Western Edge Hunting Journal

Ohio Public •12-21-25• Undoubtedly the toughest year I have ever had in Ohio, EHD cleared out at least half of the deer herd I hunt, and probably closer to 75% of bucks 3 years old or older. Struggled to even find a 130-140” buck, held out until the bitter end. Finally got eyes on a decent buck doing deer drives with the boys and decided to close out one of my toughest seasons in the last 10 years. Very blessed despite all the hard knocks this year. I’ll be back in the game soon enough ✌️

My brother headed to CO this year for Chris’s first elk hunt in a new to me unit. I hunted CO last year and learned lessons about the mountains and muzzleloader mishaps which cost me shots on 3 bulls. After a mental and physically exhausting hunt last year I decided to not lose elevation unless I knew there were elk down there. I set up my Bronco for road camping and hit the road west. Upon arrival we immediately located several bulls after a day of trout fishing. Day 1- the first morning we made a mistake and called a bull in to a location bugle before light, blew that up and moved on. Day 2- we didn’t have any bulls located so we made a massive 10 mile loop blind calling and located a couple bulls across a road and up near tree-line so after dark we camped on the road with plans to head up the mountain the next morning since the road was more like a rough 4x4 trail that I didn’t want to navigate in the dark. Day 3- we wake up to rain, laying in the Bronco at daylight I hear a bull rip a bugle no more than 75 yards from us in a small clearing, at that point Chris and I were wide awake! After letting the bull work off we got out in light rain and got straight to business looking for him, just our luck a massive fog front moved in and we could not see 40 yards, rain started coming down hard so we bailed out. After being soaked we headed to town to use a laundromat and regroup, it was around noon when we started the 1.5 hour drive up to where we heard the tree-line bull the previous day. The fog was heavy and cold at the top of the mountain, visibility was terrible, I debated even heading out at 2pm to sidehill off a summit trail into a nasty aspen slope and avalanche shoot. The fog suddenly lifted and we dove into a nice bench with a park, we could hear bugles as we dropped in. After a hurried setup I could see two raghorns headed my way, around Chris somehow. After a few minutes I knew the bulls were going to wind us so I took a 120 yard shot that put the bull down quickly. Thrilled to have a comeback bull down less than 3/4 mile from the truck and 200 yards to the trail! And the best was yet to come as I was determined to get Chris a bull…