Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting The 300 Wby Mag for elk- is there anything better?

The previous elk I ‘lost’ went down in some tall sage. When I approached it got up and went over a nearby fence onto private land. After going for a ways across open grassland it turned back and retraced its steps toward the sage on public land. The range was under 100 yards when it stopped at the fence and was shot by another hunter on the private land. There is no doubt in my mind that the elk wasn’t going far and at worst I would have recovered
it provided I could get permission to follow it onto the private land. Had the other hunter not fired I was ready to do so as soon as it jumped the fence back onto public land. The other hunter made the question of recovery moot. If you want to consider that one ‘lost’, then yes, I have lost two. In the end the elk was recovered, however, something I never felt was in question.

Here’s a photo of last year’s ‘lost’ elk.





Wow, no need to get the facts straight when your goal is to besmirch someone's reputation with innuendo and misrepresentation or outright lies.

I think you'll find the vast majority of my advice is in response to open requests rather than unsolicited. I don't know about you, but when I seek advice I also judge the advice and the person giving it - including their qualifications, their experience, success and motivation. Doesn't matter if it is about hunting, a medical or legal issue or anything else. If that information isn't on hand I have no problem asking for it. Providing that information up front isn't boasting if the intent is just to provide that background information. There was a radio host I used to listen to that once a month would talk about his professional experience. Why bother if everyone had already heard it? Because every day there were new listeners that hadn't. The situation is no different on this forum.

Yes, it was a ranch hunt, something I have clearly stated in the past and have never made any attempt to portray as something else. It was an unguided Ranching For Wildlife hunt on Snake River ranch to be exact. RFW hunts for cow elk are open to any Colorado resident for the standard resident cow elk application fee. If people choose not to take advantage of such hunts that is their concern, not mine. Since my primary goal is to fill the freezer and although I generally get an additional OTC bull tag for public land, antlers are optional. Since 2006 I have hunted RFW whenever I can get an RFW cow tag, which has been every second year, and make no apology for doing so.

A ‘road hunt’ and ‘3 different game units’? You didn’t get that from anything I wrote about the lost elk because those ideas are false, unless you consider hunting 2 miles from the truck a ‘road hunt’. As to the units, I hunted two units that year, not three – units #3 and Snake River ranch, both with cow tags good only for their respective areas. After 3 days of hunting Snake River my hunting companion went home, leaving me to hunt alone. By then my right hip was so bad that just getting from the cab of my truck to the fuel cap at the gas station was an adventure and getting far from the road was out of the question. Instead I switched to Unit 3 and spent a lot of time exploring the unit by road and sitting on public land high points in my truck hoping to see elk migrating through public land. I didn’t see any elk (and didn't really expect to as the migration hadn't started) but there was nothing illegal about it, nothing to be ashamed of and not much else I could do except go home. My hip continued to deteriorate rapidly and a few months later I had to get hip replacement surgery.

‘Fling a long shot’ in a ‘desperate attempt’? What have you been smoking? It was a 400 yard shot max, as lasered to the trees just behind the cow. Probably closer to 390 and I was shooting from a very steady sitting position using a tripod. This is a shot I’ve made many times on prairie dogs, coyotes, antelope and deer and elk using the same sitting position and tripod. The sitting position and tripod also get used at the range to shoot steel and clays at 500 and 600 yards, so it isn’t like I was inexperienced at that range. My son-in-law and I had plenty of time to discuss the possibility of getting closer and both of us agreed that any such attempt would likely fail. We had been watching the elk for a couple of hours before I took the shot, one that we both agreed was the best opportunity we would get and had a high probability of success. The public land cow I had taken in 2013 (the year before) was at 487 yards and the Snake River cow in 2011 was right at 400. This year's elk was at 411 on public land again. A ‘desperate attempt’ or a ‘stunt shot’? Far from it. I simply misjudged the wind. Like bwalker I guess you've never made a mistake, or won't admit it, so fee free to continue throwing stones.



As far as we’re concerned there was nothing remotely illegal or unethical about what we did. It was getting late when we lost the blood trail and it was 2 miles back to the truck, a trek I wasn’t comfortable attempting in the dark with my bad hip. We made it to the truck at last light. When checking out of the ranch we inquired about the other adjoining ranches and were indeed told that they were not at all friendly or cooperative with Snake River - but that information played no part in our decision making as we were already off the mountain and it was well past dark. In any case, I was physically incapable of making another trip up the mountain that night. We returned the next morning and picked up where we had left off, but we found no more blood and no downed elk. By then the cow could easily have been on one of 3 adjoining ranches or it might have still been on Snake River Ranch. We feel we made the legally and ethically required ‘reasonable attempt to track and kill’ the elk but with the passing of time and no clear indication of where it went, contacting the other ranches and randomly searching them – assuming they would have even allowed it, which we had been told they would not – would have been a gratuitous and unproductive effort at best. Never mind that by then the condition of my hip made another (third) trip up the mountain impossible, regardless of which ranch we chose.

As far as ‘younger people’, my son-in-law was the only one with me. He is in his early 30’s. Regardless, there were no actions taken on our part for which I am the least bit ashamed, whether it was hiking in 2 miles on a bad hip and finding elk, observing them for a long period of time while considering our options, taking a shot we both believed would be successful or our attempts to recover the elk afterwards. Nor am I in any way ashamed that my hip had me reduced to walking with a cane or that the best I could do was hunt Unit 3 from the truck. It beat going home.