We experienced something on Labor Day that we have never experienced before. While we were out Elk hunting we got caught in a Blizzard! It had rained all night on Sunday, and we thought the hunting would be great with the change in temperature. We got up on Monday, Labor Day, and ate breakfast while it drizzled rain a little bit. We headed over to our hunting spot and set up and began doing some calls. After about an hour we had heard nothing, but the sun came out and it was looking to be a great day. Just as my boots started to dry from the hike over to our spot, the clouds came in fast and a wall of snow hit us. It went from nice and sunny, to a complete blizzard the next minute. We couldn’t see anything more than 20 yards in front of us, so we headed back to camp to try and wait it out and dry off. By the time we had decided to head back we were covered in snow, and it seemed to only be getting stronger. I have rifle hunted in the snow before, but I have never been caught in a snow storm during the archery hunt. Although the hunting stunk, it was a blast to be in the middle of the first storm of the year. We headed back to the cars and there was no end in sight, so we decided to make a quick drive to lower ground and hunt some deer. We picked up camp real quick and headed down, we went to a spot where we had seen a bunch of deer the week before. There was a lot of snow there as well, but it had cleared up and was very nice. We tried to find some deer tracks and locate the deer, but we did not find anything. We tried to jump them out of their beds, but there was no sign of them. Tim saw a doe and a fawn, but that was it. So after walking around with no luck, not even a track, we headed back to the city.
It was so much fun to walk around in the snow, although we did not see a thing there was a certain excitement in the air to be involved in the first storm of the year. Hopefully this will kick off the rut and those that head up Thursday will have some success. It was a fun hunt, and it will be one that none of us will ever forget!! I will include a picture of the lower hunting area, Jason will post some pictures of the Hunting Addicts in the middle of the storm tomorrow.
Also, I wanted to mention that you can now follow the Hunting Addicts on Twitter. Click here to follow all of our hunting adventures.
Perhaps this effort would be better directed toward tule elk conservation in California. Hunting
That sounds like an awesome hunt.
I had one hunt one year that by the time I was done I had about 8 inches of snow on me. I didn’t see a deer, but it is so peaceful and quiet in the woods when it is snowing.
Wow – I archery hunted one year in the snow, but that was September 16th – not September 1st!!! That’s insane! Sounds like you all saw about as many elk as I saw this weekend – my problem was other hunters, though. Where I hunt, it is the only place that has elk that is within reasonable distance to our place, so I don’t know if I’ll be going out again till I get to do the week long trip into our annual hunting unit towards the end of the season.