31 elk in the pasture across the road and below my house.  I counted 15 there yesterday afternoon when I got home.  I haven't seen an elk in that field since last October.  Here they are one day last summer...

Yesterday morning I woke up to sunshine, most of the snow had finally melted from my yard, and a half dozen or more little yellow crocus flowers were starting to bloom.

So I thought it would be a good day to go out to the range.

When I came home from the range yesterday evening there were 5 whitetail deer in my back yard, and all of the newly bloomed crocus flowers were gone.  Damn deer!  I may have to eat one this fall.

 

I've been telling everyone...it ain't over yet.  We almost always get a "spring dumper" that drops 6-12" of snow, but then melts off after ~ 72 hours. 

I had a feeling this was coming...

It doesn't melt off in Wyoming, it just blows away...

I'm just hoping that we don't get another 3' dump on Easter.  Right now the piles of snow that I've shoveled off my front and back decks are over 4' high, and the snow berms on the sides of my driveway are too high for my plow to push more snow over them.

I watched the same show.  I have my TV set to record all of the TIA series.  One of my favorites.

In the beginning of the show, when he was checking the zero of his rifle, I thought he said it was a .416  Rigby.

... I am just so impressed with this guy at his age getting out there and making it happen...

I'm 77 and he and I look to be about the same age.  The mountains seem higher and steeper than they did 40 years ago so I guess that I've slowed down a bit, but I still put in every year for sheep, moose, and goat permits.  And each time I apply I wonder if I can still do a DIY, solo hunt for these animals like I did 40 years ago.

Six years ago I did do a Dagestan Tur hunt in Azerbaijan and those mountains seemed steeper than the mountains of any sheep or goat hunts that I've done.  Also, two years ago I finally shot my Alaskan Brown Bear, and I''m booked for a moose hunt this fall in Alberta. 

What's that old saying that "Where there is a will, there is a way".

After 40 years of wanting one, in 2009 I finally bought my first Weatherby, a Vanguard chambered in .300 Wby.

It was blued, in a factory "off the shelf" wood stock.  The stock was a little too short for me and I wanted fancier wood, so I re-stocked it in AA Fancy Claro walnut from Richards.  I pillar and glass bedded the action, floated the barrel, and hand checkered it in my favorite wrap a round, 5 panel pattern, and switched the trigger to a Timney.

And before I fired the first shot through it, I had a KDF muzzle brake installed on it.  I later added a recoil reducer in it's butt stock.

The first scope that I put on it was a Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14x40, B&C reticle.  A few years ago I switched it's scope to a Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14x40, CDS Windplex reticle, and side focus.  I liked that CDS system so well that I have changed the scopes on four of my other rifles to Leupold CDS scopes.

My first hunt with it was for Exotics in Texas, then for a couple of Montana elk, a hunt in New Zealand, then three hunts in Africa, and a hunt for a Dagestan Tur in Azerbaijan.  I think the that the next blood that it will draw will be an Alberta moose this coming September.

I have been able to work up sub moa 3-shot groups with a variety of bullets:  168 gr Nosler HPBT Match bullets for practice, 168 gr Barnes TSX, 168 gr TTSX, and I have finally settled on 180 gr TTSX bullets and had Leupold make a turret for that load.


And a close-up of my grip checkering.

Just curious as what you would use a knife that big for.  Clearing brush?  Splitting firewood?

I almost forgot about the 1949 vintage model 94 in 32 win special

That's what I killed my first deer, a spike muley buck, with back in 1965.