# A tribute to the "wolfpack"



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

As some of you may remember , my group of hunting partners ( Paul, John ,Corby and Tom) and I were threatened and intimidated by a couple of real tools a few years ago. One of them labeled our group "the wolfpack" , intending to be an insult. Instead we embraced the title and have had fun with it instead.
As I begin a new stage in my hunting adventures and explore new country while doing it solo this next hunting season. I want to preserve some of my memories of time spent on the mountain with a group of guys that I have grown to admire because of our shared passion to hunt big game, along with their selfless characters and strong code of ethics. I hope by sharing some of our success , it will inspire some of you to do the same.

First, a brief history of the pre- wolfpack days.
I shot my first buck when I was 16 and I couldn't have been more proud and excited about it at the time.
Through the mid and late 1980s and into the early 1990s, I hunted mainly with family and a few close friends from school. Then the rest of the 1990s and early 2000s, I spent either hunting alone or with my Father-in-law. My FIL and I didn't have the same hunting styles and I could tell he just wasn't having much fun while we hunted together. During the winter of 2003, I got to know a neighbor of mine Paul, who was looking for someone new to hunt with and learn from. Since I had spent most of 2002 scouting and hunting the Vernon unit alone, I was game for a more constant hunting partner.

Here's my 2002 Vernon buck that I shot on the last day.
After hiking probably over 100 miles that summer and fall, I shot the buck right on the side of road . 
Go figure.
To be continued&#8230;&#8230;.


----------



## katorade (Sep 23, 2007)

Looking forward to this!


----------



## 3arabians (Dec 9, 2014)

You have my attention!


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2003,
Paul and I decided to archery hunt both deer and elk . I was really excited about possibly hunting elk on the Vernon and Oak Creek units, which were both being opened up for the first time as general season open bull units. I had seen some great bulls on the Vernon the year before.
Unfortunately we could not locate a single elk although July and early August on those units. So while looking for deer on the Wasatch Front, I found several group of elk and some really big mature bulls too.
Although we saw several huge bucks and bulls that year on the front, we never could put an arrow in any of them.
Paul had seen a big buck while archery hunting a Northern unit near his grandpa's property but could never get a shot at it.
His brother Brett and good friend Ty had northern rifle tags, so we made plans to help them find the big buck Paul had seen earlier in the year.
As we pulled up to the small canyon the buck had been in, there were other hunters all around the area. We decided to try the area anyway and luck would have it. The buck was only a few hundred yards from where Paul had seen it a couple months earlier. It was tucked away in a little side draw feeding where Brett was able to kill it. The buck ended up being a little over 28" wide and scored around 180", not bad for a first buck. I remember telling him that was probably the biggest buck he will ever kill in his lifetime and it still is to this day. Ty passed on a few small bucks but never tagged one that season. Paul and I archery hunted a few days with a couple of our other neighbor friends Robb and Dave. Including a few days on the extended archery but we just couldn't get any good shots but we did see some great bucks and bulls that year on the Wasatch. Much better than any of the bucks I had seen on the Vernon. I did miss one raghorn bull elk on the front at 35 yards. Paul and I were becoming good friends at this point.

Here's a look at Brett's buck along side Paul.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try and post a couple years of back history each week, when I have time.
Work is really busy right now.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2004:
Although I had hunted with my cousin John on a few occasions during the mid and late 1990s. It wasn't until this year that John and I spent a considerable amount of time scouting and hunting together.
Paul, John and I decided to try the dedicated hunter program. We spent most of our time bouncing back and forth between a couple different sub-units within the Central Region. We found a few nice bucks scouting but couldn't relocate them during the hunt. Opening day of the muzzleloader season was wet and cold with a rain/snow mix. We saw several bucks after the weather cleared but they all were yearlings or two year olds. We were hoping to find an older buck to end our season with. On the weekend (day 4), we tried an area I had success finding bucks in the past. As we crested a ridgetop on our way to a basin I knew about, there was a big 2 point standing on the same trail that we were on. It seemed like it may have been a little more than a hundred yards away. John decided he wanted to put his tag on it but his shot missed. Without hesitation, Paul handed John his rifle but John missed again. I then handed him my rifle and once again, he missed. At that point , I knew I had some great selfless hunting partners. The buck slowly walked off and after John reloaded. He was able to put a bullet in the buck but the shot was a little too far back. The buck went downhill a few hundred yards and bedded. John was able to sneak up and shoot it at about 10 yards. Unfortunately, the buck was several hundred yards downhill off the trail and we had to pack it up out of the canyon and back over the ridgetop to our atv's about two miles away. That was by far the hardest I've worked for a 2 point. ha ha. As for the rifle hunt, I was only able to hunt the opener and it needed to be close to my West Jordan home because my wife was due with our son any time. He was actually born a few days later. Paul hunted a few more days during the rifle hunt but didn't see anything he wanted to tag during his first year of the dedicated hunter program.
Here's a picture of John and his big 2 point after we had got back up on the trail we were on.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2005:
Although it had only been three years since I had hunted the Southern region, I was really missing hunting down there. I was able to talk Paul into trying some of my old honey holes but John wanted to keep hunting further North with family. Paul and I scouted a few times in July. Including driving all night to get to the trailhead at about 3 am and get up less than 2 hours later to start hiking in the dark. 
We found one real nice 28" 170"+ 4x4 buck in an area I had never seen another hunter in all the times I had hunted there, so he was high on our hit list. We did scout other areas but found nothing as good as the 28" 4x4. One day scouting I almost stepped on a huge rattlesnake. I jumped back so fast that I knocked Paul over because he was following right behind me. We got a good laugh over that one. We archery hunted a few days in August on the Wasatch Front with no shots, although we did see several nice bucks. On the muzzy opener, Paul, Ty and I went after the nice 4x4 we saw in July. We saw several small bucks but nothing big. I twisted my knee on a steep incline that day, which was the beginning of years of knee pain every time I hiked hard. After just one day in that area, we moved locations and hiked into the another area about 5 or 6 miles back into the high country. I gave some verbal instructions to a brother-in-law of Paul's sister-in-law named Tom (a current member of the wolfpack) and Tom's dad. I really didn't think Tom would find our backcountry camp but a couple days later, amazingly, they came walking into camp. We had to filter water from a cattle catchment pond that was very muddy. Our water looked more like iced tea that water. One day, there was even a cow pooping in the pond a few feet away while we were filtering. Yuck! We even boiled the filtered water to be extra safe. Once again we didn't see any mature bucks but did see some sign of them and a camp next to us shot a big non-typical over 30" wide and which had 7-10 points per side. I learned a valuable lesson on that trip and that was not to sacrifice weight for a warm sleeping bag. I had only taken a 40 degree rated, 1.5 lb. down bag. It was getting down near 30 degrees at night and I got very cold, even with all my clothes on. 
During the rifle hunt, we missed the opener because of Paul's work schedule. So I also worked that Saturday, to make up for some time I'd be missing the following week.We hunted an area looking for migrating deer but didn't see very many. We then headed further West to an area my neighbor friend had been hunting. A guy in his camp killed a 37" wide 190" class buck on opening day and Rob had said there were other big bucks in the area and we should give it a try. After just one day in this new area, Ty needed to go back to work. So Paul and I stayed out there for a couple more days. Not knowing the area, really made it hard to hunt. We were seeing a few small bucks with lots of does andon the last day we were there, a 31" wide 206" buck was killed just down canyon from us. Another year that we were in the right area but just missed out on a huge buck. 2005 went down as a big goose egg for our group. Tag soup for all.


----------



## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

That's my favorite post so far. Even you are human!


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2006:
After striking out in Southern Utah the year before. We decided to head back North in 2006. Paul, Tom and John all hunted different areas during the archery hunt with no success. For the muzzleloader hunt, Paul had something else going on and Tom had an archery only tag. I invited Bob, a friend from St. George, to hunt with John and I. Tom also asked if a friend of his(Corby) could join us but he had to work opening day. So on the muzzy opener John, Bob and I left camp at 4:00 am. About 2 miles into our steep hike, Bob had enough. So he decided to hunt the mid-mountain area while John and I pressed forward. A little over 4 hours into our hike, we finally reached the top and found two horses tied up at a backcountry camp. That was a little frustrating but the tracks in the snow were heading South, so we headed North. John almost got a shot at a nice 24" wide 5x4 but it caught us by surprise. We saw several smaller bucks but nothing worth the long trip packing one out. That afternoon we met back up with Bob and swapped stories about our day. We all spread out a few hundred yards and watched the same canyon but at different angles. As the sun was setting John spotted a nice 4x4 feeding near some aspens with a group of small bucks. John called to me on the radio and asked what I thought of the biggest buck in the group. The biggest buck I could see, was about a 20" 3x4. I thought he should keep looking, since it was opening day but John was convinced it was a 4x4 and worth shooting. One shot and the buck was down but I never saw it go down. After John shot, the 3x4 ran into the trees and never came out. As we all walked down to Johns buck, I told him that I never could see a 4th point on the 3 point side and I was sure it wasn't more than 20" wide but John was positive it was bigger. Once we got to the buck, I was amazed to see a nice 24" 4x4. Definitely a different buck from what I was looking at. After we packed it back to camp about two hours after dark. Corby (Tom's friend), met up with us and planned on the next day's hunt. I wasn't up to hiking to the top again but Corby was, so I gave him directions and off he went. I stayed in the lower country with Bob. Corby got a couple long shots at a nice 26" buck but missed. The next day, I went back up on top with Corby. We saw a group of bucks feeding about a ½ mile below us on the backside of the mountain. One buck was about 26" wide, tall and good mass. Although it would have been a rough pack out, it was worth going after. I would try and get in the bucks escape route in case Corby missed. As Corby was moving in on the bucks, a couple spike elk came running straight at the bucks. The buck bolted and ran into the timber away from me and Corby. You would have thought those bucks were being chased by a lion, rather than a couple of elk. Again, some crappy luck prevailed. That ended the muzzleloader season.
During the rifle opener, Paul, John , Tom and Corby were doing other things . They were probably all helping different family members but I can't remember for sure. So I went solo on the opener. I remember going to the same place I had rolled and totaled my atv in 2004. My new Polaris did just fine this time around, even in 3" of snow. I saw several bucks that day but there were a lot of other hunters around pushing the deer. I saw one good long tined 24" wide 160-170" class buck but I could not get in on it before some other guys started shooting at it and spooked it. On the second weekend, Paul, Corby and I went back to the same spot I was at on the opener. We saw a few more small bucks but I had to leave earlier in the afternoon to attend my son's birthday party. On my way out, I came upon a couple guys on their atvs smoking a cigarettes. They hadn't seen any bucks all day. I pointed out that I had just passed a small 4 point bedded about 500 yards up the road and you could see it from their location. I broke out my spotting scope and showed it to them. I told them I had to get going to the birthday party. They decided not to go after the buck because it was across a fairly deep ravine and they thought it would be too hard to drag back to the road. lol
Meanwhile, Paul would later tell me about how him and Corby had seen a nice 24" 4 point feeding downhill from them but a couple horsemen from way down canyon spotted the buck and starting shooting at it. Paul and Corby had to duck for cover because the bullets were whizzing past them. We also gave the Wasatch extended archery hunt a try for a few days in November and had a few close calls with some big bucks but no luck was had.
A little back history:
In 2004, two weeks before the rifle opener, I totaled my Honda 300 atv while riding up a steep trail with a friend from work. We were scouting an area for the upcoming rifle deer hunt. My buddy was sitting too far back on the wheeler and we went over backwards when my front tire had hit a large rock in the trail. We couldn't recover quick enough to catch the wheeler after it went over the top of us and commenced to roll about 1,000 feet downhill and hit an 18" diameter pine tree, snapping the tree in half. Needless to say, the atv was in bad shape but did start back up when we got down to it. Then the day before the 2006 muzzleloader deer hunt, my boss surprised me with a brand new 2006 Polaris sportsman as a bonus. I still have and ride it to this day. I ended up selling the Honda for parts.

Here's a picture of John's buck


----------



## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

This is a good read.....opcorn:


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2007:
At this point, I had now met and hunted with all of the current members of the "wolfpack". This year, Corby and Tom were going to do archery only and John renewed his dedicated hunter. Paul decided not to get a tag for 2007 because he had gone back to school full time in Idaho and I was building a new home during the spring of 2007.Hoping to save money and time spent on service projects, I decided not to renew my dedicated hunter tag. I put in for the same region that John did hoping to hunt together.Unfortunately, I didn't get my first choice and ended up with a muzzleloader tag in a different unit as John. I had hunted solo on occasion in the past and was ready to do it again but on Aug. 9th, the unthinkable happened. I was up on one of the higher Wasatch Front peaks with Tom looking for a big 4 point Corby and he had seen scouting the week before. We were hoping to get some video of the buck.We were able to find the buck right at dark and as we were just heading off the mountain, I stepped in a hole and severely sprained my ankle. That was a rough three mile hike out. It seems like I got home around 1:00am and was back at work the next morning. A few weeks later, I put the UWN forum to good use and asked for someone to hunt with me. With my ankle in such bad shape, my wife didn't want me hunting alone. A forum member named Noel came forward to go hunting with me. He was in the dedicated hunter program for the same region we were hunting. After giving him some directions about the areas I had scouted, he did some scouting of his own while I tried to heal up asap. Noel was able to locate some of the good bucks that I had seen before and we ended up meeting the day before the opener. Unfortunately, Noel's muzzleloader broke the day before and it would take a week to get a new part in. So he brought his bow along, since we were hunting in part of the extended archery area.That way he could still hunt.We agreed that I would give him first crack at anything we saw but if he missed or the buck was out of range, then I would take the shot. 
Here's a link to my opening week events: http://muleymadness.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4468&p=38782#p38782
On my last day to hunt, I came back with Tom and another forum member (Kelly) that was willing to help me out. I passed on a few smaller bucks that day but was really hoping for a last second chance at those bigger bucks I saw on opening day but no such luck. We all ate tag soup again in 2007.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2008:
It's been five years since I started hunting with Paul, then Tom and lastly Corby. I had already hunted a few different times with my cousin John during the late 90s. Paul, Tom, Corby and I all drew our dedicated hunter tags for the same unit as John. John was in his second year of the program. I had a few honey holes that I was excited to share with the group. Here's a link to a recap of our summer scouting trips.
Link: http://muleymadness.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6562&p=56411#p56411
During the archery opener Tom, Corby, Paul and I hunted the same area but Tom and Corby camped about a mile away on the other side of a big basin from me and Paul, the same area where I had sprained my ankle the year before. The big four point was back and Tom had some good trail camera pictures of it. We got pounded by a big snow thunder storm where the lightning was actually striking below us by a few hundred feet. We could hear the lightning crackle through the snow storm. Very scary! Paul and I made a fire to keep warm and while we were drying out from about 4" of new snow, a curious small 3 point buck walked up to about 40 yards of us and our fire. My tent had collapsed under the snow and I had to dry out my sleeping bag in the last hour of light. Lucky there was some sun shining out from the clouds. The second day I spotted the big 4 point across the basin but we couldn't get hold of Tom and Corby, so Paul made a move on the big buck but it didn't work out.
The next week, Paul, Tom and Corby went to the same location I scouted with Tom and Corby in July. They planned on a 3 day trip. My oldest daughter and I joined them on the second day to help spot. It was unseasonably cold and my daughter should have worn more than tennis shoes and cotton socks. Luckily Paul had some hand warmers and we put them in her shoes near her toes. Tom just missed a 40 yard shot on a big 3 point. That was the only action the group got on that trip. John was hunting with his in-laws and family in another region with no luck either.
The muzzleloader season was spent hunting the same area as where our group had hunted during the second weekend of the archery hunt. Corby, John, John's friend and I hiked in the night before. We brought a filter and empty milk jugs and filtered water from a spring about a ½ mile from our camp spot. I remember John's and his friend's packs being twice as big as mine and Corby's. 
Opening morning we split up, Corby and I were together when we saw a lynx. We are both were sure it wasn't a bobcat. John spotted a really big buck but didn't get a good look at it and we could not relocate it. We had a lot of elk rutting and bugling all around us. In fact they kept me up most the night. We ended up seeing about 15-20 bucks between us but nobody was able to get a shot off. Far less bucks than what we had seen during the summer. Maybe the archery and LE elk hunters pushed them around and into hiding. 
The week before the rifle hunt, I video taped a nice long tined 22-23" wide buck in the same area I had first scouted in June with no luck. The day before the opener, a guy from the UWN forum contacted me and wanted to go scouting that morning. He said he knew the area well. Although he told me that the specific area was no good and he had never seen any good bucks in that area. We agreed to meet two hours before light but he was a no show. I waited until it was just starting to get light and then headed up the mountain alone. I later found out that the guy stood me up on purpose, so I would lose the prime scouting hours and hopefully not see any bucks to go after. I still ended up seeing about 25 bucks that morning, including the same long tined buck from the week before. Tom, Corby and Paul were all up for going after that buck on opening morning. Corby ended up shooting the buck at the top of a very steep bowl. After the buck went down, it commenced to roll about another 200 feet. It was luck not to break off any of its antlers. I don't ever remember seeing someone so excited as was Corby that day. He was a giddy as a kid at Christmas morning opening gifts. He was truly overwhelmed with joy. On the pack out, I injured my knee which I had already tweaked the day before but it was really hurting at that point. The guys took most my load to help me out. Corby bought all of us lunch when we got back to the closest town. We saw a lot of does in another area but no bucks within range. Corby and I went to another canyon around mid-week but only saw a couple hundred does and a couple small bucks.John spent the rifle hunt with his dad and brother but didn't get anything either. During the extended, we saw some really nice bucks and Tom missed a 170" class buck at 16 yards. He must have got a little buck fever. In the end, Corby was the only one to tag a buck in 2008 but it was a great year and a start of some great hunts to come with this new group of friends.
Here's the group with Corby's opening day buck:
And video footage of his buck from the week before:


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2009:
This was probably the most disappointing season on several different levels. Tom was lucky enough to draw a Lone Peak Mountain Goat tag. He was hoping that I could go scouting and help out on his hunt but a combination of my knee still giving me problems and that I was forced to landscape my front yard or be fined by my HOA. I also had to build a barn for two horses that my wife had acquired. I felt really bad about not helping out and have really regretted not trying harder in some way.John and my uncle drew Vernon muzzleloader tags and ended up getting their bucks opening morning. Tom ended up getting a nice billy with his bow. I don't have any memory of the archery hunt but nobody got anything. I heard that Corby had missed a nice non-typical with his bow. I only got out scouting a couple times all summer and didn't see much and spent one night and day on the Vernon scouting with John. We saw some really nice bucks. Paul, his brother (Scott) and I hunted together on the muzzleloader deer opener. We camped in my camp trailer and then drove a couple miles to the trailhead a couple hours before light. We arrived at a small basin right at first light, only to see another hunter there in the spot we wanted to hunt. We spotted several bucks in this basin but decided to move up higher to not mess up this other guy. We watched another beautiful basin all day but could not pick up any bucks at all, just a lot of other hunters. Back at the trailhead, I talked to a guy that had seen three big bucks ( all over 28" wide), go over the top of anther mountain. So a couple days later, Corby and I found a trail that lead up into a remote canyon on the backside of that mountain that the other hunter had talked about. We ended up seeing around 30 small yearling and 2.5 yr. old bucks that day but no sign of any older bucks. I spent two more days hunting that area with no luck finding a big buck. Tom bypassed the muzzy hunt because he was focusing on his goat hunt and wanted to save he time for that hunt. It was awesome to see how much time Corby spent with Tom that summer scouting for goats and was with Tom almost every day of Tom's mountain goat hunt, which was several days and weeks. Corby also was there to help Tom pack out his goat the day he got it. During the rifle hunt, Tom, Corby and I hunted the same area as we did in 2008 but a little higher on the mountain. Paul missed opening day because of work and John was spending time with his immediate family. Within the first couple hours on the opener, Corby scored on a nice 4x4. He called me on the radio to let me and Tom know that a buck was down. I instantly started in his direction to help his take care of it and get it off the mountain, my day was done. It was a fun pack out with the three of us helping carry the load.They definitely carried more of it than I did. The following Friday, I met up with Paul and his brother and we tried a new area, which didn't produce like I'd hoped. I thought we could catch a few migrating bucks but we were not in a migration zone. That's the problem of not knowing an area very well. The next day, we went back to the area Corby had killed his last two bucks but we only turned up a few does. So Corby was the only one to tag a buck again. 

Pictured is me and Corby with his buck. I wished we could have done a group photo with Tom in it.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2010: 
This was the year that things finally came together for the whole group. All the time scouting and getting to know how each of us do things. I would be the next in line to draw a OIL tag from our group. I drew the first ever Stansbury Bighorn sheep tag. You can read about it and our whole season at: 
http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID50/22.html
It was awesome to get so much help from friends, family and complete strangers. Which some of those strangers became good friends. Tom, Paul, Corby and John spent countless hours helping me out. 
I'd like to talk a little how we helped each other during 2010.
 Tom was mainly my camera man but I did get good footage from the other guys too. Tom probably put more miles on the ground than anyone else in our group and he was right there by my side when I killed my ram. I was able to repay him by helping his son have a great backcountry experience on the muzzy deer hunt. I was able to help Tom pack out his rifle buck, which he, Corby and I had to wait out a big snow storm the rolled in earlier that day. 
Paul spent several vacation and days off scouting and hunting with me on my sheep hunt. Several days, he packed my rifle, while I was packing my muzzleloader. Just in case I got a shot inside of 150 yards. I was lucky enough to repay him a little by locating a nice 4x5 buck on the muzzy hunt and after about a 5 hour stalk, we then had to pack it up about 800' vertical. 
Corby, although he had to sit out the deer hunt because he had already killed two bucks in his first two years of dedicated. He still came with us on the muzzy and rifle hunts and helped pack out Toms buck and their camp. Corby also spent a couple days packing my rifle for me for up to 5 miles at a time and several thousand feet elevation changes. He was there spotting the morning I killed my ram and that was even after he had just got off working all night. 
John also spent a lot of time with me in the field and help pack in water for our backcountry camp. John was also up on the mountain with me the day I shot my ram and helped pack it out. On the muzzy deer hunt, John had a chance at shooting a huge 28"+ three point but instead handed his gun to Tom son Ethan, hoping the Ethan could get the buck because Ethan had just shot at and missed a smaller four point, then the big three point came running out into the open at about 50 yards but Ethan slipped on a rock and couldn't get a shot off. That was a huge sacrifice for John because I knew he really wanted to kill that buck. 
With all the selfless acts I witnessed during that hunting season, I was sure grateful to be hunting with such a great group of guys. I had no idea that this would be the beginning of some incredibly successful years to come.
Picture #1, is of Me, Paul and John with 
Paul's muzzleloader buck.

Picture #2, is of the group of guys that helped me out the most, except 
Paul, he had to work that day.

Picture #3, is of Me, Corby and Tom with Tom's rifle buck.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

2011:
This was the first year that I really started to get into using trail cameras but didn't have too much success. As a group, we were determined to find that big three point that had eluded us the year before. We also had hopes in finding some other good bucks we had seen the year before. For the second year in a row, I had found a cool little cactus buck that had 12 to 15 points per side but I lost track of it while putting a stalk on it for the second year in a row.The biggest buck I had seen scouting was a couple miles away from our backcountry camp and I didn't go looking for it until later in the season, which I couldn't locate. I wished I had spent more time looking for that buck because I was guessing it's 4x5 frame to be at least 180"+. Corby ended up killing the big 3 point we were after on the second day of the rifle hunt but it had regressed from the year before, which was somewhat disappointing. I had found its shed antlers from two years earlier and thought it would be fitting to give them to Corby. Corby was able to get a group picture of everyone but me with his buck that day but I happened to be looking in a different area a couple miles away. Again, Corby was the only one to kill a buck in 2011.
Here's a picture of Corby's buck and it's sheds.


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

This thread has gone on too long, so I'll quickly wrap it up. It probably didn't come across the way I had hoped when I started it but here's the final chapter.

2012:
This year meant more changes for the group. The DWR had changes the 5 regions into 30 sub-units. We had to decide what unit we wanted to hunt for the following year or two. We could no longer change units from year to year. Since we had hunted several of the sub-units in the past couple years, it was a really tough choice to make. We decided to go with a unit that had been closed or limited to the general public but now was going to be opened back up. Anticipation for the coming hunt was high.  This would be the first year that as a group we would spread out scouting and hunting multiple different areas within the sub-unit we had picked. We found several 180"+ bucks and ended up going 7 for 7, all 3 point or better bucks but Corby was the big buck winner again. He ended up killing a 226", 10x9 buck on the last day. Tom also drew another OIL tag, this time it was a moose. He ended up killing a top 20 archery bull, which it took Tom, Corby, Paul and I all night long to pack out all the quarters. What an adventure that was.
Paul ended up killing a nice 5 point bull elk with his bow but I wasn't able to be there to share in his success. It was quite the dream season in 2012 but little did we know what was yet to transpire in the coming years. 
2013: It was Paul's turn to draw a OIL bull moose tag. He ended up getting a really cool looking bull with him bow but I was unable to be there with him, Tom and Corby on that adventure. This was the year that I found out how truly remarkable these guys I hunted with were. They had found an awesome 35" wide non-typical the week before the rifle season . He was able to turn it up again the night before the opener. Tom had a chance at taking a quick off hand shot at the buck opening morning up passed on the chance on wounding it. The next day we decided to go to a canyon where I had killed a nice muzzleloader buck a few weeks earlier. We were hoping to find Tom's son a nice buck to fill his tag on. Tom didn't even take his rifle. Tom found two nice bucks feeding together and was able to his son close enough to put one of the bucks down. After the shot, the other buck just stayed right there with his fallen buddy. We talked Tom into not passing on the opportunity to kill the other buck with his son's rifle. Tom dropped the buck within just a few feet of his son's buck and just a few yards of where I shot my muzzleloader buck. John and I were about a mile away in the next canyon over. So we packed up our stuff and headed that way to help the guys pack the two bucks out.  At the time, I was a little upset and grumpy about Tom delaying boning out the two bucks and waiting for John and myself to get to their location. He felt it was very important that we get a group photo, since it was and has been a team effort. Looking back and now knowing that would be the only group photo that included all five members of the "wolfpack" together helping out and enjoying the success. I'm so grateful for Tom waiting for that to happen. 
After 2013, we mainly hunted in groups of two or three but it just never worked out to have the whole group together again like we did that Sunday in 2013. In a five year period between 2012 and 2016 our group (including a spouse, brother or sibling) would go on and kill 26 three point or better bucks, including several record class bucks. It just shows how long it can take to learn new areas and also hunting with new partners takes some time to have consistent success . We sure did have some great times up on the mountain and probably learned the most valuable lesson about it not being about the biggest buck on the mountain but about the quality time spent with friends and family.
Thanks again guys, for an incredible time during the past several years, I learned a lot
May karma be in your favor.


----------



## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

I had the opportunity to scout multiple areas and multiple days with Tom on his mountain goat hunt. Also hunted several times with him for deer. 
Went on a shed hunt with Corby. Great guys and your lucky to get to hunt with them. 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

swbuckmaster said:


> I had the opportunity to scout multiple areas and multiple days with Tom on his mountain goat hunt. Also hunted several times with him for deer.
> Went on a shed hunt with Corby. Great guys and your lucky to get to hunt with them.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


 I remember that, that's awesome you were able to help Tom out. He's good company.


----------



## CurrentCreekHunter (May 4, 2013)

Great post,I enjoyed reading all your hunting adventures!


----------



## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

CurrentCreekHunter said:


> Great post,I enjoyed reading all your hunting adventures!


Thanks. I'm glad I forced myself to get it down in writing. It's amazing how much I have forgotten from the pre-wolfpack days.


----------

