Our native Manitoba subspecies tends to be a bit bigger bodies, and darker, with heavy but somewhat short antlers compared to the Rocky Mountain variety that is so commonly featured on American websites and magazines. So I thought you might enjoy seeing what we hunt here. I "guided" my buddy to a pretty nice bull last week on my land in Eastern Saskatchewan. We'd seen lots of rubs and heard a bull bugle in this spot for a few years now. I was content with the dry cow I'd shot a few days before, so I was taking pictures for this hunt.

He passed up these three the first morning ( cows are legal with our over the counter tag system)

and later in the evening connected with this one... he seems pretty happy doesn't he?

I had to admire it too!

Dad??? Mom said I would find you.... I think to make up for lost time a elk up would be great

Wow! What a tank! Congrats on the elk

Nice to see someone else on here from Sask. That is a great animal. They are big and tough to deal with weight wise. Congratulations.

Damn what a pig! Very nice.

Awesome!

My Grandmother homesteaded to Saskatchewan sometime around 1910. Would that make me a local?

That is somewhere I'd love to go someday.

Heck, I would be darned proud to put one of those cows in my freezer. I think they are bigger than either of my Idaho bulls.

That bull is a MONSTER. I am not sure I could pack him out on two horses.

Actually, it was an easy pack out, but we used 60 horses, John Deere supplied them! ;-)

A pic of my cow, lots of good eating. Hoisted by an old cast iron slaughterhouse winch that has been in my family more than 100 years and still doing its intended job after 4 generations.

I'd love to trade hunts with some of you folks down south, unfortunately, we are not allowed to share our elk, license available for locals only.

That is heck of a bull, really nice antlers on that one! Great pictures as well, especially the tough pack-out you had with that bull:) Congrats to you both!

Whats the live weight of a bull like that?

Wow, those elk look really healthy, congrats.

Man, all I see are delicious looking STEAKS.. That bull looks darned healthy. Same for your cow!

Beauty of a bull! And I want your winch, that thing is cool!

Wow indeed! Like a Rockyvelt, ehh.

castnblast;
Thanks so much for sharing the photos of your hunt.

The bodies on the elk there are indeed bigger than we're seeing in our part of the Okanagan - so it's a good thing it's flat enough to get a John Deere up to the carcass!

I too really like seeing the cast iron hoist still in use - very cool link to the past there.

Thanks again for sharing, all the best to you folks and good luck with your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

I've never weighed a whole elk, only weighed pieces of meat and converted back to live weight using 55% yield percentage hanging carcass vs. live wt. - but I didn't even do that on this one. So my guess of a thousand pounds more or less is subject to discussion, but is what I believe. The front end loader saved our backs that's for sure!
Our family and friends have taken 73 elk from our property over the last twenty some years. This is one of the biggest.

This was the biggest bodied one that I've personally shot, from 5 or 6 years ago...



No actual weight on that one either!

and sometimes we shoot little ones, but they are very yummy!

What a horse!!!

Dark antlers, mega bodies - you grow elk like whitetails there!

Actually, there is a well known genetic effect on animals that live in a cold northern climate- they grow bigger to conserve body heat. So our whitetails and elk really are larger than those from warmer climates, and for a good reason. The calf was shot on a December morning that was -35�. That's a beaver pond we're standing on.

That is one big bodied bull! Wow!

I saw their tracks while hunting in eastern Sask but never got to see one.

I think 1000 is probably right. If they were right on my AK bull moose just recently, it was supposed to be 1200, and the elk looks almost that big to me. Just from the picture. Not quite as heavy in the neck/head but mostly the rest looks awful similar.

My hunting partner shot a bull near our property a few years ago that had a carcass weight of 610 lbs delivered to the butcher. Wish I would have seen that one in person so I would have a comparison with the bull from a couple weeks ago. Partner figured this one was very similar, so my estimate of 1000 lb live may actually be conservative.
610 x 100/55 = 1,109 lbs estimated live wt.
Whatever, we probably won't get one bigger any time soon.

Great pictures

Thank you !

All I can say is wow! What a beast.

Congratulations.

KC

Thanks for all the kind words everyone. I was back at our elk camp this week, trying to help a friend fill her draw cow elk tag. The elk were still around but had gone almost completely nocturnal from hunting pressure. We saw a few moose, a couple wolves, lots of rare trumpeter swans, and other interesting stuff. She did have a small herd of cows and calves within 30 yds at one point, but brush was too thick for a decent shot - so I think of that as "success without venison". Maybe she will connect in the late season, it will be much colder but is always interesting.

Cat
what did that sucker weigh? He appears to be very heavily built. Thanks for your time. Cheers NC

Cat congrats on a great place but you know we need some Looneyism details like rifle and bullet used . We know it worked!

Are those elk living on wheat and grass?

Mike

Rifle was a Win M70 featherweight push feed .270, load was Fed premium 150 nosler partition. I couldn't help but think that my pet Sako AV .35 Whelen w/250 grain Horn RN bullet at 2500fps would have been a bit more decisive under the circumstances. I shot my cow with that combination a couple days before, one shot through the lungs at 205 yards, she did a death dash of about 40 yds and piled up.

My buddy got a little too excited when the big boy decided to thrash the willows for 5 minutes just 50 yds into the bush from his tree stand, but where it was so thick that he couldn't see him. A cow was standing directly under him and another just a few yards in front, and he couldn't hardly breathe for fear of spooking them and chasing away the bull. When the bull finally stepped out, he was shot 5 times, ( from only about 20- 70 yds) but all hit a bit too far forward, none hit the shoulder bones or spine and only one bullet grazed the lungs. The bull made it about 150 yds into the hay field before expiring. Not a perfect result, but if we didn't get excited we wouldn't be out there!

Like I wrote before, I can only estimate his weight, but my buddy told me tonight he put 260 lbs of perfectly trimmed & deboned meat in his freezer.

We usually hunt elk on the forest fringe, where farmland butts up against the vast crown lands. Our elk will feed on farm fields at night if they can, alfalfa is their preferred food but they will also eat wheat and other grains and forages. They tend to come out to the fields at night and retire to bed a few KM's deep in the forest for the day. We prefer to leave the bedding areas alone and usually hunt the edges morning and evening.

That's explains why he's such a hog! Got a regular buffet.

What's the saying, keep banging until the meats hanging!!

Thanks for the specs, I love both rounds and I'm a Partition junkie.

Mike

Nice elk, looks like you all had a great hunt.

Are those considered Manitoban Elk or Rocky Mt.?

Either way a real Hoss.

Tejano, my first post on this thread:
"Our native Manitoba subspecies tends to be a bit bigger bodies, and darker, with heavy but somewhat short antlers compared to the Rocky Mountain variety that is so commonly featured on American websites and magazines. So I thought you might enjoy seeing what we hunt here."

Heck of a bull castnblast!!

As for end weights on butchered animals, you can figure about 33% after all is said and done. I dropped off half a moose this fall, hanging weight was 321 lbs. My end yield was roughly 250lbs of clean cut steaks, roasts, stew, and coarse ground meat. I'd guess my bull weighed somewhere in the 1200-1300 lb range.

Manitoban Elk. Massive bodies.