Larry spent 5 days in the wilderness alone stalking the elusive moose. After 5 days of seeing no moose, he happened upon this bull and took him down late in the day. He spent the next full day packing it to the pickup just 150 yards from the road. Since he was by himself, he is very lucky to have it fall this close to a road. He says they are very large and needed block and tackle just to clean and quarter it. He is getting it mounted.

By the way: it took him 15 years just to draw the special moose tag for an area between Grand Lake and Kremmling.

Larry used a .300 short magnum to take this moose.
10/04/07

Larry, Jeff, and Greg drew licenses for Wyoming antelope for 2007, 20 miles north of Laramie, (near Bosler). They went up four days after opening day on Sept. 21 and found most of the antelope took refuge on a neighboring ranch to the west where hunting pressure is minmimal and the antelope know it. Standing on this ranch, we could look over the fence/border and could see over 200 antelope grazing contentedly over there and showing no intentions of coming back to our ranch. Larry did get a nice buck on the second day accompanied by his son-in-law Jeremy while Jeff and Greg went home empty handed.
	Left: Jeff, Jeremy, Larry, Greg with Larry's antelope Right and below: Greg with his buck.
Thinking the antelope would have settled down and would come back to the ranch later, Greg went up again to see if he could do any better, Jeff couldn't make it because he had to work. After a day and a half of seeing very few, Greg took this nice 12" pronghorn antelope around noon on October 12, 2007. The weather was unusually warm at about 73 degrees and as always, a bit breezy. It was a 400 yard stalk on a herd of five - two bucks and three does. After closing the distance to 150 yards, Greg shot this buck. Although he appears not to be a tall buck, the long hooks on his horns are deceiving to the true length. After getting it back to the truck and pulling cactus out of knees and hands, he returned to Colorado and delivered the meat to Steve's Meat Market for processing. Greg donated the meat to "Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry", an organization that pays for half the processing (Steve's donated the other half of the cost) and then distributes the meat to needy Colorado families. Helping the underprivileged is a very satisfying reward in itself.

Greg used a Remington .270 ADL, 3x9 variable scope, Bushnell Rangefinder, and a tripod to take this buck.

10/12/07

Larry, Jeff, and Greg also spent a week archery elk hunting in western Colorado. The hunting was not very good as no elk were seen in the hunting area. However, as always they had a great time camping and sharing experiences that can only be found in a hunting camp. Here is a photo of their camp near Douglas Pass. The tent on the left was the chow hall and the one on the right is the bedroom.

The chow tent is nice for cooking and kicking back with plenty of room.

Hunting Season 2006
By Greg Pedersen

The archery season in Colorado runs from August 26 thru September 22. The Muzzleloading season runs for 9 days, Sept. 9 thru Sept. 17. Larry, Jeff, and I took up the bows for the first 2 weeks of the archery season; Larry was hunting for mule deer, Jeff and I hunted elk. We were hunting at elevations between 10,300 ft. and 11,400 ft. right at timberline. Jeff and I had scouted this area two weeks prior to the season. On that trip we spotted three very nice mule deer bucks and sixteen elk of which there were many nice bulls - seven in one herd. Driving out of the area at 9:00 a.m., the main road is like a logging road, we came upon a big black bear that was completely brown. As soon as he saw us, he took off into a burn area and disappeared.

There was snow and rain the first weekend, but cleared up for Monday and Tuesday. The elk were bugling strong on Sunday morning and I was on them in a remote valley about a mile from camp. I saw three five point bulls bugling in the valley surrounded by their own little herds of cows. I got within 20 yards of some cows that had a hot bull surrounded. Unfortunately, they caught my wind and spooked the herd. They ran some 80 yards off and tried to locate me standing in the meadow, but being fully camouflaged and standing still, they couldn't. Eventually, they walked down the valley where I didn't want to follow since it would be a hard pack out if I did arrow a bull. So I sat down and had a power bar and thought about my next move. After about 5 minutes, I was shocked to see 4 cow elk running directly at me from up the hill from where I came. My bow was laying on the rock beside me and this happened so fast, I didn't have time to nock an arrow. Within seconds, they were upon me. The first one came about 20 feet away from me, but the following three came within three feet of my boots. I looked that big cow right in the eye as she ran past and could have punched her with my fist. She didn't even know I was there. They continued on the dead run right on down the hill to join the larger herd. I couldn't figure out why they were in such a hurry. I soon found out. Several coyotes howled within 50 yards of me right where the cows came from. Apparently they were chasing the cows who were running for their life. I saw two of the coyotes run off up the hill after seeing me. The rest of the opening weekend was uneventful for the three of us. On my way back to camp, I was overlooking a cliff and valley when I noticed a movement to my left. Up came a pine martin. He didn't know what I was, but had to find out. He circled me about four feet away and then came practically up to my boots and looked me up and down. He knew I wasn't one of the normal "trees" in his little range. He wasn't alarmed and finally went back from where he came. When you are out in nature in full camo, it is amazing what you get to see and experience.

The second weekend found us in the hills again with our bows. Each of us ran across several deer and elk, but none afforded a shot. We again had poor weather on Sunday, but it cleared up for Monday and Tuesday. The evenings were cold and near 20 degrees while daytime temperatures were in the fifties on the cloudy days and in the sixties on the sunny days. We also had too much moonlight during the second and third weekends that the animals use to feed by and are not so active during legal hunting hours.

The first weekend, we each had our own little 2 man tents that were OK, but not very good for socializing after a hard day's hunt. When the sky is dark at 8:00, you are wondering what to do until it is time for bed and it is too cold to stand outside and talk. Jeff fixed that the second weekend when he bought a tent, 10' X 14', that we could all share. It sleeps nine people as long as nothing else is in the tent. However, we had it nice with each of us having a cot for our sleeping bags, room for our gear, and a table on one end set up for cooking. Because it is over seven feet high in the middle, we could stand up when dressing and preparing for the day or evening. This took us out of the weather and we could stay up planning and discussing strategies until 10:00. Even though the temperature in the tent was about 2 degrees warmer than the outside temperature, it seemed much warmer because there was no breeze. It is very hard to get out of a warm mummy bag into the 20 degrees temps. We had a much better time with the addition of this large tent. We listened to rain and snow pellets hitting the roof on Labor day morning before daylight. The fog was so thick we couldn't see over 80 yards all morning and very little game was seen. Jeff did get into some bugling elk on Monday night. He stalked a herd in the bottom of a valley and got within 60 yards of a nice bull, but again, the cows being ever watchful alerted the herd and off they went. When they ran up and out of the canyon, they passed by me at 80 yards - too far for an archer. There was a nice five point following the cows just at dusk. On Tuesday morning, Jeff again went into the valley, but the elk were nowhere to be found.

The third weekend, we took up our muzzleloaders. This time, Larry was after elk and Jeff and I were after mule deer. Game again seemed scarce. As it seems to go, if you are hunting elk, you run into deer. Such was the case Monday morning with Larry. When we came back to camp, he told Jeff and me he had seen two bucks and, unfortunately, no elk. He said one of the bucks was around 26" and the other, a whopper, at over 30". So Jeff and I planned to stakeout the area that evening. Not really expecting them to return, we went anyway. After all, we had hiked over 30 miles in the last eleven hunting days and hadn't run into very many. We wanted to be on stand by 6:00 that evening and figured they would come out around 10-20 before darkness as they usually do. Jeff positioned himself where he could shoot across the meadow Larry had indicated he saw the bucks in. The area is typical of timberline country with small islands of spruce trees and rock piles,and many meadows with knee high brown grass. I went to another patch of spruce trees about fifty yards south of Jeff to sit and watch another meadow. I saw nothing and my rock was getting real hard after and hour and a half of sitting and glad there was only a half hour to go till we would call it a day. Just as I was admiring the beautiful sun as it was about to go behind the distant mountain range, I heard the bark of Jeff's gun. Scared the heck out of me, but I knew he had one down. Being a sharpshooter in the Marines, I knew he wouldn't miss at close range. I hustled over to where I saw him standing. He showed me where the buck went down and we went over to admire the trophy buck. Jeff said this buck entered the edge of the meadow from between spruce stands followed by a two point buck, they were about 110 yards away. He used his range finder to accurately judge the 100 yard shot he took using a bipod support. The shoulder shot took him right down. We took a few pictures then field dressed the buck. It was about a 200 yard drag to the Tahoe, not too bad, especially when we thought about all of the places we had been where it would have been over a mile pack out. The buck was just about finished rubbing off the velvet from his antlers. He has 2 strands still hanging at the bases as can be seen in the photo.

Jeff decided to get the buck mounted and will be ready around April of 2007. The butcher estimated there was about 120 lbs. of meat to be processed and would be more after adding pork for sausage. So Jeff will have steaks, chops, pepperoni sausage sticks, and we already removed the backstraps and loins for the barbecue.

'The Hunt' Statistics
Hunters: Larry Pedersen Jeff Pedersen Greg Pedersen	Gun: Thompson Center Muzzleloader .54 Caliber 430 Grain Maxi-Ball	Game Management Unit 33 North of New Castle, Colorado 4 Hours west of Denver Elevation: Timberline
Sept. 11, 2006 day of kill Days Hunted: Larry & Jeff 10 Greg 12		The Mule Deer Buck: 4 points plus brow tines each side 25 " outside spread Est. Live Weight: 275 lbs Shot at 100 yds.
We had to hang the buck on Tahoe to chill overnight.		Nice, Comfortable Tent
The Camp Spot	The Meadow where the buck came out	Changing Aspen

Jeff wanted my advice on whether or not to get the buck mounted and I told him I have only harvested 2 bucks larger than his in my forty years of hunting and Larry only one.......... They aren't that easy to come by. I guess that made his decision easier. Congratulations to Jeff on a great trophy.

Josiah, Dad, Phil, Wes, and I went up by the Wyoming border in Colorado on a ranch that Outdoor Buddies has in September, 2001 and harvested this nice pronghorn Antelope buck .
By: Paul Pedersen

This is the first year hunting for CJ, we have had good luck so far and CJ has bagged his first Woodcock using my 12 Gauge and I have taken a couple Pheasants. I miss the big mountains but hunting in New England in the fall with the colors is hard to beat. 10/16/04
Chris & CJ Pedersen:

Bob Devore, Larry and Greg took an antelope trip to Rawlins, Wyoming in October, 2002. Greg and Larry accompanied Bob on his hunt where he harvested this 14" Pronghorn.
Photo By Greg Pedersen