Fur Fish and Game Extravaganza III

As many of you know, my boys and I celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday by hunting, fishing and trapping.   This year we were also joined by Jen’s uncle Fred, cousin Danny, and Danny’s daughter Freja for some of the outings.  The boys and I set beaver and muskrat traps on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to get a jump on this activity.  We ended up catching two beaver below the house on the Yellowstone River.  One of the beaver weighed 65 pounds.  The muskrat sets were frozen in when sub-zero weather and a foot of snow hit on Tuesday so they proved to be unproductive.  Thanksgiving morning we stalked rabbits and deer on the land surrounding our home.  A nice 4X5 eluded Danny and I while the boys watched from the deck of the house as buck outsmarted us.  They had gone home after a 2 mile walk in deep snow.  Their vantage point provided lots of stories of how the big one got away at dinner that afternoon.  As we finished dinner, a 4 point crossed in our neighbor’s field and I quickly circled in front of him for an easy 80 yard shot.  On Friday, we traveled to the Bighorn River for a float and fishing.  We caught 2 browns and 2 rainbows.  Chance was proud of doing everything from selecting his fly to landing a nice brown trout.  Cade helped me reel in a nice rainbow.  The only trouble that we had was Chance falling in over he waders in 30 degree weather.  On Saturday, we went elk hunting in the Boulder Valley south of Big Timber.  The last picture shows me resting halfway through our 12 mile hike.  We jumped 1 cow and 2 calves but were not able to shoot as this part of the district was legal only for bulls.  Hope that everyone’s holiday was as good as ours!

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