I'm going to tell my wife's (before she was my wife) story. She was 24, first year hunting with a borrowed .243 Win, hunting with husband and friends on a feed ground south of Jackson, WY near Hoback Junction. Her ex sent her up a ridge while he headed a different direction (I'm sure to get her out of the way). While easing along, she met another novice hunter (also with friends but his hunting season had ended). While walking, conversing and approaching the top of the ridge, they came across several more hunters at about the same time a group of elk came running by at about 100 yards. Trying to impress the other hunters, she said “I'll take the lead cow!”. At this moment it's not certain who was more surprised, the elk which had just been hit in the brisket (almost a miss) or my wife. The elk goes down, but not yet dead. Wife runs closer to about 25-30 yards, took a rest on a tree (shaking the rest of the fall leaves from it's branches) and took 2 more shots before hitting the cow in the head before finishing her off. She had no knife to bleed out or gut the elk. The novice hunter had a knife, and while actually never gutting an animal, said “I've read about it and I'll talk you through it!”. She slowly walked up to the elk, poked it with the knife, it quivered and she flinched. After several attempts of trying to talk the novice into at least cutting the throat for her, she noticed her friends coming towards her. She returned the knife to the novice and told him “I know my friend will gut it for me!”.
As the novice was leaving, he asked her if she wanted him to find her husband and tell him she had an elk down. She described her husband and he headed in the general direction of where she thought her husband was. The novice actually did find her husband, telling him that his wife had an elk down. His initial response was “Not my wife!”. When the weekend hunt was over, she was the only one taking an elk. Her first year of hunting was actually quite a success! With that same borrowed .243, she killed a doe mule deer and got her first moose (young 2 yr old bull) with her husband's .264 WM; thus fueling her passion for hunting. Since that season, thus far in her hunting career, she's taken many antelope, elk, mule deer, two moose, two bear and a very nice Big Horn sheep. From a .243, a .264 WM, and her .270 Win, she moved up to a .338 WM in the early 90's and it has become her one and only, go to hunting rifle. - memtb
