My cousins article on his 2011 Nevada Elk hunt has just been published in the Huntin-Fool magazine ... soooo, I can finally fill in some more of the details of this Winter-time expedition.
First, here's a shot (er: photo) of the lil' monster. You may remember the previous one, where the rack was resting sideways, on the back ramp of the Dodge pick-up .... as we were about to cape it out by lantern light, in the wind and snow ... (8 degrees out). More details to follow ...
After 7-days of scouting (between us) ... we put our heads together the afternoon before opening day and Chris elected to hunt "away" from the major drainages we had been camped in, and where I had concentrated my scouting. He got into position by driving over to this alternate area at Dusk, parking in the timber out of sight and cold-camping in the Dodges cab. While I greatly preferred the soft bunk, pillow and propane heater of our 21' travel trailer, to a reclined drivers seat, a sleeping bag cover and no heat ... I worried I was going to be missing the real excitement of opening morning.
The weather forecasters were predicting that a snow storm would be moving in late on opening morning, expected to dump 2-3". His plan was to intercept Elk that he had patterned, as they traveled from where they fed at night, back to the safety of denser Juniper slopes, to bed. He left the truck an hour before daylight and using only available moonlight, step by cautious step, quietly snuck out into a dry creek bed, next to a lone Juniper tree.
Glassing at first light, reveled some elk off to the East, a long distance away. He could tell that there were branch-bulls in the group, but they were still too far away to judge. They would appear briefly, then disappear down into the shallow sagebrush and creek bed depressions. This went on for about thirty minutes.
At one point, when they were out of sight, he decided to shift positions and stretch his legs. Just then he spotted the head of a cow elk, barely above the sagebrush line off to his right, not more than seventy yards away. She was walking right towards him. With the same motion that he had started to rise up out of the dry creek bed, he rolled back down into it. While on the ground, he reached over to grab his rifle. He was wearing a camo hood and he slowly raised his covered head to peek above the sagebrush, trying to determine how many elk there were.
It was 9 total elk .... six cows and three bulls. As they closed in, the 3 bulls moved ahead and started leading the group, walking slowly single-file, heading toward the more heavy timbered slopes, off to his right.
The first two bulls were average six points (maybe 320 class), trailed by this heavy massed bull with tremendous �whale-tails�. It was difficult to stay calm (kneeling on the ground), as he let the 2 lead bulls walk on past him, so they wouldn't detect the rifle being raised. Once the last bull was just past 90 degrees, it was safety-off, as he calmly planted the crosshairs low on the bulls chest (at around 50 yards) and touched off the broadside shot ....
Ker - POW ! !
Silver_Bullet
Best deal, since I got in on the Close-out Sale ... on Mayan 2013 calendars
The shot clearly rocked the bull, but he remained on his feet, never breaking stride, but peeled off a little more to the left, from the path that the 2 other bulls were continuing to walk on. Uncharacteristically, the lead bulls didn't spook at the shot! The 6 cows however, performed a 90 degree turn and sprinted straight away from the shot, leaving a cloud of dust, as they searched out a new Zip-code. His 40+ years of elk hunting experience had him immediately chambering a follow-up shot ... now aiming to angle through the chest toward the offside shoulder. A second later ...
Ker-POW !
It was "lights-out", as the Bull collapsed to the ground and started an extended dirt-nap !
So, just forty-five minutes into opening day (as I'm sitting some 30 miles away, glassing canyon walls), his hunt was already over. He set his camera on the spotting scopes tripod and using the self timer, hurried to take some money-shots, before the approaching snow squalls reached him. With the Whack-em part done .... it was now time for some serious Stack-em and Pack-em.
While everyone complains about having to dress an Elk on a slope ... there are also some negatives to trying to gut-out an Elk on relatively flat featureless ground. There's nothing to tie off to, plus you are trying to keep the cape and meat as clean as possible. Luckily, when he walked out to bring the Truck over closer, he crossed a faint road bed, that he had missed in the dark and was able to drive over fairly close. The hardest part was pulling the 3 large chunks-o-elk up into the bed, as the wind howled and the snow started falling. (never forget your come-along !).
While I had green scored the bull in the low 340's , he has since had an experienced scorer give it 350 1/8 B & C points. Not bad for a young 5 X 5 main-frame bull. For scale, Chris is 6-1" 220. He used his well seasoned Mark-X in .300 Win mag, topped with a Zeiss Conquest 3-10x-44 ... with Speer 180gr Grand slams (handloaded to zero run-out, by yours truly).
... Silver Bullet
I put on my tights the same way Batman does .... one leg at a time
They eat up pretty damned good..How do the horns effect taste again........Does everyone have to shoot a trophy to be on the kool kids list or does filling the freezer every year count?
Are your sure Greenhorn is not your cousin..
No one is equal too, unless the rack won't fit on a logging truck. Give it a break....Have you shot more elk than anyone here?
They eat up pretty damned good..How do the horns effect taste again........Does everyone have to shoot a trophy to be on the kool kids list or does filling the freezer every year count?
Are your sure Greenhorn is not your cousin..
No one is equal too, unless the rack won't fit on a logging truck. Give it a break....Have you shot more elk than anyone here?
Jayco
What is this? I give the guy a nice compliment on a great bull and you throw this back at me?
They eat up pretty damned good..How do the horns effect taste again........Does everyone have to shoot a trophy to be on the kool kids list or does filling the freezer every year count?
Are your sure Greenhorn is not your cousin..
No one is equal too, unless the rack won't fit on a logging truck. Give it a break....Have you shot more elk than anyone here?
Jayco
What is this? I give the guy a nice compliment on a great bull and you throw this back at me?
Its because logcutter suffers from a terminal case of anal/cranial inversion and is just a stupid,mean, bitter, nasty old Son of a Shoat.
Member: Clan of the Turdlike People.
Courage is Fear that has said its Prayers
�If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.� Ronald Reagan.
They eat up pretty damned good..How do the horns effect taste again........Does everyone have to shoot a trophy to be on the kool kids list or does filling the freezer every year count?
Are your sure Greenhorn is not your cousin..
No one is equal too, unless the rack won't fit on a logging truck. Give it a break....Have you shot more elk than anyone here?
I hunted a bull like that a few years back and never did get him. He was a dominent herd bull and after the rut he went off by himself and never got far from the "dog hair" lodgepole. He knew what rifle season was...
I have never understood the relationship of body size to antler size..Some of the biggest bodies I have ever seen,came from smallish antlers and visa versa.
Had one huge antlered bull chase my wife out of the lodgepole patch spraying scent and snorting with her muck-luks on prior to opening day.His head layed back like horns on a packhorse then hit the skids once out of the timber.I wondered how he got that big of a rack with such a small body.I have seen alot of 5-points with larger bodies than he had.
I earn every year I hunt and enjoy learning as like people,elk are individuals and if you take the sex out of there lives,thee predictably unpredictable sometimes.
Wow ? .... Glad you guys got that straightened out (overnight) ....
I read Scenarshooters post as a Great Compliment ... from a guy who honestly knows how to Scout-em, Hunt-em, Whack-em and Stack-em ... (well demonstrated, by his stories and photos).
But, for a minute there, I thought Loggerhead was spooning his Kool-aid outta' Gus's punchbowl. You know ... the one Gus keeps slipping brown (pointy-ended) ice-cubes into. Anyway ... (Sometimes I wonder why I waste my time, posting on here .... ) But, moving right along ... - - - - - -
Part - Last (of 3) ... the Rest-of-the-Story
Since I don't regularly apply (or try to hunt) in 7 different Western states, I was skeptical that Chris's long-time membership in the Huntin-Fool, would pay off and provide the level of support and scouting information that it did. His early phone conversations with several Fool members, who had recently hunted Elk in these Nevada units, really helped us narrow our pre-season scouting focus. That information, combined with a few PM'ed tips from Fire members here and some calls to the local DNR folks (plus reading between the lines of the Guides/Outfitters web sites) provided us a good head start for our 3 months of serious pre-hunt preparation. I was able to print out detailed maps ahead of the trip, covering the terrain where we expected to be scouting/hunting. This was an 11 year wait, to draw this Non-Res tag ... so when you are both pushing (or past) 60, it becomes a once-in-a Lifetime opportunity.
To take nothing away from my cousin, he is definitely one of the "Pareto" class hunters .... those top 20 % of the Elk hunting population, that kill 80 % of the Elk taken each year. Some hunters never learn that you become a more-successful Elk hunter, when you concentrate your hunting time in the Elk's "current" neighborhood ... and even more successful, when you hunt in the Elk's house ... Chris always manages to get in so close .... that he's effectively hunting "in-their-Kitchen". If he had notched his wood stock once, for every elk he has killed ... he would only have a barreled-action left.
Our autopsy by lantern (in the cold-dark), found that his first shot had entered low on the chest, taking out a rib on entrance, then gave the top corner of the Elks heart a new gaz-outa port ... then exited the opposite side between ribs. So he truly was a Dead-Elk walking ... it just hadn't registered ... (yet). Though still young, this bull did not suffer from any lack-o-chow. He had body size and mass like a mature Roosevelt Elk and he was a handful, even for the two of us working together, to properly cape out. The 4ths (daggers) and the extensions of the main beams that formed the Whale tails, were 24-28" long. Chris later admitted that before he shot, he was so impressed by the overall size and mass (especially when compared to the 2 lead 6x6 bulls) plus the "Look" of this bulls Whale-tails .. that he assumed his bull was a 6x6 ... and he never hesitated to shoot.
... Silver Bullet
Even a Time-machine loses half its value ... the minute you drive it off the lot.
Nice bull thanks for the pics and the story. I like seeing all the elk taken and hearing the stories - whether it's a trophy 7x7 or a cow. That's what this place is supposed to be all about - sharing and learning.
Last edited by bludog; 04/02/12.
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