Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

2013 Elk. First elk hunt, First elk. Pt. 2

huntrfish

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Dec 17, 2012
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In order to avoid all of the hunting pressure (and nasty weather) I opted to wait for a while after the first weekend of rifle season. I decided to go up on a Thursday night and hunt Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was staying in town on this trip, so my drive was a little longer.

Day 6.
I wake up Friday morning, grab a cup of coffee on the way out of town and it is windy and nasty. I get up to the road where I want to go, and I can tell no one has been there yet. I think it's great that I can be he first in, so off I go. I get about 3 miles in (out of 7) and the snow is getting so deep that the bumper and transfer case on my 4x4 are pushing snow. Deciding that since I am solo on this hunt, I back out gracefully and decide to go the long way around.

At about 10:30 I cut my first track and decide to follow it. I take about five steps and notice movement from behind a tree right where these tracks lead to. All I can see is a nose and part of a mouth chewing. So I get ready and take about 3 steps and this behemoth of an animal gets up. One of the largest bull moose I have ever seen is standing 30 yards away from me, with nothing between us. He turns around and goes about 100 yards, looks back at me and then goes off into the woods. So I continue on thinking that if I can get into an open area, maybe something will happen. About 100 yards later, I spot another set of tracks which led to a large open area about 300 yards wide. As I come around the corner, I see another familiar sight. This time a cow moose stands up and stands her ground. She isn't moving, so I get away from her and into to next set of trees. I sit and wait in the next clearing until my body can take the cold no longer. I get up and work my way back to the pickup and decide to leave early for the day as I did not want to be the last person out of the forest that night. I met a couple of other hunters on the way out who were hunting moose, so I told them about the encounter I had and wished them luck.

The road out
The road out.jpg

I get back to my buddy's place and needless to say, I was spent! Physically, emotionally and mentally drained to a point that I didn't care if I just slept in tomorrow and didn't go hunting. While it is not in my vocabulary to give up, I was trying to justify it to myself that I had put in a hard day hunting, and it would be ok to forget about tomorrow. Since my buddy didn't have to work the weekend he had planned on going with me in the morning. I knew he was pretty jacked up about going with me on my first elk hunt and I didn't wan to let him down, so he suggested we go to a different area that didn't get nearly as much snow. He showed me on a map and area the is off the beaten path, and hard to get to. He tells me he has seen elk there before, and it is more of a sit and wait type of hunt. (Sit and wait hunting is not my style of hunting, I prefer run and gun, and he knows it) Since I was so tired from the day before, I agree that a sit and watch type of hunt would be a good idea.

Day 7.
We get up and dressed and give the weather one more look. It looks like the weather will be chilly this morning, but should be a nice day overall with no more of that white nasty stuff. We take off and grab a cup of coffee at the local mini mart. The nice young lady working there obviously knew where we were headed and gave us a nice wink and "good luck" on our way out the door. I told her that hopefully I would not see her in the morning as we hoped to punch our tag today. She said that if she didn't see us tomorrow, she would know that we had done well.

We finally get to the spot that we want to hunt and there are numerous other vehicles in there. But, all the 4 wheelers are still in the back of everyone's pickup because the roads have been closed. We go over to a parking spot and there is a guy there just getting his gear on. We talked to him and he showed us which way he was going (which was perfect since we were planning on going the other way). My buddy planned to put us in a spot that we could see 360 degrees. But, our shots were limited to about 180 degrees because we were on a boundary of an area I couldn't hunt it. As we walk in I am looking up on a hill (in the area we could not hunt) and I see numerous tracks. I could tell it was a highway for the elk and they had been using it. Hopefully at least one would come our way today! As we get to the first rock out-cropping where we were going to sit and glass, I see something come out of the trees on the opposite side of the canyon. I look and confirm it is an elk, so I try to get my rifle ready. It is a nice cow and since my general tag is good for either sex right now, I decide to take her. About the time I finally get settled in, she disappears into the timber, never to be seen again.

So now, I am pumped up. I have seen an elk in the scope, but just not long enough to get it done. We decide to move in a little further and sit on a rock ledge that has an amazing view. We get out to this ledge and look over into the other area (where we couldn't hunt) and see about 30 head of elk moving over that mountain where I had spotted the trails earlier. I am amazed and thinking to myself it has already been a successful hunt. My buddy commented that she would have been a long shot anyway...about 550 yards. I said there was no way it was 550 yards, and as I put the rangefinder on where she had been, it read 549. He's obviously been to this area before and knows his distances! I told him I had never shot that far with this rifle before, but I knew it could do it. So we quickly discussed the ballistics and drops of the rifle and figured out where I would have had to shoot in order to connect with that one.

About that time, we see two more bulls across the canyon and one of them disappears off the back side of the ridge. We then hear four shots and see the bull come back on the top of the ridge. He started to sway and ultimately passed away right before our eyes. I thought about that and thought to myself "well at least someone is successful today" The bull was laying in the snow and started sliding down the mountain. The slope was amazingly steep and we watched as he just kept sliding, around 100 yards down the mountain before he appeared to get caught on a rock and stopped. Then we watched the hunters come over the ridge and saw the excitement in their high fives and hugs as they worked their way toward their bull. Congratulations Gentlemen!

About that time, I started to look over to where the cow had been, but something caught my eye as I glanced across the valley. There it was...another elk. I could hardly believe that we were seeing another elk, this time in the open. My buddy and I quickly glassed the elk and found it to be a bull. Not a huge bull, but a decent bull that would definitely be a trophy for me. My buddy guessed a distance and said he really didn't know how far he was, so in an attempt to get a correct distance, I said "here" and threw my rangefinder over my shoulder. I really had no idea if he would catch it, and looking back, that could have cost me a lot of money as those things aren't cheap! He ranges the bull at 490 yards.

Meanwhile, I am having a terrible time getting into a comfortable shooting position. I am on a rock ledge that every time I try to set the bipod on, the rifle is point so low that I can't even find the elk in the scope. So I have an idea and lean back with my backpack on. Now I have a backrest and I can get the bull in the scope. I try to steady myself, but between the coffee, the cold, the elk and my adrenaline, it looks like I am looking at a moving target as I look through the scope. My buddy reminds me to breathe and I start to remember all of the shooting fundamentals I have ever been taught. I know I am going to have to rely on those fundamentals if I want to make this shot. So as I am doing things that I have been taught to lower my heart rate and control my breathing, I am getting to a point where the crosshairs are not moving off the animal now. My buddy calls out another range "510" he says. "You are going to have to shoot him before he gets to the timber". So I decide now is the time. That defining moment of success or failure. I let my buddy know "here we go"...and slowly squeeze the trigger. It seemed like it took forever for the trigger to break...and click!

What the #&@$? In all the excitement, I had never put a round into the chamber. I had loaded the gun at the pickup, but I don't carry a gun with one in the chamber for safety reasons. My buddy laughed and says "yeah, you need to put a bullet in" Thank you Captain Obvious!!

So I move from my position that I had finally gotten settled into and racked a round into the chamber of the .300 Winchester Magnum. About that time my buddy says he's at 525 but facing away from you. So I try to re-adjust and get into position. Again, things are pumping so hard and fast that I was even shakier than before. So once again I try to rely on my training and experience and get settled in for the shot of a lifetime. My buddy says "he's at 540 but wait till he's broadside". So in the little amount of time I have, I get my heart rate down to a bearable level and get the crosshairs steadied on the bull. My buddy says "he's turning" and I reply with a "here we go". As I sent the bullet I felt absolutely no recoil from the gun that usually kicks like a mule. I also heard nothing until I heard that awesome "THWAP" when a bullet hits it's intended target. I remember I re-adjusted soon enough to see the elk drop with one shot and start sliding down the hill. He got hung up on a tree, and laid there for a little bit.

At that point my buddy hollered "Holy $#!^. You got him!" Then the elk lifted his head and I thought Uh-oh. So I took two more shots at him, and the last time I saw him, he had all four legs up, and he was on his back. I watched as he kept sliding down the mountain into some dark nasty timber, and out of sight. At that point I stood up, thanked the man above and shook my buddy's hand, gave him a high five, a huge man-hug and maybe even a kiss. (I don't know about the last one, but it might have been possible!) I was so excited that I finally had done it. A NR, first year elk hunt, public ground, and 100% DIY. Oh, and by the way, this all took place at 7:30 A.M.!

I knew the work was about to begin, but I didn't care. Let's go get him!

I really had no idea how big or small the bull was at this point. But I knew he had head-gear and was a legal bull, so I didn't care for my first elk. It turns out that he is a pretty good 4X5 bull with pretty good mass. I know he is not a 300+ class bull, but in my book, he is a trophy.

The bull had slid about another 200 yards down the mountain into a ravine. He ended up getting caught up on a log that had also caught another elk (probably from the year before). He ended up only 740 yards from the closest point of the road, but it was about a thousand foot drop and 1000 foot climb just to get to him. Luckily for us a fellow hunter had walked in on us and offered to take out a quarter for us. I knew we had a lot of work, so I told him to have at it!. He grabbed a front quarter and threw it in his pack, asked for where we were parked, and took off. It took us all day to get him out because of the steep terrain, snowy, slick conditions and the deadfall. But again, I didn't care. I had done it.
And by the way, The nice young lady at the mini mart....she didn't see us the next day!!
Elk Down!.jpg
elk down 2.jpg
time to notch the tag.jpg
the ridge.jpgThis last picture is the ridge I shot from. On the right hand side of the picture, you can see a knob that sticks out.
 

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Congratulations on a nice bull. Nothing beats the memories made on your first elk. Especially when it is done on your own or with close friends. Great post and story as well.
 
Congrats! I never get tired of looking at elk and that's a cool looking bull.
 
Very nice!
Great story and pics! Thanks for sharing. An awesome trip. Congrats!
 
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