Gaps

diamond hitch

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 9, 2020
Messages
751
Location
Western Montana
When you hunt the dark timber and especially those stands of dog hair where the average tree diameter is less than 5 inches and they are about 14-18 inches apart, you have to develop some special skills to be consistantly successful. Early on I discovered the big bulls preferred to hole up on the north sides after the rut in jungles so thick they had to cant their horns to get in and out. I had found some exceptional bulls during bow season but had not been able to connect.

I returned to the same rat nest the first week of the rifle season and was picking my way through the poles when an exceptional bull stood up and started across a shallow draw in front of me. As I pulled my rifle up and lined up on a hole the bull stopped. He was about 30 yds away and holes were limited. After a minute or so I looked over my scope for the bull and he ran through the hole. I pulled over on the next hole and waited but again he stopped just short of my shooting lane and stopped. Again when I raised my head he ran through the hole. I pulled over on the last shooting lane but again he stopped just short. This time I kept both eyes open and focused briefly with my left eye just as he made a run for it. When I saw hair in the scope I pulled the trigger and broke his neck and paralysed him.

Now the next dilema was how to finish him off without breaking the skull. I was only 20 and was still learning a lot of things about elk. A couple of years before I finished off a nice bull by shooting him below the ear and later the rack fell apart. This bull had 63 inch beams and it was amazing what he could reach with them while laying on the ground. A couple of times he nearly hit me with them. He only had a 40 inch spread but I certainly didn't want to repeat my previous mistake. I finally shot him with my handgun through the top vertebrae. It was the only spot I could see that he couldn't come close to hitting me with those horns. A couple of years later in a comparative vertebrate anatomy I better understood why that was the correct decision.

Over the years I have observed that the elk can pick those shooting lanes as well as I can. My success depends on my ability to pick them out before they do.
 
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