Rik
Great story but I have to say I would trade my hunting grounds for yours in a heartbeat. My "wild" lands have become pockets of tracks surrounded by roads. Ah the pleasure of being in the woods and hearing the cars along with the woodpeckers. And let's not forget the anti's that see your car parked and they stop and honk their horn to disturb the peace we seek. I'll take a howling wolf over them any day. At the very least you are hunting in a beautiful place and if I ever get a chance to move Idaho looks fantastic.

Nate is 100% correct about the elk moving down to the roads and civilization. That's exactly where the rifle hunters are whacking and stacking them right now. Unfortunately for me, I love the wild back country. Idaho has more of it than any state other than Alaska, but I'm thinking there are some nice out-of-the way places that are hard to get to in a few other states as well. Not Montana or Wyoming, as they have the same wolf problem we have, just not as bad as we do.

I've been stacking up preference points in Utah for a while, and will start doing so elsewhere as well. Actually, this could turn out to be kinda fun. Who knows where I'll end up.

Now, talking about having fun, what I should have done was keep a small packable fishing pole with me as I hiked, because some of the places I went past while covering country looking for elk looked to have some really great fishing (they were rising at this lake like crazy!). LongStick 64------this photo is for you. A nice little lake at the top of a canyon loaded with primo-deluxe elk habitat. I think even my bow was smiling at this view!

Rik...check into Tenkara fishing...just the ticket for a packable flyrod....love them.

@Rik:

DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO DO THIS??

Some of my finest desktop-backgrounds are photographed by you!
Making me dream all day long!

Thank you very much for your inspiration!

Rik and Nate, great observation about no longer the need to hike back in; being more wolves and less elk there.  Almost seems odd to me as I only hunt whitetails here in Pa. and NY.  It seems that everything is still changing with the times.
Great info.
Shick

Here's a few pics of the Louis Armbruster bow I just picked up. 53#@28" 70".  I think it's the Grevy but the decals are gone, it is signed by Louis and the ink has faded over time.  Really nice bows.

Rik

That Sir is the money shot !!!

Nice red color in that louie armbruster

That last pic was awseome Rik, thanks!

Rik awesome following along. What a great photo.

Any of you ever notice that Nate is a bit of a bad influence?

Here I am, eight short days from the beginning of my cow moose hunt, which just happens to be located in some of the finest blue-ribbon trout waters this side of New Zealand, and he casually mentions Tenkara fishing.

I've never heard of Tenkara fishing. Never seen it. So, not knowing that he has totally set me up, I innocently do a search for Tenkara fishing. Well that was a mistake.

The first video on the USA site derned near ruined me right off the bat. The longbow of the fishing world! Absolutely perfect for the small mountain creeks (pronounced "cricks") that I always seem to be hiking along.

So, there I will be, slowly slinking along trout filled streams near the Wyoming border looking for a nice, big, tasty cow moose, and all the while hungry rainbow and brown trout will be rising to eat the last bugs of the season right there in front of me.

Now, thanks to Nate, if I didn't have a nice traditional Japanese Tenkara rod in my pack, all that I would be able to think about, when I wasn't looking through the binoculars for moose, was the fact that I don't have a Tenkara rod in my pack.

"Hmmmm" I says to myself, "I wonder if they can ship one to my house in the next seven days?"

Rik...they have them in mtn. Home.....yeah baby.  The fly rod that fits in a backquiver...bowquiver...safarituff...   no reel just fishing made simple.....they call it fishing with a stick and string.....kinda like hunting with a stick and string.   Almost as much  fun as shooting my longbow....almost.  and yes they do make all bamboo tenkara rods...heh heh heh

Tenkara-fishing.com

Nate , just looked them up ..... very cool .
I am going to order one ASAP .

Thanks

Rik; You just had to mention those high mountain streams and lakes full of trout-thanks a lot! You know how much this former mountain resident misses them.  :(

And then Nate mentions "Tenkara Fishing" and I've just spent the past 40 minutes reading about it. To say that I am "hooked" (pun intended) is an understatement.

I caught my very first fish down at the local crick with nothing more than a cane pole, same length of black casting line, a hook and a small piece of worm. Those first fish were nothing more than Creek Chubs, "minnows" to everyone else but to this then 4 year old they were muskies. Now during all that reading I find out there is a name for that type of fishing, "Tanago Fishing" or micro fishing.

Nothing more simple is this type of fishing and can really see how we all will relate to it since we are of that nature with our bows and sunch anyway. Gotta go read some more.

Nice heads up on the tenkara, looks like a good product & perfect size for back quiver.

A backquiver full of arrows, a tenkara rod, and a few flies and your longbow and you are ready to bring in whatever game you come across....  no matter what you read about the small fish aspect, my bother in law and I have caught trout up to 21" with tenkara...but that is too big for a hillside lunch when hunting or stumping....12" is about right.

Great, a new way to spend my bucks. Never heard of tenkara before, but with all the small streams that I fish, that gear could be a real hoot. It would be a great thing to take along when elk hunting; so many brookie streams that really need to be fished, and a guy could carry the tenkara stuff and not have it interfere with the bow gear.

It's funny the things you find by accident sometimes.

While hunting elk this year, I found that neat old knife from 1917.

While hunting for information on Tenkara fishing tonight, I found a quote about Tenkara fishing that applies to equally well to Hill-style longbows. I think you will enjoy it's wisdom.

"The way toward mastery of any endeavor is to work toward simplicity; replace technology with knowledge, hard work, and skill."
                              — Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia

I grew up fishing in a very crude version of tenkara, with a cane pole. I never knew there was an official name for it. My dad was a fly fisherman, and I'd take his used line and use it with my cane poles.  I mostly used poppers for small mouth, large mouth, and bream. A particularly potent bait was a nice little green grasshopper threaded on a #12.  In my high school years, a 15' jigger pole was a constant companion. Man, I caught a lot of fish with that thing.

What a great quote, Rik..

Sounds as if it was penned for the longbow..