Wyoming Thanksgiving Cow Elk

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It was a fun and productive Thanksgiving week at my brother Bob’s cabin in Wyoming. I was able to make it down for the weekend before Thanksgiving and had my brother to myself. The whole famn damily (three of our collective five daughters and husbands, wives and ex-wives, in-laws and outlaws and a few spares) was going to show up for Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday and Friday evenings and the following weekend party. So it was going to get crowded, but for the first weekend it was going to be just my bro and me.

We have been hunting together since the 60s. We went out Saturday morning and parked in our most used spot to start our hike. At first light we headed up to a knob where we could see for a couple of miles in all directions and look over the hundreds of acres of private flooded alfalfa fields next to the public land we hunt.
For over a decade the elk have learned to eat on the alfalfa and then head to the hills at first light. If they choose the hills we have access to, we have a hunt. But the hunting pressure has increased the past few years as more people have learned the fall and winter feeding patterns of “our” elk. It is hard to blame Bob’s ranch neighbors for allowing more hunters on their properties since there have been some cattle testing positive for brucellosis, but it was nice when we had less competition from other hunters coming in through the private ranches.

This morning there were no elk on the hay fields but as we walked along the ridge from our knob, we bumped right into a branch antlered bull. My permit was for cows only however and as nearly as we could figure the bull was be himself so we left him be.
We hunted hard for the rest of the morning, covering all of the public land we have access to. No elk. That evening we watched the hay fields to see if any elk would show, but they did not. However the fields were full of rutting mule deer and the dozen bucks and nearly a hundred does put on a show. It was Wyoming’s nature at its best. The next morning’s plan was to repeat the first day’s plan. However this morning as we were driving to our knob trail head, we saw a herd of nearly 20 elk heading out of the hay fields in the direction of our hills!

Our plans immediately changed: we parked the pickup and headed out on foot out of view to try to get in front of the herd for a shot. After a mile jog uphill, we failed at our first attempt because the elk moved too fast to flank. But since we did not spook them too much, we retreated and headed up another ridge to try another sneak. This time it worked. As we came down a rock face, by brother hissed, “There they are.”
I was able to cut the distance to a little over 200 yards and sat on my butt to get a solid rest when the first calf stepped from behind the rocks below me at a 30 degree angle. This first calf started to move but I was not too concerned because I knew there were at least 20 more elk to come out. The next three were a calf, its mom and a middle sized cow I assumed was last year’s calf. I put the cross hairs right behind this heifer’s shoulder and pulled the trigger. I did not compensate enough for the steep downhill angle and the shot was high by a few inches but broke her back. She dropped in her tracks. I scurried as quickly as I could to the downed cow to finish what the first shot started.

My brother and I celebrated another successful elk hunt while we gutted her out and cut her in half. We were able to drag her less than a mile slightly downhill to the truck and load her up. We then put both halves in the back of my Subaru Outback at the cabin. I then drove her back to Bozeman and dropped her off at Yellowstone Processors to be made into whole tenderloins and back straps, sirloin steaks, jerky and hamburger (10% fat). I am really looking forward to smoking a back strap for Christmas dinner. It will be fabulous.

I made it home to Bozeman to hunt ducks one day and ski for another. Then my wife and I celebrated Thanksgiving dinner in Bozeman with our two daughters and their husbands who were not going back down with us to Wyoming to Uncle Bob’s cabin. So Friday morning after Thanksgiving my wife Diane and I headed back to Wyoming.
The big fun there was one of our son-in-laws, Doug, stretched his budget big time and bought a cow elk permit like I did. He knew the hunting was tough, but he wanted to try it. His desire to hunt, especially elk, is very big. We all helped him out but for three days we saw no legal elk where we could hunt, but on Saturday morning Bob’s son-in-law Chase glassed behind us and saw a bull and cow over a mile away in the steepest, thickest country in the county. But it was public land we could access.

I was very proud of my son-in-law Doug. He drove my daughter from Denver to celebrate Thanksgiving and spent money that stressed their budget to buy a nonresident cow elk permit to hunt with us. With Chase’s help (who knows the area very well), Doug hunted hard on Thursday and Friday morning before Diane and I made it back down, but we were able to join the Friday evening hunt. No one saw any elk at all during both days. Brother Bob stayed at home to entertain the ever growing group of in-laws and out-laws but he knew that Doug was in capable hands with Chase, Diane and me.

On Saturday the next door neighbor a 12 year old boy named Jack and my 16 year old nephew Logan visiting from Colorado joined Doug, Chase and me for the morning hunt. Diane took the day off from guiding for elk and followed her daughter, two nieces and one of their husbands to Red Lodge for skiing and tourism activities.

We hunters did our usual routine by hiking to lookout knob at first squinting light. Just like the previous two morning there were no elk on the hay fields or moving to any of the hills in any direction. Sigh. All five of us walked back to the truck and it was decided to drive to the most southern ridge along the edge of our public hunting ground. Jack, Logan and I dropped off Doug and Chase at the top of the ridge. They left the truck and headed off to hike the ridge down its two mile length. I turned the truck over to Logan my 16 year old nephew so he could practice some two-track driving as we drove back to the end of the ridge the hunters were walking. Forty minutes later we were parked and bored waiting for our hunters to show up from their hike.

After another forty minutes, we heard the first of three shots. We three went into full alert, ears-up mode. The shot sounded as if it was way far away and could very well be from the neighboring ranch. But could it be Doug? Then in another minute, a second shot. Then a minute later, a third. Wouldn’t it be great if he got into elk after all the time and effort committed to the hunt?

We waited at the truck for another forty minutes and figured that if they had not gotten into elk they should be off the ridge, so we started walking up the valley at the base of the ridge in hopes of finding them with a downed elk. In ten minutes from the truck we ran into Doug and Chase and they both were covered in blood! The three shot WERE from them. The first broke the eight year old cow’s spine and the next two were fired to finish the job.
When they had left the truck at the top of the ridge, they walked for about ten minutes when Chase, who knows the area well, looked back into the roughest country we hunt and with his binoculars he spotted a cow and bull tucked in a stand of pines. Excellent spotting skills to say the least. Doug then did an hour sneak by himself and took a 50 yard standing shot and killed the only legal elk he saw in three days of hard hunting. It is pure joy for me to see the next generation become so confident in their hunting skills. Unfortunately we did not get any usable pictures of Doug’s elk.

We drove back to Bob’s cabin and put Logan in the driver’s seat of his mom’s car. He drove it up from Denver with his learner’s permit and he was going to drive it home. The rest of us ate lunch and sent text messages to the crew in Red Lodge. They were ecstatic. Jack (he neighbor kid), Doug, Chase and I headed back out to retrieve the cow from the worst piece of real estate in our area. We had to cut her in half and all four of us pulled hard for nearly a mile through extremely tough terrain to get her to the truck. My back had a little catch in it for a week. But soon the job was done and it was back to the cabin for sunset congratulatory cocktails when the Red Loge crew showed back up. It was one of the best Thanksgiving weeks of my life.

I used a Gentry custom 6.5 x 06 with Sierra Pro Hunter bullets over 55 grains of Reloader 19.

My cow on the ground.
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My brother Bob with our elk.
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One of the rutting bucks:
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David Gentry 6.5 x 06 custon.
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This is the perfect Christmas ending to my family's Thanksgiving elk hunts. My youngest daughter and her husband Doug drove up from Denver to spend Christmas with us and her two sisters and their families. They also drove up to pick up the processed meat from Doug's cow elk. He and I are leaning on boxes containing the meat from our two elk, sans three boxes. The meat was processed by Yellowstone Wild Game Processing, 406.587.9385

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This is the ultimate final chapter of the Wyoming cow elk thread. Diane and I defrosted the outside back strap “tenderloin” of my yearling cow elk and let it age in the refrigerator for a four or five days. We put slices in the top of the meat and slowly poured Kitchen Bouquet in the cuts; then smeared on hot horseradish and Mrs. Dash lemon pepper.
We then roasted it in a pan over water starting at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. We then turned it down to 150 degrees while we soaked in the hot tub with evening cocktails. We then kicked the temp up to 400 and started watching the thermometer very closely. When it hit 135 degrees we pulled it out and let it set for ten minutes, cut and served.
It is clearly one of, if not the, best meat we have ever eaten. Absolutely fabulous.

Right out of the oven:

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Sliced:

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Dinner is served:

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Finally someone who cooks elk the way it should be cooked. I like mine a little rare as well.
 
Finally someone who cooks elk the way it should be cooked. I like mine a little rare as well.

Amen, Elkantlers. Di and I cook almost all our red meat just to the point where the blood stops running, but still very, very pink even after it cools some.
 
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