Utah Fishing ReportsWOW what a day! The assistant manager of the ranch, Marni Lee, told us there had been over 1700 guests register for the event yesterday! THAT IS A LOT OF FOLKS!
The view from the visitor center showed a pretty good hurd of elk in the meadow…estimated to be about 300 animals. We did see a couple pretty good sized bulls in the group, but mostly cows and calves, which is normal. The ranch hands started off with the usual one wagon load of people to take them out among the elk with another in stand by mode in case the crowd got bigger. By the end of the day, they had 3 wagons going out and still had over an hour waiting line!
I appears the hurd got bigger as the day progressed! But that was outside! Inside we were having ourselves quite a time showing everyone interested in what mountain men were all about. Pretty soon the picture taking was becoming overwhelming and Edjukateer, Sara, Bones and I were deeply involved with that, while Wapiti handled the question and answer session by himself! Tracker was busy with movie taking to document the event around the ranch and we didn’t see much of him until close to the end of the day! We had a fun time and Edjukateer especially was busy taking selfies and pictures of the crowd using other peoples phone cameras!
A multi tasking mountain man taking two pictures at the same time…he said he was ambidextrous and then said that word had something to do with liking girls. Those that heard him say that got quite a chuckle out of it!
The craziness of getting the next group ready to have their pictures taken while the group that just got done un-robed was sometimes hair pulling stuff, but we continued to get things done!
Capotes, hats and of course the guns and sometimes knives! The kids were especially fun to watch as some of them don’t get to touch guns at home!
And of course there is always a “cutie” that comes to the show and entertains old Bears Butt!
Well, in no particular order here are some of the better shots I took to show off how fun this was! I’m not sure who had the most fun however…me? Bones? Sara? Edjukateer? Or the folks that donned the gear and tried to sit steady for a thousandth of a second while we snapped the shutter!
Some tried to look serious, but it didn’t always work! There are lots of folks who can’t be too serious when they are having this much fun!
Some folks just gotta have a kiss when the urge hits them!
There you go again!
AND what would the Elk Festival be without a visit from the Director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources!
Of course, Edjukateer and Bears Butt have to get in on the picture! BUT…don’t forget about old Tracker!
So with the 2015 Hardware Ranch Elk Festival behind us! There is still a whole winter full of sleigh rides in and among the elk! Get on up there and have some fun! It is more than worth the drive up beautiful Blacksmith Fork Canyon!
I’m sorry I didn’t get good pictures of everyone that came up. I’m not the steadiest of camera guys and sometimes my camera just doesn’t want to focus. But for those I did manage to get a picture of, it sure brings back some fun memories of the day! Thank you folks for entertaining us old mountain men!
On behalf of the Willow Creek Free Trappers! THANK YOU UTAH DWR FOR ALLOWING US TO PLAY!
Bears Butt
December 13, 2015