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Summer Dreams | August 2010 | |
Dan Martinez
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By now, we know whether we’ve been drawn for any of the fall hunts. My son Sam was
drawn for a youth elk hunt near Heber, and I was drawn for my first bull elk hunt near
Flagstaff. So I have two elk hunts to get ready for. Dreams of the fall have been
filling my consciousness in this summer season.
This happens to me every summer. It’s interesting how those few days in the fall can
actually last for months when the preparations and anticipations are taken into account.
After the fall hunts, the hunting rifles get cleaned, stowed, and generally put out of
mind. But when the draw results come out, hunt fever again grips me with a vengence.
My interest in big game rifles again comes to the fore … I start watching the Outdoor
Channel and hunting videos again … I start combing through my reloading books … I start
reading my hunting and rifle magazines more thoroughly, searching back issues for
specific articles … I buy bullets, powder, primers, and start loading up hunting ammo.
Sam will be taking his brother’s aught-six on his hunt. Sam has started hand loading his
own ammo. We’re going to work up a load using the 168 grain Barnes Triple Shock
X-Bullet for Sam’s antlerless elk hunt.
“Work up a load.” That in itself implies a certain level of effort for hunt preparation.
It means loading up a number of rounds at various powder charge levels, taking them out, chronographing, and firing for group size. Then when we’ve decided on a particular load,
we will need to make up another batch for the hunt.
Rifle work in preparation for a hunt does not stop there however. Once we have settled
on a load at a known velocity, we will run the numbers on ballistic software to decide
how we will zero the rifle for the hunt. .30-06 trajectory is a familiar curve in this
household, so analysis will not need to be extensive, but a quick verification that a
2½” max mid range rise will work for this particular bullet is all we’ll likely need.
At what range does the load, at this velocity, zeroed thus, drop below an elk’s vital
zone?
Then we will head up to higher country for the final sighting in, combined with some
field practice using a comparable load with cheaper bullets. For a western hunter and
rifleman, lazy late summer days in the high country practicing shooting across canyons
and meadows (making sure of a safe backstop) is close to heaven.
As for myself, this rifleman could not resist the temptation to celebrate his first bull
elk tag with a new mission-specific elk rifle. Certainly, in the .30-06, I had a
perfectly adequate rifle for hunting bull elk, but I succumbed to rifle fever and picked
up a new Browning X-Bolt in .325 WSM. I’m just accumulating all the stuff to get it
running right now (dies, bullets, scope, mounts, rings, etc.), so I can’t tell you much
about it yet, but rest assured that you will get full and complete details in the near
future.
Hunt prep doesn’t end with riflework alone, either. I applied for the Flagstaff unit
because when I recently hunted mule deer there, I was covered up in bulls instead. I
know where I’m going to hunt. However, we don’t know much about hunting the Heber area
at all, so a couple of scouting sessions will be required prior to Sam’s hunt.
We’ll be putting quite a few rough miles on the hunting truck. Long deferred maintenance
will need to be attended to. I did suffer a breakdown just as we were arriving in the
area for Sam’s hunt last year. That can really throw a monkey wrench into your hunt,
believe me!
Vehicle maintenance can be quite expensive these days. I try to do as much of it myself
that I can, to save on the high labor cost of the service technicians, but there’s only
so much that I can do in my driveway. The hunts are still a couple of months away, so I
still have time to plan and space out the work needed to ease the financial crunch.
But there is the key – make your plans now. Execute your preparations as early as you
can. That way, when the hunts finally get here, you’re not up against the wall, rushing
around to get things done.
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