Hunting Season Opened for us

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
It was a good weekend for us. One son did great a his swim meet, then some fishing while my oldest was bear hunting. No bear success but the fishing was great. Lincoln is 13. I wish my kids had a grandpa to go fishing with. It's just not in the cards for us, but what a great impact they can have.

20230415_165026.jpg20230415_164658.jpgIMG_4124.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
We had a great week, my kids are busy! We had our trap competition Monday, a track meet and trap practice on Wednesday, went turkey hunting Friday, then fishing and a swim meet Saturday. I'm beat!

Our "go to" turkey spot was still 3-4' deep in snow, so after driving all that way, we decided to drive further to get to less snow. Thankfully my buddy called a friend who allowed us to hunt on his land. Snow, rain, sleet all day, no biggie.

Wyatt is 14

20230421_114509.jpg20230421_114331.jpg

Saturday morning was chilly, but it warmed up.

IMG_4170.jpg20230422_105650.jpg20230422_114024.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
I broke out the boat last week and we had a beautiful day on the lake. We hooked some nice bass and trout.

20230518_161448.jpg20230518_161502.jpg20230518_160325.jpg




My oldest son had an eventful weekend. He has been working hard on a bear bait. This is his first season going after these critters. He called me late Saturday night near 9pm letting me know he had one down and needed some help with it. My wife and I headed out and met up with him late. After a few pictures we got to work. We started skinning it and another bear came in way to close to us. Because of the brush we could not get a great look at him, but he was circling us and huffing. My boy and I weren't too worked up but my wife sure was! It was funny. Eventually we spooked him off and got the job done. I'm glad his hard work paid off.

20230520_234001.jpg20230520_233908.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
I was fortunate enough to take another trip to Alaska. This time we went to Lake Creek near the confluence of the Yenta River. The goal was to catch Kings. I have caught most of the different salmon species but kings haven't been in the cards before. Unfortunately it was a no take season, so they all went back into the river system. We had to be really careful with the fish and we didn't even use a net so we didn't stress them out more than nescesarry.*

A few pics

Float Planes are great
20230629_120136.jpg20230629_090610.jpg
20230629_114327.jpg

First King ever (started small)

20230629_140334.jpg

Second
20230629_170435 2.jpg

Third
20230629_171422.jpg


20230630_145259.jpg

20230630_165524.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
Contintued.

It rained quite a bit, no biggie but we did have a couple of days of nice 62 degree overcast days and one sunny day.

This is Bill our guide. He's an animal at 71 years old. Ross my fishing buddy is there too.

20230630_153532.jpg


Mt. Mckinley was visible one day. You kind of have to stitch these shots together. 20,310 ft tall.

20230701_091146.jpg20230701_091155.jpg

Dragging a HEAVY boat and motor up the channel to a string of lakes with Pike in them. Again I had never caught Pike, my streamer was deadly.

20230701_145854.jpg20230701_150856.jpg

Next day more kings.

20230702_095509.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
A few more days of the same, and we got to the end of the trip. Nice people, good times.

Lucky Jig.................. we did alright on the fly, but jigging was the name of the game.

20230702_110303 - Copy.jpg

20230702_110145 - Copy.jpg

My biggest king, actually the longest caught this season at this lodge. 42-43 inches

20230702_221748 - Copy.jpg

20230703_081950 - Copy.jpg
These two are different fish
20230703_150356(0) - Copy.jpg

My last king of the trip an hour before the plane picked us up...

20230704_071240.jpg

Many great stories came from this trip, laughter, Mt. Dew and late nights. I was wearing sun glasses at midnight.

It was weird in a cool way.

Ross caught one Sockeye, they usually don't get up that far for another couple of weeks. I hooked two but they both eluded me with long distance releases. :D

20230704_081515.jpg
 
Last edited:

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
We had rain, hail, sun, clouds more than once. Never a dull moment

The fire was heaven sent - pack some fire starter of some sort and a 15 year old pyro.

20230804_210255.jpg

Snow in August is cool
20230805_083648.jpg


20230805_070012.jpg


20230805_090457.jpg


Upper lake

20230805_091829.jpg


20230805_091358.jpg

This was non edited color and look at how many mountains are out there in the distance. It blew me away. The stars were some of the best I've ever seen.

20230805_092249.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
Great opening day of the 2023 sage grouse season in Idaho. One of my son's was sick all night before, so he stayed home. We had a total of 8 tags between us. We hiked about 8 miles, got up super early and sweated a lot but at 11:54am we had all of our limits!

Lincoln shot a double, very impressive!
20230916_100512.jpg20230916_100337.jpg20230916_115212.jpg20230916_104308.jpg
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
Wyatt, my 15 year old was sick on opening day, and with our puppy passing away on Sunday I decided he could skip school and have his chance to get his birds. He went to swimming at 5:30am and we left after practice.

In some way it was a tribute to Goose.

The weather started out nice and sunny and he shot one of his birds pretty early in the day.

20230918_103524.jpg20230918_103956.jpg


Then after lunch the rain and wind came in. He wasn't super motivated to get back out there, but you don't get birds sitting in the truck so he bucked up and we started hunting again. The wind was ripping about 40mph so we knew the birds would hold tight and the scenting conditions were terrible. The birds would also only fly with the wind so we set him up accordingly. He missed the first one, but when we kicked up a covey of 8 birds he drilled the first one that came up. It was an awesome shot in the hard wind. It was great.

20230918_160357 (1).jpg

Later that day we met up with my oldest son and he shot a sandhill crane. I wasn't in position to get any cranes that day. It was a great day wiith my boys.
 

ID Bronco

Registered User
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
Very cool! So sorry about the dog. It's rough loosing them. Which dog was it, the older one?

Edit... I just read the dogs thread. Sorry about the puppy. At least Goose got in a good day enjoying what they love doing.

Thanks, we had her on 5 hunts and she was really taking to it. I'm on the "hunt" for another pup, there are actually two of her littter mates still available, so we'll see what happens.
 
Top