Boy is it looking dry at my hunting area! I have never seen it so dry and brittle looking.First animal i saw when we crossed over into national forest was.... A bear. I swear, seeing all these bears is NOT a good sign for me as i have bad luck running into meat eaters.

We did see a great deal of elk, aprox 150 head up towards the dark timber.

A little rodent that was either a marmot or a woodchuck. He has a bushy looking tail and i thought marmots had a rat tail look? He was super fat though and my dog had his head hanging out the window with a serious " i'd love to eat you" expression on his face.

Turkeys also were all over the place and even a raccoon!

We saw every darn animal you could see.... EXCEPT! for a deer and guess what. I have a deer tag.

I may have to go up into the dark timber/aspen groves this year to find a buck. That or locate some water holes down below.

But man, i seriously have never seen my area so dry before. I don't even think i will make any campfires unless it rains, thats how scary dry it is.

Oh, on the way out, a BIG bull with antlers long enough to scratch his rear end ran across the road.

2 pref points for bull elk and so maybe next year i can pop one of those bulls.