Super long...Not bowhunting. sorry. Skip to pics if you're easily bored. I just felt the need to ramble. Humor me. Sort of dived in head first on this. Got an antlerless elk tag for a place I'd never set foot on. I have never hunted elk before and had no idea what I was doing..... Kendall had some friends from work give us some pointers... but they were fairly obvious. Such as; Glass the hills and then glass some more and; after opening day, they'll be hiding in the steep/thick stuff. It was really cold that first night before the opener. Kendall slept in the cargo trailer (no heater) and I slept in the backseat of the truck (no heater unless I turned the truck on, which I didn't do because the trailer was still attached to the truck and I didn't want to kill Kendall with the exhaust). Thankfully our sleeping bags were warm, but it sure sucked crawling out of them. I woke with a migraine. We sucked opening day. We picked a canyon to watch that was full of deer but devoid of elk. We're pretty sure we heard a bull raking antlers in some really thick and steep pines but we could never see it. Visibility in those pines is just a few yards. That afternoon K's friends drove us down some nifty mudhole trails to show us another area. Didn't see any elk, just lots of other hunters. We hunted half-heartedly Sunday. There were still no elk in the canyon we had set up camp on. My migraine was still beating up on me. We bailed and went back home Sunday afternoon. I came back out for half a day during the week. (the unit is about 60 miles from home) Brought my dog along and we explored by driving to the end of trails and then walking around. There was only a small fraction of the hunters out there during the week as there were on opening weekend. The dog made exploring a bit more fun and if I have the dog with me, then when my mom calls and asks if I was hunting alone I can honestly answer "No". She hates that I go off by myself. Friday K and I were out again. It took us two hours to get there because it was snowing in the mountains again and steep, switch-backy road + whiteout conditions = slow, white knuckle driving. We drove 4.5 miles down a nasty, bumpy, mudhole trail to get to a spot where there were already six other hunters. They went off one direction so we went the other. We were treated to a very pretty sunrise. Then we saw two half decent mule deer bucks and several does. Finally, we saw some elk. About 2 miles away. ...and more importantly... Four big ridges away. :p Because of the distance we stayed put, and hoped some would show up closer. Instead we watched some idiots on off-road vehicles carve out some deep ruts down on the next ridge as they tried to retrieve an elk they must have gotten the day before. They were in a no-motorized vehicle area but that didn't stop them. Then the other hunters we had seen before daylight came walking in on us. We all left the area then. K and I decided to attempt to get closer to the elk we saw that morning. We parked on the side of a hill (mountain ) and then we'd simply 'drop down into the canyon, then over that ridge'. Yeah.... Those hills are deceiving. It looks like it shouldn't be too hard to go from one ridge to the next, but it's not easy. It's steep and far and there's swampy beaver damed areas and then it's steep some more. We got a good ways in before someone else found the elk, shot at them and then ran them off over yet another ridge. ....sigh... We struggled our way up and out of the canyon and back to the truck. This is tough stuff on old, fat, flatlanders. We headed off to look for some other spot. By now the snow had melted and the 'road' was just like driving on grease. At one point, there were some ruts where gravity had sucked a vehicle off the trail and down the squishy hillside. I tried my best, but my 2500hd was no more immune to gravity than that other truck. After a bit of effort we got the truck back on the 'trail'. At this point Kendall took over driving because he was quite sure I didn't know what I was doing. :D It didn't take him long to realize that there just was no real control on those trails. (tho' to be fair, we wouldn't have gotten stuck if I had gassed through that spot... but I was trying to avoid a big rock) The chevy actually did pretty well. You just had to get over trying to stay out of the deep ruts, mud puddles and sliding down hills sideways. Muddy and exhausted we glassed a bit more and then went home. This is a fairly dry spot on the trail, but you're still going to go sideways down it. It's when you're in the trees going sideways that it gets really fun. No trees were harmed. On the drive home Kendall said he thought his Mitsubishi Endeavor would do fine out there. I mentioned that I thought its near bald tires and lower ground clearance would be it's undoing. The next day we drove that Mitsubishi (the Manvan) up there. First, we decided to be like the majority of hunters we saw out there and simply drive around, hoping to stumble on some elk near the road. We drove down the paved roads, trying to figure out where they went. We saw only a steady line of other road hunters. LOL Later Kendall dropped me off at a spot and he drove about a half mile down another trail where he could look at another canyon. I watched my elkless canyon and then hiked back up the trail at dark. Kendall wasn't there. So, I start walking the trail in his direction. Eventually, I see a light up ahead. It's the Manvan, but it's not moving. As I get closer, I can tell there's a problem. I can see K has the scissor jack under it; the front tire is off. Changing a flat tire in the dark, in the mud is no good. The jack was precariously perched upon a rock that was mushing its way sideways in the mud. Kendall was understandably unhappy. I tried to cheerfully help and then he flashed his flashlight towards the front of the car. A river of oil lead out from underneath. Bummer. We cranked the jack up as high as we could, then had to dig mud out to get the non-flat tire to fit on the lugs. We poured a quart of oil into the manvan and then headed towards a real road. Thankfully, it's 9 miles downhill to get to town and a gas station. We bought more oil and I made a pressure dressing for the oil pan that consisted of a paper towel and lots of duct tape. That got us home. What had happened is that Kendall drove towards where he wanted to hunt but he couldn't pull the manvan off the trail and out of the greasy ruts. Instead it just slid down the hill until it hit a rock with the oil pan (destroying the pan). At least that stopped him and allowed him to get turned around on the trail but trying to get up the hill, he rolled one tire off the rim on a rock and took another tire down to the belts. Good times... Good times... Being gluttons for punishment we were right back out there on Sunday (in the chevy). At first light we saw a group of elk on a distant hillside. I was pretty sure we could get to that hillside because that's where the dog and I had explored earlier. We hopped into the truck and drove as far as the trail would let us. We hiked in a mile and found the spot where the elk had been but we didn't see or hear them. We guessed that they had dropped down into the pines but Kendall's hip was hurting too much so we didn't go down in there. We decided we would wait them out. But... a snow storm came rolling in and being as how we were already down one vehicle we decided the prudent thing to do was to head out before we got stuck out there. Snow coming. Even though Kendall had to work during the week, I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel. I headed out Wednesday afternoon and went back to where we had last seen elk. Right about the time I figured the elk would come out, a guy with two horses comes clopping over the hill, not 60 yards away. Dang, my luck. We wave to each other and he goes riding down the hillside that I was sure that the elk would appear on. :/ Not long after he leaves I see elk on the far hill. 1000 yards away. Then a bull starts bugling like crazy but I can't see him. He stays in the pines. Then I hear a rifle shot. The elk on the far hillside trot off. Eventually I can see the guy on the horse down in the valley. Another rider joined up with him and they move off. More elk trot off on the hillside going the other direction from the riders. The bull starts bugling again but now he's moved below me. Maybe only 500 yards off. I still can't see him. I hear a few cow chirps. I decide against heading towards them. It's getting dark. Tomorrow...
Thursday. Last day of the season. Lots of grouse. I bet I don't see any when I go back with a shotgun. Lion track. Neato! I slept in and didn't get back out there until a little after noon. I get to the parking area and am a bit disappointed to see a truck with a horse trailer and another truck parked at the trailhead. I hike in to the spot I like and never see or hear them. I parked my butt on a nice fallen aspen and make myself at home. I have zero expectation of getting an elk... so other than some apples for snacks, I'm not very well prepared. My ambush point. There was a brutal wind and the sun had gone behind the mountain before I finally saw some elk. They were 700 yards away. Jerks. I wasn't about to take that long of a shot. They go out of sight and I have no idea which direction they would take. I walk over to some quakies to use as a rest, you know, just in case. Shooting light is quickly leaving and I'm about to write them off when I see movement on a near hillside. There they are, above me on a steep hillside. I range it. The range finder gives me a reading of 200 yards. I know they're a bit farther because it's reading the trees and not the actual hill or elk. I find the elk in the scope but they're zipping in and out of openings faster than I can settle the crosshairs. Finally, they all stop. In the open. I quickly pick out one standing mostly broadside by itself. BANG. In the nanosecond before I lose my sight picture as the 300 win. mag. rocks me back, I was pretty sure I saw the elk get hit. I look over the scope at the chaos of elk running off. But one elk just kicks and slides straight down and piles up in some logs. She didn't go 20 yards. ....and most of that was due to gravity. I ramp another round and eye the downed elk suspiciously. No more movement. I grab my pack and practically run down the draw and up the hill to her. When I get to her, I'm in disbelief. I can't believe I got one. I say a prayer of thanks. I do a fumbling happy dance on the hillside. Hopefully, no one was watching. Then I have two realizations... elk, even cow elk are waaay bigger than I thought and I have only a couple of glowsticks for light and a dull knife. She was wedged pretty good in the logs. I could only move her a tiny bit before I just got her wedged more. I start to take off her hind quarter but trying to hold up one of those big legs and cut with a dull knife via dim glowstick was not working. Then I get the really bad idea to try and gut her to make her possibly more maneuverable. The way she was laying just made the innards run out in directions I didn't want. I fought with them for a bit before I gave up on that idea. Having no real light just wasn't working. I propped her open to cool as best I can then hung up the glowstick and laid my coat next to her to -hopefully- run off any scavengers. Marked the spot with my GPS and orange hat and hiked back up to the truck. Once I got to the truck I texted Kendall (who was still working and can't take calls) and of course, posted to facebook. LOL Kendall calls me and we discuss a plan to get the elk out. We decided to wait until morning. It was already only 28 degrees so leaving it overnight seemed like an okay idea. The next day went well. I cut up the elk in to semi-manageable pieces and Kendall hauled most of it out. I skinned it out because I wanted to save the hide and K only rolled his eyes a little bit at having to haul out the hide too. It was a really tough (for us) hike out. Only a mile from the truck, but mostly up. Of course, now, after the soreness has faded away, it doesn't seem bad at all. We ate the first roast off it yesterday. It's awesome. And there's a lot!! Yay!! Big!! Yay!! I balanced my cell phone on its side and then had to dive behind the elk before the timer went off. It was not graceful. 250 yards, through the top of the heart. Barnes TTSX 165 gr bullet. Bullet busted a rib on the way in, hit ribs on the other side, smashed through the ball of the far shoulder and lodged just past that. 100% weight retention. Pretty impressive. Now I just need to figure out how to bowhunt these critters.
And hiking boots that don't kill my feet. I ended up just wearing my sneakers. Comfy but not very weather resistant. Poor shoes. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Awesome story! Ole Murphy tagged along on a lot of your hunts, huh? Now that you've rifle hunted elk, do you feel confident going after them with a bow? A buddy and I want to do our own DIY hunt in a couple years.
Congrats! Theres nothing like getting an Elk. I bet you're ready to stick one with an arrow next year. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
That's a great story, I didn't want to put the phone down until I read the whole thing. Glad you got one too, looks like a beaut. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
Cool story Christine and congrat. Lot a meat there. Thanks for sharing. Elk hunting is a blast but it ain't easy. Beautiful home you got there.
