Daughter’s Success - 10/20/23
So here in Idaho, youth 10-17 can hunt both the A and B tag seasons for elk. For those who don’t know, the A tags usually give you a lot more opportunity to hunt elk (mostly antlerless) with multiple weapons, and the B tag usually gives a person a chance at a bull with a rifle.
My oldest (son) has capitalized on this a couple times in his youth but now he’s gone living his dream and guiding elk hunters in north Idaho. I usually fill the freezer with a late cow as my three daughters have been pretty busy throughout their high school years to give it a go. With only one daughter left at home and even though she’s as busy as the other two were, she agreed to me getting her an elk tag. The bull season opened a few days ago and today was the first (and likely the only) day we would get to hunt. So with a deer and an elk tag in hand we set off for our adventure before dawn.
I thought we would check an out of the way spot where I’ve bowhunted numerous elk in the past and sure enough, just as it was coming light, managed to glass up a bull headed for his bed. He wasn’t a booner by any means but good enough for my her. When I asked her what she wanted to do she said “kill that elk”. Ok, let’s go.
I’m moving a little slow as I just had my knee worked on about three weeks ago but I was game and we set off. When we got to the gate we ran into an out of state hunter. We asked him what he was after and he said deer, but his buddy had a bull tag. I asked if they had seen the same one and he confirmed they had. Not wanting to screw them up as they were there first, he conceded that it was fine for us to go after the bull. We thanked him and moved out.
We climbed up a draw north of where we last saw him and got above where I figured he probably would go. Once we hit the top, I told her we would just move slow and easy to where we could see in the draw. If we didn’t see him right away we would hunker down and glass. We must have done it right because as soon as we made it to where I wanted to glass, I immediately saw a calf bedded in the brush below us. A quick check with the binos produced the bull and five other cows bedded as well. My daughter got on the gun but the way he was laying didn’t give a chance at a shot. So I told her we would wait it out for a while as they had no idea we were there. We watched them for about two hours when one of the cows got up and started feeding for a couple minutes. When she laid back down she switched directions and was now facing us in the open. I told my daughter to hold still as she had us and to get ready cause things were about to come apart. Sure enough, the cow jumped up and bugged out over the hill. The commotion caused the bull to stand up. I asked her if she could see his shoulder to which she said “oh yeah”. I told her to bust him. A couple seconds later the .264 Win Mag roared and he dropped in his tracks. After the hugs and “good job sis” we headed down to him. She was super excited when she found he was a six point “on both sides dad”!! Not a bad little adventure and first elk. When her brother called and asked how she liked it she told him she was hooked.
The happy hunter
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My oldest (son) has capitalized on this a couple times in his youth but now he’s gone living his dream and guiding elk hunters in north Idaho. I usually fill the freezer with a late cow as my three daughters have been pretty busy throughout their high school years to give it a go. With only one daughter left at home and even though she’s as busy as the other two were, she agreed to me getting her an elk tag. The bull season opened a few days ago and today was the first (and likely the only) day we would get to hunt. So with a deer and an elk tag in hand we set off for our adventure before dawn.
I thought we would check an out of the way spot where I’ve bowhunted numerous elk in the past and sure enough, just as it was coming light, managed to glass up a bull headed for his bed. He wasn’t a booner by any means but good enough for my her. When I asked her what she wanted to do she said “kill that elk”. Ok, let’s go.
I’m moving a little slow as I just had my knee worked on about three weeks ago but I was game and we set off. When we got to the gate we ran into an out of state hunter. We asked him what he was after and he said deer, but his buddy had a bull tag. I asked if they had seen the same one and he confirmed they had. Not wanting to screw them up as they were there first, he conceded that it was fine for us to go after the bull. We thanked him and moved out.
We climbed up a draw north of where we last saw him and got above where I figured he probably would go. Once we hit the top, I told her we would just move slow and easy to where we could see in the draw. If we didn’t see him right away we would hunker down and glass. We must have done it right because as soon as we made it to where I wanted to glass, I immediately saw a calf bedded in the brush below us. A quick check with the binos produced the bull and five other cows bedded as well. My daughter got on the gun but the way he was laying didn’t give a chance at a shot. So I told her we would wait it out for a while as they had no idea we were there. We watched them for about two hours when one of the cows got up and started feeding for a couple minutes. When she laid back down she switched directions and was now facing us in the open. I told my daughter to hold still as she had us and to get ready cause things were about to come apart. Sure enough, the cow jumped up and bugged out over the hill. The commotion caused the bull to stand up. I asked her if she could see his shoulder to which she said “oh yeah”. I told her to bust him. A couple seconds later the .264 Win Mag roared and he dropped in his tracks. After the hugs and “good job sis” we headed down to him. She was super excited when she found he was a six point “on both sides dad”!! Not a bad little adventure and first elk. When her brother called and asked how she liked it she told him she was hooked.
The happy hunter
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