ON-TARGET NEWS

FCAA Jamboree

It’s about time for the annual FCAA Jamboree! It will be held June 15-17 at the Jack’s Gulch Campground on the way to Pingree Park. Check out our web site for directions. We have the group camping area reserved so bring your family. There is room for 28 vehicles with a 30-foot maximum length.

The club will provide dinner Saturday night and a 3D range will be set up nearby. It will be a fun shoot with no fees, no scores and no payback. Check in time is 2:00 pm, Friday, June 15 and checkout time is 1:00 pm, Sunday, June 17. Bring your own food for all other meals. It is a LOT of fun so plan on camping out, shooting 3Ds and swapping tall tales (I mean true stories) around the campfire.

Wednesday Night Leagues

Wednesday Night Leagues are going strong. You can check out the latest scores on the FCAA web site. The second session is under way and the third will start on June 27. Starting time for all sessions is 6:30 pm.

Leagues are for members only and cost $5 a night. The best 3 out of 4 scores will be counted and cash prizes awarded to the top shooters each session. Classifications include youth, limited, unlimited, open and women’s unlimited. It’s a great way to keep in practice for fall hunting. Bring your mosquito repellent and join us for a great time!

Family Archery Day

The FCAA and Arrow Dynamics are sponsoring the first annual Archery Day on Saturday, June 23 at the FCAA Range. It is open from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm and people can come any time they like and stay as long as they want. There will be instruction in shooting with equipment provided or bring your own. It is free, open to the public and for adults and children alike. It should be a lot of fun so tell anyone you know who is interested in archery to come on out!

Range Work Days Underway

Work days at the range are off to a great start. The first Saturday of each month, members are asked to come and help keep the range in shape. This can include replacing target faces, replacing bails and other things necessary to keep the range in top shape. As the summer goes on, the range gets more and more use. Occasionally we have vandalism as well, so constant work is needed.

If you can help out, show up at the club house at 8:00 am the first Saturday of the month and bring your gloves. If we get a good size crew, we are usually done by noon. This is a chance to give back to the club and keep our range one of the best in the area!

Elk Hunting the Hard Way

Weather or Not to Hunt

By Matt Dworak

This is the first part of a journal kept by Matt Dworak of his 2006 Elk hunt. It points out how one should always be prepared because you never know what the weather will throw at you!

Thursday Sept 14, 2006

Left Fort Collins around 8:00p.m. Arrived at Miners Park trailhead at about 1:00 am. Slept in the back of the truck that night.

Friday Sept 15, 2006

8:00 – Woke up, got dressed and started up the trail. Because of my unknown schedule this year and the fact that one of the four wheelers wouldn’t start I had to walk/mountain bike into camp, which is approximately four miles from the trailhead. My dad (Big Ron) came to meet me and ended up saving me about a mile, which was very welcomed since I was packing all my gear, probably 65-70 lbs. I learned that riding a mountain bike with a big pack on is no easy task, actually it’s next to impossible, but I still had to try.

11:00- Arrived in camp. My brother Drew, Big Ron and our friend Jeff Blakely were already in camp. Drew and Big Ron have been there since Monday and Jeff had been there since the previous Thursday. Apparently nobody had been seeing or hearing any elk, so the general consensus was to “spike-out�? further into the wilderness. Inside the wilderness no motorized vehicles are allowed or even mountain bikes for that matter.

1:00- We planned on packing in that afternoon and hunting the next day, maybe staying a second day if the hunting was good. We split up gear amongst everyone, trying not to pack any redundant items. I’d guess we all had close to 40 lbs of gear.

6:00- Arrived at Pearl lake, approximately a four mile hike. The hike in wasn’t too bad, until the very end when it really started to pour, then the rain turned to hail and probably an inch or two of hail fell. It finally slowed down and we finished the hike into the lake. Luckily the weather cleared long enough for us to pitch our tents and get settled. Everyone was bummed that nobody had brought a fishing pole, with a lake that deep into the wilderness, about 12 miles from the truck, you just knew the fishing had to be prime, oh well. We started a fire and everybody tried to dry out. It started to rain again around 8:00 and everyone was getting wetter than dryer so we all went to bed.

Saturday Sept 16, 2006

8:00- Woke up to 8�?-12�? of snow, had heard trees snapping all night long. Drew and I got a fire going, because were both hardy mountain men while Big Ron and Blakley slept in. We watched a big tree fall over into the lake while we were getting the fire going. We cooked breakfast of elk steak and chorizo that Drew had packed in. Although, he forgot to pack in any seasonings, plates, utensils, etc., so we each grabbed a slab and started chowing.

10:00- We pretty much decided hunting wasn’t an option. Everyone was anxious to get back to base camp where there was plenty of food, beverages and dry clothes. By now the snow had really started to fall and it was obvious we had better get moving or else we wouldn’t be able to see the trail out. We all had GPS units, but knew it would be much quicker to follow a worn trail than trying to “bushwhack�? back to camp.

3:30- Arrived at the trail head after an exhausting hike back. We had started out the hike at a pretty good clip but as the trail started to get steeper and steeper and the snow keep falling our progress pretty much turned to a snails pace. I think we were all pretty pumped when we finally climbed out of the bowl and saw the six-wheeler waiting for us, although it turned out to be a short lived celebration. Apparently the 6-wheeler doesn’t do too well in about 2’ of snow, which is what had fallen at this elevation, approx. 10,000 ft. After trying for about a half-hour to get it out we decided we were going to have to start hoofing it. Unfortunately, at this point we were all tired and knew there was no way we could cover the four miles back to camp before dark.

6:00- We only covered about ¾ of a mile in two hours. Exhausted from trudging through the two foot of snow and trying our best to stay on the trail, that was barely visible under all the snow, everyone was ready for bed. We set up camp again, although this time everything was pretty well wet and/or frozen. Too tired to make a fire, we all just wanted to crawl into a sleeping bag. You know you’re in for a long night when you have to chip off the bigger pieces of snow and ice from your pants before crawling into a soggy sleeping bag.

Check the next newsletter to see if they made it out and what they learned from the experience. It’s not too early to start thinking about hunting this fall!

Sunday Sept 17, 2006

6:30- Drew woke me up and thought we should get moving, I argued that I didn’t think we’d be able to see the trail but I ended up agreeing since bed wasn’t that comfortable to begin with. It’s a good thing we woke up when we did since it literally took about 15 minutes to get into our boots, which had frozen solid over night. Everything was frozen, cold and wet. We stuffed our soggy sleeping bags into their stuff sacks, hoping we wouldn’t have to crawl back into them again. It sounded like everyone’s legs had been cramping up overnight so we knew we were in for a long hike.

8:00- Started hiking the remaining approx. 3 miles back to camp. We knew we could make it back to camp that day but everyone started to question if we could make it to the trucks, which were another four miles. If we could make it to the trucks, could we get them out? The other dilemma was whether to keep packing all our gear or not. With close to forty pounds in our packs our backs and shoulders were as tired as our legs. But if we decided to leave anything behind and then not make it as far as we hoped, it might turn out to be a really bad decision.

11:00- We had covered a grueling two miles. Drew and I took turns breaking the trail. With about a mile left before camp we saw the best thing we’ve seen in two days, someone had ridden a four-wheeler up the trail. With the snow packed down, we started making up time. Within the hour we were standing in the last big meadow right outside camp. That’s when we were really saved; the camp that was right next to ours was still hunting. They had weathered the storm in their base camp and went out riding during the storm to keep the trails open. We waived them down, and they headed in our direction. We must have looked every bit as bad as we felt because they asked right away if we needed any help. As luck would have it they had four four-wheelers in camp and offered to give us a lift off the mountain, which we eagerly accepted.

12:00- We needed to get our truck keys out of the tents which were still at the base camp. If you didn’t know our camp was there you probably wouldn’t have recognized it as a camp. Tents were flattened, poles broke and fabric torn, it really didn’t look like much of anything. So I was grateful we were getting a ride off the mountain and that we didn’t have to try to dry out and regroup there one more night. Everything was pretty much left on the mountain; all the camp, the six-wheeler, trailer, what a mess. My Dad is planning on going back Thursday with Jeff and Drew to see if they can get camp packed out. To top it all off Dad’s truck broke down on the way back to Denver.

Check out the next newsletter for the ending to this story!