NVLongbow
Active member
Jerreep and I were hunting with Fin in southern Idaho two weeks ago. We headed home on Sunday and Fin headed to his Wyoming elk hunt.
Jeerreep had an Elko County Elk tag and the season was slated to open the following Sunday. So we decided to leave my truck, camper and trailer packed with gear in Elko and ride back home together in his truck for the 300+ mile trip.
We headed back out for his elk hunt on Friday morning. A ways into the trip Jerry noticed a vibration in his truck and I was hearing some noise. By 2:00 PM we were $180 dollars poorer and 3 hours behind schedule. But we did have 2 new universal joints.
We were greeted in Elko by 2 flat tires on my rig and frozen pipes in the camper that had cracked the kitchen sink faucet. We gun plugged the tires, bypassed the sink and finally made it to the happy hunting grounds by 11PM. We were beginning to think some of Fin’s bad luck had rubbed off on us.
Things changed the next morning. 15 minutes into our scouting day we spotted a herd of about 50 head of something on a faraway slope, a very faraway slope. They appeared as little specs moving around. Unlike wild horses the specs were all the same color and moving around much more than cattle do. So we decided to cut the distance and take another look.
We ended cutting the distance multiple times. These elk were 11 miles west of the high mountain where spotted then from. We would not have been able to spot from that far had the sun not been at our back and no heat wave due to the cold clear air allowed us to use spotting scopes on full magnification. By 2:30 PM we were within a mile of the herd and had identified 4 mature bulls with them.
The next morning we hiked to the base of the slope in the dark and waited for daylight about ¾ of a mile below where the elk were last seen. As dawn started to break we slowly moved up the slope with our heads on a swivel and often stopping to glass. The herd was not where they were last seen but 2 hours and 2 miles later we were within 300 yards and ready to shoot.
The bull was down a few seconds after the report of Jerry’s rifle. He lay in a pile 10 yards from the original hit.
Join me in congratulating Jerreep on his fist elk.
Jeerreep had an Elko County Elk tag and the season was slated to open the following Sunday. So we decided to leave my truck, camper and trailer packed with gear in Elko and ride back home together in his truck for the 300+ mile trip.
We headed back out for his elk hunt on Friday morning. A ways into the trip Jerry noticed a vibration in his truck and I was hearing some noise. By 2:00 PM we were $180 dollars poorer and 3 hours behind schedule. But we did have 2 new universal joints.
We were greeted in Elko by 2 flat tires on my rig and frozen pipes in the camper that had cracked the kitchen sink faucet. We gun plugged the tires, bypassed the sink and finally made it to the happy hunting grounds by 11PM. We were beginning to think some of Fin’s bad luck had rubbed off on us.
Things changed the next morning. 15 minutes into our scouting day we spotted a herd of about 50 head of something on a faraway slope, a very faraway slope. They appeared as little specs moving around. Unlike wild horses the specs were all the same color and moving around much more than cattle do. So we decided to cut the distance and take another look.
We ended cutting the distance multiple times. These elk were 11 miles west of the high mountain where spotted then from. We would not have been able to spot from that far had the sun not been at our back and no heat wave due to the cold clear air allowed us to use spotting scopes on full magnification. By 2:30 PM we were within a mile of the herd and had identified 4 mature bulls with them.
The next morning we hiked to the base of the slope in the dark and waited for daylight about ¾ of a mile below where the elk were last seen. As dawn started to break we slowly moved up the slope with our heads on a swivel and often stopping to glass. The herd was not where they were last seen but 2 hours and 2 miles later we were within 300 yards and ready to shoot.
The bull was down a few seconds after the report of Jerry’s rifle. He lay in a pile 10 yards from the original hit.
Join me in congratulating Jerreep on his fist elk.
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