Successful Hunter September-October 2019

Publisher’s note: We are currently redesigning our websites for each of Wolfe Publishing’s magazines. Please check out our new website at www.successfulhunter.com. ...Read More >

Thousands of men and women take to the field every year to enjoy the beautiful scenery on public lands, spend time with friends and, hopefully, provide meat for their families. When Foster Bartholow was asked to go on a DIY elk hunt in Colorado with good friends, he jumped at the chance. After accepting the invitation, he toiled to create a checklist, buy the right camping and hunting gear and, most importantly, train for hunting at close to 11,000 feet in elevation. ...Read More >

Pinning down exactly when red-legged partridges, or chukars, were first brought to the U.S. is somewhat difficult due largely to the fact that some western states where they are hunted list no date of release, or only the date when seasons were opened for sport hunting. Research revealed that perhaps the very first birds were imported from modern day Pakistan in the early 1830s. To my knowledge, the earliest hunting literature describing chukars and chukar hunting dates back to the late 1930s. ...Read More >

I get this question a lot: “How can you drive all that way by yourself – don’t you get bored?” The truth is, I enjoy long road trips when I am the sole occupant in the truck. I can listen to the music I like, at the volume I like; stop whenever I like, for as long as I like; and just get lost in my thoughts as the miles drift by. The same goes for predator hunting – at least to a degree. While I enjoy sharing the experience with a buddy, there are those times when I’d rather go it alone. ...Read More >

It was not the end of elk season, but it was the last day Clint would be hunting. Two weeks remained in the season, but work and family responsibilities made the next seven hours the proverbial “last hurrah” for this hunter. Easing through a stand of lodgepole pines littered with droppings and rank with the scent of wapiti, Clint’s darting eyes spotted a small, unusual tree trunk some 60 yards ahead. He stopped, stooped and stared intently at the oddity, which morphed from a sapling to the dark brown leg of an elk. ...Read More >

It seems strange, as the years beyond 50 stretch into the distance, to realize I have lived through a complete lifecycle of a game population. If that seems like odd terminology, I apologize. I don’t know the exact game-biologist term. Regardless, I’m talking about the phenomenal rise and tragic demise of the Quebec caribou. ...Read More >

Hunting elk alone is not for everyone. Elk country in the Intermountain West is rugged and physically challenging. These animals are big, and every aspect of hunting them is also challenging, particularly with a bow. Solo hunters forgo the camaraderie and support that campmates can provide, often by choice but sometimes due to circumstance. With my buddies either hunting in other areas or committed to guiding, I was hunting alone – provided an onslaught of issues didn’t prevent me from going at all. ...Read More >

I strained to get a better look at the antlers on the buck, but with a torrent of large snowflakes obscuring my view, it was hard to decipher what the deer sported for headgear. To make things even more challenging, the buck was standing in a thicket of dense shrubs, and the tree limbs and antlers seemed to blend as one. The buck eventually moved and although it showed four even points on each antler, it wasn’t the deer I had come to Colorado to tag. ...Read More >

As most boys do, I started hunting as a 15-year-old kid with my father. We went to the western slope of Colorado on a mule deer hunt. That trip required a multi-hour drive from our northeastern Colorado home near Sterling. It was a successful hunt, where the invitation came from the ranch owner, a friend of my father. On that hunt, I scored on a 2x2 mule deer and cemented a passion. Forty-four years later, it is still the friends I have made along the way that allowed me to have the phenomenal hunting success I had in 2018. ...Read More >

The narrow rays of sunlight shining through the oak trees were beaming against the fuzzy blonde velvet hairs. A set of antlers bobbed up and down behind a small slope in the dark timber. As the buck cautiously chewed on the leaves of a low-hanging branch, it sensed something in the area was not right. ...Read More >

On numerous occasions, I’ve spotted mule deer at similar elevations as bighorn sheep and mountain goats in various locations in the northern and southern Rocky Mountains during the summer and early autumn. One of the largest racks I’ve seen on a buck on public land came into view just at sunset on a late-August backpacking trip in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. ...Read More >

The new Burris Xtreme Tactical (XTR) III line of riflescopes features new reticle designs and enhanced field of view. Inspired by tactical and competition shooting, precision and reliability are at the core of the XTR III line. ...Read More >