Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting First elk

My daughter turned 12 this summer so we've been getting her ready for her first big game season. She wanted to hunt elk, but she didn't luck out on any draws. We tried an early general hunt and came very close, but didn't have a shot.

We had an early cow hunt open here yesterday, it was actually only good for a couple of drainages until later in November.

I don't have a good kid's elk rifle so my friend generously let us borrow an AR 10 .308. It was sighted in with 150 federal fusions so that's what we used. The adjustable butt stock, fairly heavy weight, and the action all made for a fairly shootable rifle even for my little 12 yr old.

So she's been practicing live fire and dry firing off a set of trigger sticks. Including going from standing to getting all set up in proper position to shoot.

It is still pretty warm here and yesterday was windy when I took her out of school a little early and we headed up the mountain.

We spotted several groups of elk and decided to go after one group. We ended up only getting on a spike bull at 40 yards. It was getting later so we headed back to the 4 wheeler and saw a bunch up on a hillside. We had a ways to go to get out of sight and then had to hook it uphill pretty fast hoping they'd still be there.

Just as we crest the hill I can see the elk and I set up the shooting sticks. My daughter got on the sticks just like she'd practiced and started trying to get her breathing under control. The elk weren't spooked but were wanting to head over the hill and out of sight. I kept them lingering around with a cow call or two.

Then she shot and the cow did a 40 yard death run and tipped over. 187 yards. It was getting pretty dark, although the pictures make it look a lot darker than it was, so we hurried and got her cut up. This is pretty serious grizzly country and the ranch is having its worst year yet for grizzly kills. Plus we've had quite a few elk taken over by bears before. So we kept a pretty good eye out and were glad to have Ruby our heeler along with us.

It was all the way dark on the way back to the 4 wheeler, but it wasn't far.

I guide several hunters a year and we kill pretty good bulls. This was more fun and it was harder to control my excitment while coaching my daughter through the shot than any client.