These guys leave the 10th for Idaho Elk!!! Lucky !##$$@'s.  Good Luck and I want to see pics of grins and antlers!!!    

Good luck guys    Shoot strait and stay safe    

Looking forward to the stories and pics.

Tracy

Best of luck and lots of pics!

Hunt hard, shoot straight    

 

Go get em guys! Good luck!!

P.S. I'm not in the mood for excuses when you get back either.     Ha Ha Ha  

Thanks guys! We have been practicing together all summer. This has been the best archery year for me so far and you guys in the KCTN are the reason for that. Hunting season is about to start so I know it is only going to get better! As of this moment we have 123,421...420...419... seconds until takeoff. We will try to not let you fellows down. I'll be snapping pictures and Chris has inspired me to keep a journal so pictures and stories will be coming.

Good luck to you guys on opening day!

Good luck fellas. Have a great trip and bring back some good stories.  

Have a great time guys. See You at Snow's in a couple of weeks Tom.  bretto

Well........What happened?  

Thats exactly what I've been trying to find out.  E-mailed Tom last night.  No answer yet.  Hopefully they were able to find their way back to Missouri.

I bet thier busy processing meat!!

Talked to Tom Saturday but, he couldn't talk long said he was fleshing a cape. He asked me if it was hard to put a rack back together, said he had to cut his in half to get it thru the door at the airport!  Ben

Ben and Brian and the rest of the gang.  Tom and I are still getting our legs underneath us and letting all the bruises heal.  I'm going to start the story tonight and let Tom finish it up for me.

Thanks for all the well wishes.

Chris

Last February Tom Porter "Gatekeeper" and I met at Cabela's with a bunch of fellow Trad Gang members.  Tom and I had communicated with each other several times via personal messages about formulating a causal group of guys who could get together to shoot our traditional equipment.  Thanks in large part to Tom's efforts, the Kansas City Traditional Network was born.

About that same time my brother, father-in-law, and I were planning on another elk trip out to Kamiah, ID with Cayuse Outfitters.  My brother had to back out of the trip unexpectedly due to some changes with his job and farm.  I had to find another partner and decided to take the advice of Terry Green and many others here on Trad Gang.   The KC Traditional Network meeting gave me a chance to ask a fellow traditional shooter and Trad Gang'er to join us. Tom didn't hesitate when I asked him if he was interested in the trip.

At that point my summer got a lot more interesting.  Tom got busy formulating the best 3D course that I've ever seen.  We spent at least one night a week at Tom's range or Platte Falls.  We were joined by several of the other KC traditional members at Platte Falls.  Brian Moeller shared several evenings with us during our preparation for the Elk Hunt.

Tom and I did a lot of planning for this trip. We broke more than our share of arrows which required several trips to see Mike Horton at the Knocking Point.  I discovered the finer points of sharpening the Grizzly El Grande over the course of several weeks and at least two files. Tom enjoy some leisure time pulling an old tire through the pastures with a rope around his waist.  All in all it was a great summer filled with the anticipation and day dreams of the possibilities of elk.

I'm going to let Tom give you the day by day accounts of our trip as he did a great job chronicling our journey.  I wish we could finish this story with a couple of hero pictures but alas it wasn't in the cards.  Unseasonably hot weather and an overall late year lead to a very subdued rut.  I've hunted elk three different times now in my life and have come back empty handed every time.  On the last day of our hunt we sidepassed across 6 different drainages in an area they call the bull hole.  A small raghorn 4x4 came busting down through the head high brush into a small opening to which I had a window.  As fate would have it he came in quartering to me and stop with his front leg back.  I had drawn just before entered my shooting window but he never gave me a shot and eventually wheeled and exited as quickly as he came.  I wish I could have manufactured a shot somehow.  Goodness knows I've mulled over that opportunity a hundred times already but he never offered me a shot.   Tom had a beautiful 5x5 bull majestically rise up out of the timber only to stand head on at 35 years.  We worked several other bulls but they only half heartedly responded and the only bulls we saw were from aggressive hunting techniques where we had to get right into their kitchen before they would respond to our cow calls. We hunted our legs off and did everything within our power to put ourselves in front of elk.

I tip my hat to a fine hunting partner Tom Porter.  His enthusiasm was contagious, the jerky and sticks were awesome, and his video clips kept us laughing during the whole trip.  Here's to you Mr. Porter!  Lets keep flinging from 50 yards and finding more bull holes to climb out of until our legs won't go any further.  Thanks for the memories.