Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

BD, gout is bad enough in the toes, but if you have a gout flare-up in the knees, you should see the doctor.

Treatment usually includes colchicine, some form of NSAID (indomethacin or prescription strength ibuprofin) and possibly steroids.

At the very least, take a prescription dose of ibuprofin (with food so you don't get ulcers) 3 times a day for several days along with the cherry juice.

Man BD, sorry to hear that. Maybe Sherpa Kurt can carry you out.

Sherpa can drag you out there on a tobogan!

Goalie - I would but I cant afford the Dr. bills right now, I am the only one in the family without insurance and it is not looking good that I will be able or afford it. I will see what I can find for Ibuprofin though thanks.

T- I wish Sherpa was gonna be around but he is off to the Nodak camp. Question is will he be using a vintage WW II rifle, a tire iron, or the machete he calls a knife?

Holy crap! Sounds like Camp Chickenbuck is going to have to be renamed Chickenbuck Infirmary.

Just remember boys, "they shoot horses".

Naw, I'll be fine myself. I feel better already actually.

Well I am back online. First was a week and a half of elk huntin'. Then back to find out the computer had a virus. Sent that back to the mothership (corporate) and had it re-ghosted. Then a week in Illinois for work. then got back and the computer was for the most part fine....but had a glitch that wouldnt let me visit 2 sites. This being one of them! I finally got it all figured out just now.

I did skim the pages and let me see if I can summarize: The infirm ward is about 20 strong and growing. Tzone's neck is swollen and he is rubbing his coatrack. Timber chickens have been providing sustinence for many. Forky Toes is still running. Ol' Yeller is making a comeback bid. Muffy's pretty pumped about her new glassware...and we arent talking drinking glasses here. All in all about like I expected.

Me? Wahl, lets see. I have a trail cam pic of a big buck right next to my stand and another smelling the camera! That has the juices flowing! Oh, and I went on this little elk hunt. Details to follow......

Spill it foo!

By the way, did you get an extra shirt with your chickenbuck order? A very smallish blue one?

I hope Cole likes it, probably thinks it's goofy as heck

I've been waiting to hear the elk story and all we get is a recap of what we were all here for? come on, you're killin me, spill it already!


welcome back, sorry to hear about the computer troubles, at least you're up and running.

now about that story......

I did get a little extra in the package. i havent given it to him yet, although I did see him trick or treating. He actually has hair on his head now. Almmost didnt recognize him.

Story? About elk? Must be around here somewhere....

Okay folks, I havent been back through this to refine the writing, but in the interest of getting it out to you asap, here it is. It will take multiple posts and I am not completely finished with it so bear with me.


This story starts in 1997. That was the year that Dad and I decided to start accumulating preference points for Colorado elk hunting. Thirteen years later, we had 13 points and applied for Unit 76 in southwest Colorado. After a lot of research and considerable thought given to doing it ourselves, we decided to hire Sammy Frazier Outfitting. The summer was spent getting in shape and shooting our rifles. Sammy kept stressing that we may have to shoot a long distance, so practice was essential.

Wednesday, October 13th. Dad was late in picking me up. He got to my house at 3:05 am. I didn�t know there was a 3:05 am. After 20 hours on the road and a nice, but quick, visit with a friend near Denver, we arrived at our hotel in South Fork, CO.

Thursday, October 14th. A beautiful day, crisp and clear. Mmmmm the mountains are wonderful this time of year. We decided to drive up to the Lost Trail Ranch where we will meet Sammy tomorrow. Good thing too, as we went the wrong way on our first attempt! But we got it figured out and found that it will take us a lot longer than anticipated. The gravel road was terrible for the last 15 miles. It took us well over an hour to make that last segment. On the way back, we stopped and made sure the rifles were still on.

Friday, October 15th. A leisurely breakfast and we were on our way! Arrived a little before noon and met our 2 other camp mates. Brad was from upstate New York and was a stay at home dad. Bob was from Colorado and was a retired business owner. Both were nice gents (which is a relief as you never know who you could end up with!). On the horses and we set off. It took us 3-4 hours to get to camp and it was another beautiful fall day in the mountains.


















I tried to soak as much of it in as I could. Camp was a cook tent surrounded by 3 dome tents for sleeping at about 11,200 feet.


















We were about halfway up a long east-west drainage called West Lost Creek. A small river ran down the bottom of it. Willows lined the creek and grassy slopes gave way to dark timbered steep mountains on either side. Timberline was roughly 12,300 feet and above that it was grassy slopes all the way up and over the ridges. In some places, there were sheer cliffs, other places it was possible for elk to go up and over. Later, I would learn that elk can go up or down anything other than vertical.

Our guides were Pat and Jake. Pat was going to guide Brad and Bob and was from Iowa. Jake was from Texas and was going to guide Dad and me. Jake brought with Daylon, a junior in high school who was along as a wrangler and wanted to learn the trade. You could feel a lot of excitement in camp, but with a 4:00 am wakeup call, we all turned in early.

Saturday, October 16th, Opening Day. Rechecked our equipment for the 132nd time and ate a quick breakfast. Took as much weight out of our packs as we could. We were going to hunt a basin called Paradise on the south side of the valley and Pat and his boys were going straight up from camp on the north side. Sure gotta like the sound of Paradise, eh! On the horses around 4:30 am toward Paradise. On the way there, we passed by a lone hunter�s camp (the only hunter we would come across up here). He had llamas picketed by his tent. I had no idea that horses don�t like llamas. After we got by the camp with no incident, we started into the black timber. I shut my eyes, opened them, shut them, and opened them. It was sooooo dark in there, there was no discernable difference in keeping my eyes open or closed. When I heard the guide going through the low hanging branches I ducked. Sure am glad the horses could see! Tied up the horses at the head of the valley and hiked through the timber to get above timberline. Dawn came and went with no elk sighted. This was a disappointment to Jake as he said in most years; there are 50-300 head of elk in each of these basins. Dad and I exchanged glances that said, �I hope this isn�t one of those, you-should-have-been-here-yesterday kind of deals�. At about 7:30, we hear one of our campmates open up with 4 shots and through our binoculars can see that one of them has a bull down. I am happy for him, but secretly I am glad it wasn�t over that quick for me! I am looking forward to the hunt! We spent the next hour or so glassing all we could see to no avail.

Jake figures that if they aren�t in Paradise, Waterfall must have a ton of elk in it so after a couple hours we slide down to the horses and ride them up this steep�.and when I say steep, I mean don�t-look-down kinda steep�.slope. We come out on top and ride across some relatively flat country above timberline. On the way we see a few ptarmigan (that gives you an idea of how high we were). We leave the horses with Daylon and slide over the edge into Waterfall to see�..nothing. Some tracks in the snow, but no wapiti. By now it is close to noon and Jake says lets head back to camp and compare notes with Pat as Pat would have glassed a bunch of stuff we couldn�t see.

Pat reports 20 or 30 elk around him, including 1 really nice bull that was out of range and a few smaller ones, but nothing on our side. Brad had been the lucky hunter and shot a nice 6X6 that would score about 275. Shot him at 109 yards. Brad and his bull are packed down to the cabin as his hunt is over. Jake decides to go to Golf Course this afternoon. Golf course is at the head of the valley on the western end. It is a huge area of basins with willows sporadic throughout. From the air, I imagine it would look like a golf course. We glass the whole area and no elk are spotted. Where are them critters? We go out over the top and peek into the next huge valley and don�t see any elk in there either. By this time, after doing a lot of riding, we decide to walk the horses down hill for a ways. This is prolly a good time to talk about my nose. It is so dry up there I, and everyone else, is having nose issues. As I am walking along, my nose starts to bleed. I hadn�t even touched it. I have never, and I mean ever, had such booger production as I had up there. And if you tried to blow your nose, you got a nosebleed. Next time I will definitely bring nasal spray. I don�t bring this up to be gross, but it was a significant part of the trip. Dealing with my nose was a never ending dilemma and even impacted our sleeping.

As we were plodding along in the late afternoon, I caught sight of about 25 elk coming down off this impossibly steep mountain right into the drainage next to us! The adrenaline spiked and we raced ahead and got behind a ridge. They looked like they were going to come right down our drainage without a tree for cover! We peered over the top and �and�.they had disappeared. Only one way for them to go and we took off to the other drainage. Completely out of breath, I caught sight of the rump of the last elk as it disappeared into the black timber. Oh, so close! We had been caught out in the open and the herd had undoubtedly seen us and changed directions. But at least we had seen some elk!

On the way back to camp, as we were riding though some sparse timber, Dad saw a nice bull about 100 yards ahead of us. We piled off the horses and took off in his direction. Unfortunately, he made it out the bottom and across the valley floor before we could get lined up. Our spirits were up as we rode to the sound of an occasional bugle and two good opportunities. Further on, as we were riding across the valley floor ourselves, we saw 3 cows cutting across from one side to the other. Dad and I got ready, hoping a bull was with them, but they were alone. Dad decided right then and there that he would sit and watch that area all day tomorrow as there had been a fair amount of activity crossing the bottom in that area.

Back at camp, an exhausted couple of hunters ate a quick supper and climbed into the cold sleeping bags.

Sunday, October 17th, Day 2. Daylon dropped Dad off at his crossing area and Jake and I went to the area of Golf Course where the elk had disappeared to the evening before. It was just getting light when we saw a decent bull sky lined on a ridge to our right. He had made us, but it was still dark enough and we were far enough away that he didn�t get too excited. He just meandered off the other direction. We snuck up to the ridge and glassed a ridge about 500 yards away and there was a whole heard there! Prolly close to 30 elk were grazing peacefully along. We looked closely and found a decent 5X5 as the herd bull. There were too far away and we only had one way to get closer. So we belly crawled about 75 yards to a little clump of trees. Once there, we studied that bull carefully. He would score about 260. I was hoping for a bigger one, but he was a nice bull. After looking him over for about 25 minutes, I decided to shoot him. We were on a steep (yep, everything out there is steep!) slope and the elk was to my right as I looked at the mountain. This meant that in order to pull off a 420 yard shot, I had to lay prone with my feet uphill. That left me in a very awkward position behind my scope. This is going to play a big role in a couple of minutes as I knew what was going to happen.

Both Sammy the outfitter and Jake the guide said never to aim over the animal�s back. No matter how far you think your bullet drops, don�t aim above the animal. Hold on hair is what they said. I said, at 420 yards, my bullet will drop 24 inches and I will miss low. After much conversation, I agreed to hold on the bull�s back. To complicate matters, the sun was right in my eyes. My scope would go white and blind me for a second if I held it just slightly wrong. Jake tried shielding the scope to help me out. But I had a good rest and there was no wind. The bull was just standing there. I let out a breath halfway, squeeeeezed the trigger and when the gun went off there was blood everywhere. Not on the elk, I shot right underneath him just as I had suspected. No, the scope had come back with the recoil and cut me between my eyebrows pretty good.


















I tried to get the blood out of my eyes to shoot again, but couldn�t before he took his cows and lit out for the next drainage. I felt bad about the miss, but was glad it was a clean miss. Pat and Bob were actually closer to the bull than I was, so they did a thorough check for blood. No blood and they watched the bull run for a long time with no issues. What a mixture of emotions! Bummed I had missed, but happy it was a clean miss. I knew what I had done wrong, so given another chance, I was confident I would make it count. Disappointed in myself for not trusting myself and my gun after all the practice I had put in and just a little of me was thinking that this bull was a nice bull, but there were bigger ones out there and maybe I will get a chance at a bigger one.

Jake and I went on to check out another basin on a marathon type walk (no elk). We had covered just about every basin in the drainage. We decided to hike back up to Waterfall as that is roughly where that big bull Dad had seen the night before had went. Down the side we were on and up the other side of the valley.

A picture of Waterfall, the basin on the right:




















On the way up into Waterfall, Jake�s horse threw a fit and tipped over backwards. Jake suffered cracked ribs, but gamely kept on. It was a close call as my horse, Half Moon, deftly skipped out of the way at the last second or we would have been in the crash too. We left the horses there and climbed up above timberline�.or at least that was the plan. When we got about 50 yards short of our goal, we both ran out of gas. Just completely out of fuel. So we leaned back into the slope and rested. I was exhausted and so was Jake. As I sat there, I could see little pieces through the pine trees way out across Waterfall to the other side and way up and beyond. I kept opening my eyes and checking for elk. But then I realized, I had glassed thousands and thousands of acres over the last 2 days and had only seen a couple of groups of elk. Now I was trying to look through a little hole in the branches to see an acre over 2 miles away! About 10 minutes later, I opened my eyes again and would you believe it, there was a little dot where I don�t remember there being a little dot. Should I go through the effort of raising my binoculars (remember, I was completely exhausted at this point)? But I was here to hunt elk, so I did. And it was an elk!! I kicked Jake and we both scrambled up a little ways to get a better look. Pretty soon the one elk turned into a bunch of elk. And with the group, was a big bull! Funny what adrenaline can do, but only a couple minutes after wondering if I had enough energy to raise my binoculars, we were discussing whether we had enough daylight to go after him. And he was way, WAY high. It would be a grueling climb to get up there. Where this herd of elk was located, would require the steepest climb so far. We decided that with only 3 hours of daylight left, we didn�t have time to get to him. The bull was big; you could easily see his big rack even from 2 miles with 10 power binoculars. Jake and I agreed this was a 300 inch bull. We put the herd to bed and hoped they would stay in that general area until tomorrow. That night at camp, I had visions of that bull dancing in my head!

How was Dad�s day? Well, he saw 15 moose and no elk. So we made plans for the next day. Jake and I were going up after him. Dad and Daylon were going to go up into Golf Course in case we boogered the herd and they spilled out that direction.

Monday, October 18th, Day 3. Up early with a lot of anticipation. I had been dreaming of this bull all night. I could hardly eat breakfast.

We parked the horses at the base of Waterfall and climbed to its head. From there, the only direction was up. Halfway up, the snow started falling. Another few feet and it was a blizzard. Jake and I discussed it. If we got up there and it was snowing this hard, it would be impossible to glass for the big bull and see him. But we were well into the climb and didn�t want to give it up. So we pushed on. At one point after a rest break, I took 20 steps and was out of breath, it was that steep!

We reached the crest about 8:30am I would guess and started glassing. Sure enough, the herd was there! They were about a mile away tucked up against the base of a peak. We didn�t have a lot of cover between us, but we did have a willow lined creek. So we monster stepped from side to side of the muddy creek (thank goodness for waterproof boots!) hunched as low as we could for about half a mile. The willows hare only about waist high there from all the elk grazing on them. From time to time, the snow was coming down so hard we would lose sight of the herd, but they were just grazing and loafing. Some were lying down, some were standing. We snuck behind a ridge and made up some ground. Then, over a little saddle into the shelter of another little ridge and we made it to the end of that ridge. From there we were stuck. No cover to get any closer. The herd was still a long ways off it seemed. We took up a good position on a pile of rocks and tried to get the range finder to get a reading on how far he was away. We were worried the herd could go either left or right and we wouldn�t get a shot. The bull was just lying down with his 20 cows and a smaller bull near him at this time however. They were lying in amongst a bunch of Volkswagen-sized boulders. Every once in awhile, he would bugle to the world, telling everyone that this was his harem and his area. The elk were tucked up to the base in the big boulders:
















After about 45 minutes, the snow started to let up a bit. I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when Jake hissed that he got a reading. The bull was at 402 yards and was just standing broadside to us. Jake said, we gotta shoot him, get ready! I think we both thought he was further away than that, so that spurred me into action. I had a great rest on the rocks and this time, I put the crosshairs about 12 inches above his back. The gun was rock steady (yeah, pun intended). The wind was negligible. I took my time and squeeeeeeezed that trigger. At the shot, the herd exploded into action, but the bull just staggered. Jake calmly said that I had hit him, but put another one in him. As I got lined up, the bull was falling down, getting up, and staggering this way and that. I shot again, but knew it was no good as the bull had fallen down again just as I shot. This time, he stayed down however. I could just see his right antler sticking up behind a boulder. I stayed ready for the next 10 minutes or so making sure he wasn�t going anywhere. He wasn�t. The walk to him was an adrenaline-filled speed walk. Ol� Jake couldn�t seem to keep up to me! It was just after 10:00 am when we got to him.

This is what I found when I rounded that last boulder:


































































We got the pictures taken and the bull quartered out by about 1 pm. It took Jake 2 attempts to get the pack horses up to him because it was so steep.

Sammy decided to break camp as he was worried about the storm and we weren�t seeing a lot of elk. Unfortunately, Dad didn�t see any elk in the morning in Golf Course. He did see a group of about 12 cows right by camp as we were packing to go out. He spent 2 more days from before dawn until dark on stand but didn�t see another elk. He sure put in his time and deserved to get an opportunity, but that is hunting.

Technical Details: My bull scored 301 6/8 inches and was a 6X6 before he broke off a tine. He had 46 inch beams; a 40 inch inside spread and 10 � inch bases. His fifth tine on his right side was broke off (and it looked like it would be around 8-10 inches long). His 5th point on his right side was pretty small, so he basically scored as a 5X5. He yielded right around 250 pounds of meat. I shot him at 402 yards with a Sako A7 in .300 Winchester Short Magnum/Leupold VX3 scope with Federal Barnes Triple Shock X bullets in 180 grain. The shot was a complete pass through just behind the shoulder. A perfect double lung shot. Some things that really worked well for me on the trip: Schnees Beartooth boots, Nikon Monarch Binoculars, Filson Mackinaw wool pants, and Smartwool base layer tops, bottoms and socks. Most important item to bring next time: nasal spray to prevent cement-like boogers.

awesome hunt!

wow, thats what makes a man an elk addict having an experience like that. a hunt that will be remembered forever no doubt. my biggest bull went a hair under 270", so a 300 incher, WOW I can picture it.

thanks for sharing the story, I wish I coulda been on it with you!
thats what I miss the most about colorado.

Okay, I don't get jealous of other guys' success, but dangit, you've just about made me break my oath. Great write-up, great elk, great pics, too.

Congratulations!

I like the "IT'S THIS BIG" pic with your arms out.

Congratulations!!!!

who says white men cant jump anyways?? took him like 3 or 4 times to get the picture and i was out of breath by that time!

I'd be jumpin and clickin my heels too on that one.

are you gonna get it mounted?

He mounted it just before it was quartered.