The word from Nebraska game and parks is:

THE RUT IS ON!

Now, does that mean they'll be running next week come rifle season? i sure hope so, cuz it has been really freakin' warm. They are calling for temps in the 60's this coming weekend. I'd like it in the low 40's with no wind myself, but hey, whatta ya gonna do?

Last year I shot the biggest buck of my life in similar conditions, so I'm hoping for the best. We'll see.

Good luck to all and happy hunting!
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So has anyone been having any luck? I am heading into elk camp Friday. I'm hooking up with two of my buds that are heading out Wednesday to fill a Bighorn sheep tag.

300 Untramag................check
Atv with chains..............check
Wool pants....................check
Crown for the night fire....check

May there be a big one out there with my crosshairs on him!
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So I got a nice buck this year. It's the largest set of antlers I've ever taken, so I've decided to mount them. I'll probably just buy a kit and mount it myself (unless someone has a better opinion). What do I need to do to prepare the rack? After I skin the hide off the remaining skull, what's my next step? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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I bought one of those cheap kits from Wally-World to mount mine last year. All I did was cut the horns out, leaving them connected by a chunk of the skull. The kit would have instructions on how to do it with pictures. It is simple. But not easy. Deer have like REALLY thick skulls. I was using a hack saw, and it took quite a while.

Congrats on the big 'un. Though I must say, I laugh every time someone talks about "mounting a rack". heheheh... :-)
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Hmmm, so much for elk camp. My buds headed up last wednesday and I had planed to join them Friday. I got a call Thursday afternoon that they were headed back in. It seems the mother of all snow stroms hit the area and dumped 3 feet on them. Ok, no big deal, "if you have chains." I told them to take them and two high lift jacks but "NO! we don't need no stinken chains!" I guess they got stuck several times and after the 50 MPH wind kicked in, they almost didn't make it out of there at all. I had a set of 4 for my jeep, so I would have found them, but what the hell were they thinking?

I ended up going deer hunting Friday with one of the brain children with our ATV's and I ended up getting a nice 6x6 mule deer. I took little Bwana out Saturday and he got a decent one as well.

This Friday or Saturday, I am going to take Jr out so we can smack two Turkey's. I found a spot where there is a few hundred walking around and the land owner is an old friend of mine. Next up geese!

One more bonus: My cousin also called and said he has been having problems with a black bear raising hell with his cattle, so that will likely be on the short list of hunts.

So how has everyone else been doing?
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Hey, can I ask a couple of unrelated topics? I might have a client in this area.

1. What proportion of hunters use binoculars?

2. If I wanted to identify hunters who travel to Colorado to hunt, is there a way to do that easily? Is there a BB where they gather, or is there a magazine that would sell a list of subscribers?

Sorry for the blatantly selfish business intrusion.
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I use Binocs for bow hunting as do many others I know. % would be tougher. I would assume a very high percentage of hunters who hunt open range and mountains are using not only binocs, but fairly high quality binocs. The distances they shoot are further than we usually even see our target species in the midwest.

For Sources, I'm not sure, but off the top of my head bowhuntingmag.com might be a resourse, but its more geared for whitetail hunting instead of muledeer and elk in Colorado.

Colorado Fish and Game(whatever name) should be able to give you alot of information, and probably be your best resource on "where" hunters from out of state come from, by tag distribution.
http://wildlife.state.co.us/about/DOWoffices.asp

Cabelas is a huge distributor of Elk hunting gear. You may be able to get something through their website.

I've never been, but I know several guys that go to Co every year to elk camp.
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Bow season was unimpressive for me this fall. Multiple factors kept me from spending as much time in the woods this year, and it was too warm during what should have been the rutt. 1 tag filled, but nothing to tell about.

IA shotgun opens next weekend. Fur will fly.
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Cool. Thanks.

I'm actually a bit surprised that you would use binoculars in bow hunting. I would've guessed that binoculars were of more value for longer-range weapons.
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There is a difference bRainman. I think the types of binocs would be different too. A bow hunter is probably more likely to use a physically smaller set, with a different zoom than a western Elk Hunter who would need to see further distances and would probably want more magnification.

A bow hunter isn't looking at the far distances the Elk hunter is, and is somewhat using them differently. An Elk hunter would use them to "glass" an area for animals to locate them, whereas, as a bow hunter, in the timber is likely to see 'movement' and use them to determine what he's seeing, or determine how big a buck may be.

Usually, you're not seeing a deer....you're looking for a flicker of a tail through brush, or an anterler moving or a head popping up from eating.

I don't actually use them alot on every hunt, but for a specific purpose when I do.

Its also fun to watch turkeys, squirrels, birds and other animals just doing thier thing when you're bored. Truthfully, I probably use mine more for that stuff than actually watching deer. Its amazing what you can see in the timber over the course of a day. A couple of weeks ago, yunghungwell had 3 bobcats scratching at the base of his tree and 2 bucks fight in view in the same morning.

When deer get close enough to see, I usually put them down and sit pretty darn still.

Rangefinders and spotting scopes might be items important to your same target audience FYI.
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Ah. Interesting. So the binoculars are a tool that is useful enough to justify purchasing, but truthfully, it's used just as much for idle entertainment.
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I'll let Bwana and the Elk Hunters give thier perspective on that from their view, and I'd imagine and elk or muledeer hunter would use them more to actually look for the herds of animals they seek.

Its this simple for me....if you spend 5-6-8hrs sitting in 1 spot, in a tree basically motionless, you occasionally have to find things to entertain you so you don't get too board or fall asleep and do a head plant from 18' up. Some guys read books, I think about stuff, watch animals are make a mental list of new insults for Cp.

Personally, I use mine enough to justify the purchase looking for deer, but also enjoy just watching other critters to pass time. Sometimes, binocs are the tool that tells you that movement is a turkey, coyote, squirrel or a deer.

The thing is, when the deer or turkeys get very close, you'd better put them away or you're movement, or the lens glare will be seen.
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Indeed that is the case. It's a lot easier than using the rifle scope to do the same thing most of the time. When you look across a ravine in thick timber, it really helps to pick up part of an elk or deer. Most of the time 90% of the amimal is covered by some kind of cover, so they really help in picking them up. Also as Iowanian stated, once you do see some, you can scan them to pick out the monster VS the dinker. One other advantage is there are cases where you want to scan your background to make sure you cave a clean shot.
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Excellent. Thanks, bwana. Would you say that most hunters carry them, then?
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It's hard to say when you lump all types of hunters together. For instance, I imagine the percentage of deer hunters in IA during shotgun that use optics is very low. Meanwhile, in areas where rifles are permitted, the percentage is probably higher, as well as for bow hunters.

On the same token, you can divide different hunter demographics by the amount of money they spend. On a budget, most hunters would probably put optics toward the bottom of their list.
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