets up it moves during my stock i don't want to go all the way out there so if he gets up and moves ben's going to pull these two game bags down so that i'll know that the stock isn't boarded it's time for me to turn around come back [Music] [Music] [Music] sweet so that was almost halfway on the stalk to that big three point and i was glassing down as i went to see if i could find that big buck and sure enough i spotted embedded under the shade of a jack pine and he's got good shade there should should keep him shaded for at least a couple more hours hopefully he doesn't get up to feed in the meantime and the smaller buck he must be around the corner because i can't see him at all and i've got a great avenue of approach to be able to come up blind on him i think he's bedded facing kind of downhill so i should be able to come up hopefully get a shot at him without him be able to see me so we're going to tear down here and move up the ridge um quite a ways here and set up with a new angle and hopefully i'll get this get a chance at that big buck dude if i can get a crack in this buck i'd be so stoked all right we uh gone back down to where i dropped my bow and that buck still did at the same spot he's facing away i was just watching him and he's got to turn his head look back up the hill a little bit but hopefully by time i get down there he's just settled in and just looking straight downhill if that's the case i got a body that'll be exposed before his head as long as he's looking away from me and if that's the case i should have a good shot opportunity and man i'll tell you if i've ever wanted one one arrow to fly through it's this one no pressure on all right good luck buddy [Music] [Music] so from [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] was i ever the one that said i don't like filling my tag on opening day boy that would come back and bite me hey it's day two and uh we blew out the basin to the uh east of camp and i've got three main bases that hunt up here and there's a group of elk hunters camped in one of my favorite basins so i blew that one out so i really will have kind of two areas to hunt we got up at four o'clock this morning left camp at 4 30 and hoofed it over to the farthest one and we got into a dozen dunks in this basin and there's one really really nice one giant deep forks super narrow but he's tall he's got a big frame really really big buck but like i said just super narrow the inside's bread and the bulk of the bucks there's 12 here eight of them well i saw six going out the basin we're gonna go around the corner and the four including the one big one it's gonna work our way towards us we're just gonna sit tight and see what happens here mmm um [Music] so [Music] oh we just popped over onto this ledge here to find some shade so we could kind of burn the rest of the day here without getting sunburned and i lo and behold i found a really nice big four point um he kind of tucked in there for a few minutes i thought i was gonna have a good opportunity for a stock where he was kind of had a blind side but then he fed out and uh now he's just kind of right along the base of some rimrock it's getting towards evening now it's four o'clock and that buck's in the shadows the sun's going to drop further um he's kind of working his way out towards the end of that rim rock there i'm gonna drop off this rim rock i'm on try to circle across around the top of this basin here without spooking them and then get out on the top of that rim rock get out beyond him and then drop down and and uh i'm anticipating if i can get out there fast enough that he's gonna come around on the bottom edge of that rim rock and then i'm gonna try to set up sounds like a lot of calories to burn for a big maybe but other than that i'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] holy smokes what what a stock man i thought i had that thing in the bag i went down i took my boots off way too early i lost my perspective on where i was and i took my boots off probably 200 yards from where i you know above where i should yeah i mean it worked out okay you know it's one of those things where you're sitting up here the buck is way down there and you're looking at going okay he's going to get around that corner and you figure you have a limited amount of time i think i got down to where i took my boots off in 20 minutes it was fast yeah you know when you got you got a big buck like that and and you know the clock is ticking then you want to make some tracks so that's the second stock of the day i think today so can't really complain get some action in and hopefully tomorrow [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you know it's day five um 11 30. we had a bunch of bucks in this basin this morning but they all moved out around the side of the ridge and then down into the jack pines so one buck stayed behind and he's bedded tucked up underneath a rock i'm gonna have to get up above him or to the side of him and then wait until he gets up because i mean there's literally an overhang and he's underneath it and uh so it's gonna be a little interesting uh both from a perspective of trying to get a shot and also trying to get video of him because we don't know when he's going to stand up um so hopefully i don't we don't miss the video and or miss the shot opportunity it's a little bit of a long shot here but um there's nothing else going on so we'll take that long shot at this point with the time starting to wind off the hunt here we're not gonna not gonna be too picky [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it's one o'clock day five and i worked my way around the ridge where i saw those bucks go around the corner this morning and i looked into the uh maybe the second little drainage second draw and i spotted that hard horn four by three and uh so if there if he's here there's got to be more he's down below me so i'm gonna try and slip down here and look over the edge and see if i can find the rest of them got a nice four point feeding about 80 yards down the hill i'm gonna slip into my socks here and try to cut the distance [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] well that certainly didn't go as i'd hoped i just missed stubby twice he was the big three by three with the short main beams the first shot was uh under 20 yards but steep downhill the second shot was 35 and i should believe i shot to the right whatever the case blown a couple nice opportunities right there those are both shots that i can easily make and uh the same little disappointed is an understatement so i'm feeling the pressure that the time the clock is ticking i sure hope i can get it done [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so well it's labor day and um on the way up the ridge got a weather update and uh things are taking a turn for the nasty so tomorrow it's supposed to start snowing and snow for the next two days after that we're supposed to pull out on thursday so it's supposed to snow from midday actually start raining uh midday tuesday and then on the route start snowing on through thursday which is going to basically shut us down because we won't be able to see anything in the snowstorm and uh they're calling for 10 to 20 inches which is an insane amount for an early september snowstorm so basically we are hunt instead of pulling out midday thursday now looks like we're going to be pulling out midday tuesday which means i've got today and uh tomorrow morning so it just got the squeeze just really got tight um not very happy about that so we're gonna have to really push hard to make it happen today so it's 20 after 10 on labor day and uh appears as though we've got a fresh or got to be a fresh fire going somewhere near us because it is so smoky i feel like i've already smoked a pack of cigarettes today this morning um it's blowing out of the same direction all night last night there's no smoke and all of a sudden now this canyon's so full of smoke you can't even see the other side hardly but i've got a group of bugs out on the end of the ridge here that i'm gonna go and try to make a run at here i'm kind of running out of time running out of options but uh there's some good bucks in there so at least i got that going for me [Music] so [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] we decided to pack up early and check out a few spots to hunt our way off the mountain but the bucks must have also got the weather report and weren't to be found having exhausted our final opportunity the day before we were somewhat melancholy descending towards the truck the long trail down gives you plenty of time to reflect on your decisions and their direct consequences on your success success can be such an elusive thing repeatedly within grasp only to evaporate like smoke in the wind the stick bow is not a very efficient way to fill the freezer but if you thirst for personal and spiritual growth adventure solitude and a physical challenge all of these things can be found in the mountains and a traditional bow gives you plenty of opportunity for all of these [Music] these same mountains have changed little since the first white man pushed west driven by a wanderlust searching for fulfillment these same men and women have passed down dna that for most of us has gone dormant but for some of us it has been too strong to ignore [Music] depending on whit savvy and woodsmanship these skills could spell the difference between life and death for them fast forward a few hundred years and for most of us that share a common dna the risk may be more muted but the same thirst for challenge and adventure drives us what is it that pushes us to invest so much when odds of success are so low perhaps it is the underdog spirit the belief that you can succeed once statistically the success rates are impossibly bleak nowhere else was that on better display than the american frontier [Music] each fall filled with unfounded optimism i along with untold scores of others that share that common dna start that ascent into the mountains bow in hand to beat those single-digit odds [Music] and if our time runs out before our tag is cut we are already planning for the following season our spirit is unbroken you

Channel: Stalker Stickbows

Views: 32,657

Rating: 4.9646912 out of 5

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Id: oeWUAx-4ahc

Length: 38min 13sec (2293 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021