08-31-2021
06:38 PM
I have reached out multiple times on this. A SWA pilot keeps spamming me about hunting expeditions. Ridiculous. Please reign in your staff. Here's his latest spam: September is tomorrow. We have only 12.5 weeks until our hunt. So far I have made three trips up north. What I have seen is lots of water. Rain almost daily. Elk are moving everywhere. The elk rut has started. I am thinking that the rut will follow historic timelines. I think that the rut will end by the third week in September. After the rut the cow elk will bunch together in larger herds. Once those herds are more established we will be able to track the better. The good news is that there is a lot of food and water. So the herds will not roam as much in search of food or water. The areas can support larger groups elk. So unless they are driven out of an area by pressure, we can expect the herds to stay to a particular area. Also, we will be able to harvest more than one elk per engagement. If we play our cards right. i just came from sportsman warehouse in mesa. They have good quantities of gear. they are in full hunting season mode now. By this time, everyone should have most items they need. Start getting the final bits of kit now. It will only more scarce from here on. We have three more seasons of elk and two deer seasons between now and December. The next thing that we are gong to plan for is sighting in weapons and two more elk scouting trips. I have not heard too many things from the group thus far so I am going to "assume" everyone has got their things in order. Furthermore, I must stress that everyone needs to be physically fit for this hunt. Expect many miles of hiking and packing out elk. Costco has had the food saver bags on sale. Start buying that stuff up before it disappears. If memory serves me, I think that two to three boxes of food saver rolls will do one elk. We can look at the freezer paper later. Walmart usually stocks that and it is fairly in expensive. Perhaps Butcher Pete Mitalis can chime in here on processing. We really need to start communicating what the accommodations will be. I need to know so that we can start selecting spots. We will need a few spots lined up so that we are flexible when the times come. Our base camp will be dependent on the herbs and how big of a space we need. So please start communicating what your plans are. If we can streamline things amongst the group that will make things better. Let's try to not pack duplicate or triple of the same items if we can. The easier the campsite, the better. So start discussing.......... Let me know as soon as you can. Last minute planning for elk hunting usually does not work out very well. My plan is to be prepared. Our success rate is directly related to our planning. We have 9 tags to fill. We can do it but we need to get as much done as soon as possible. Let's not cheat out someone from our group by not being prepared. We can make it happen but we ALL need to prepare. Do not be the weak link. Al Timpauer Southwest Airlines B737 Pilot
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