Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 150 Partition - pt 2

This whole elk season can be summed up as: when things don’t go according to plan.

Wyoming left us cold and snowy. We left our WY camp Monday morning when it was raining, snowing, blowing; in general a mess. My buddy hurt his foot while hauling my elk out and ate Advil like it was candy all Sunday PM. By Monday AM, his foot was swollen and the weather a mess. We headed to town for food, shower, and different weather; not necessarily in that order. After 4 days of hunting/hiking, we were in need of a shower more than anything else. My buddy decided he had enough of Wyoming so we headed for Colorado on Tuesday AM, a 2 hour drive south, and a bit of trout fishing. The weather cleared and warmed. (A side note: what the hell happened to Steamboat Springs? It looks like yuppieville. Do they really need 3 Verizon stores?)

The trout fishing didn’t pan out because he couldn’t walk much. We met up with our crew on Wednesday about noon. We did our last minute things, dropped my buddy at his hotel, and headed for the mountains. Set camp on Wednesday PM and spent Thursday driving around getting the lay of the land for the new guys.

Our plan was to backpack up a creek 4 miles or so and hunt from there. The theory being we’d be behind the day-hunters. We really expected to have the area all to ourselves. We talked to a couple of guys on Thursday PM that hunted in the area first season; they saw a lot of elk and killed a decent 5x5. The hike in was mostly uneventful. We did see fairly fresh kitty tracks in the snow and discovered an elk carcass in the creek bottom likely attracting the cat. We set camp under some fir/spruce/evergreen trees next to the creek and began next day prep. The sound of horses startled us at 3:00. Three horses with riders walked through camp and headed farther up the creek. We were close to the top of the drainage so thought they couldn’t be going far. We got things settled and did a bit of covert reconnaissance. The first thing I noticed was the smell of some type of hydrocarbon fuel wafting down the valley when I approached their camp site. Next came the chopping of firewood or some sort of wood chopping noise. After we located their horses, we retreated back to our camp to decide how to handle this newest information. We were pretty sure they had no idea the elk were just above them about 1/4 - 1/2 mile away. I was pretty sure they were going to spook every elk within a mile of their camp.

Our game plan was to strategically locate our guys in some likely funnel type areas and use guys coming in from the road to push elk our way. This was the first of the ‘when things don’t go according to plan’ events. My plan was to hike out of the stream valley, get on top of the flat ridge and hunt uphill to the base of the mountain, cross over another stream and head to another mountain. Nice thought Daniel Boone…………

Saturday’s hunt arrived at 5:30 AM with breakfast and a leisurely hike up the valley. It was a bit steeper than I thought and I didn’t arrive on the flat top ridge till daylight. Upon arriving at the top, I was greeted by an elk bugle – coming from the camp of guys down below. They bugled a couple more times over the next 10-15 minutes which told me they hadn’t left camp yet. My plan changed to hunting the far edge of the black timber along the eastern edge of the flat ridge in hopes of letting the bugle-boys push any elk to me while they fumbled around doing whatever they were going to do. I eased through the ¼ mile to the far edge and started easing up through the timber. I was surprised to see 8-10 different fresh elk tracks crossing the flat ridge over the course of the next ½ mile. I ran into one of our guys sitting on the on the far side overlooking the opposing ridge. I eased around him and continued upslope. I ran into one of the bugle-boys another ¼ mile up the ridge doing the same thing. I decided a change in plans was in order so swung back through the black timber working my way down the ridge spine. I may have mentioned I noticed a lot of elk sign in the black timber and was again confirmed working down the opposing side.

I saw another guy sitting in the Quakies about hallway down the ridge and began to realize hunting above the bugle-boy camp was going to be a popular destination. I moved back to the far side of the flat ridge and did a bit of map examination to dream up a plan for the afternoon. As I was sitting there, I saw legs coming through the Quakies and saw orange coming. Four people on three horses moved through the timber headed for the big flat ridge. They apparently came up the opposite side of the flat ridge from the drainages below. This made the 7th person I had seen – 5-6 miles back in and before noon. I was a bit bummed about all the scouting and work we had done to get into the area only to find it was more populated than areas I’ve hunted closer to the road.

I decided to vacate the flat top and moved down the back side of the main ridge onto another flat to check it out. It was a mix of Quakies and evergreens and was a bit thicker than the surrounding timber. I noticed I was at the top end of several headwater creeks and it seemed that elk may use the drainages as an easy way to move around the ridge without gaining/losing a bunch of elevation. I found a good spot and settled in. About ½ hour of waiting, I saw legs coming through the timber and 4 cows walked by coming from the big flat ridge, and people, I just left. I moved farther down the ridge and sat on a small meadow in one of the headwater creek bottoms till dark, no elk.

I started up the back side of the flat ridge headed for camp. About a ½ mile from the meadow, my headlamp picked up something large and white in the dark in front of me. I thought it was moonlight reflecting off a pond but found an unoccupied outfitter tent. No sign of occupation. I hoofed it back to camp pondering how to salvage this trainwreck. All said and done, I had seen 7 guys on the first day, 5-6 miles off the road.

After pouring over topo maps and thinking about what I’d seen in previous trips and the first day, I decided to again still hunt the flat timbered ridge at daylight on Sunday. If I ran into people, I’d bail and head over to the other mountain and spend the day over there. Of all the areas I saw on day 1, the flat ridge with black timber held a lot of fresh elk sign. I told the guys in camp that I came there to shoot a decent bull but with the turn of events, decided any legal bull was coming home to dinner.

Sunday AM started at 5:00 AM. I thought I’d catch elk moving through the flat timber covered ridge at daylight, moving away from people and using the ridge to travel through the surrounding open terrain – with all the people sitting in. I did my best ghost imitation all morning and noted fresh elk sign but didn’t see any elk which surprised me a bit. At 9:00 I was about 2/3 way up the flat ridge and decided to swing towards the top. I saw a band of black timber higher on the mountain and decided I needed to work that direction to check it out. About 9:50 or so, I saw an elk moving toward me and saw immediately it was a bull. I could only see about 40-50 yards and it was apparent it was going to pass by at 25 yards or so. The bull was simply walking kind of quartering toward me and looked to pass in front of me almost dead broadside. I had a giant tree directly in front of me and when he got behind the tree I saw 2 things: first he was a legal bull and second he turned and was now walking directly at me. I held the crosshairs on the left side of the tree and waited to see how this was going to play out. He would be at 10 yards when he appeared. He stepped partially around the tree facing me. I held daylight between the crosshair and the tree bark which left me centered on his brisket. My mind swirled a bit with ballistics – a 150 grain Partition moving at 3040 ft/sec at 10 yards about to hit major bones. I may have mentioned that concern in the Wyoming part 1 thread………..

At the shot, he whirled and ran a semi-circle to my left. I shot again but missed. I saw him stumble and fall at ~ 40 yards and figured it was over. Recall my first sentence – when things don’t go according to plan – turned out to be a bit prophetic. I picked up my brass and headed to where I saw the bull fall. About halfway to the bull, I hear crashing off to my left. Oh-oh.

I found a large pool blood where he fell but not much where he took off. I spent the next hour trying to decipher the blood trail. I smelled him at one point and thought he was close. I started looking down likely travel ways trying to spot blood but couldn’t locate where he turned or went after he got up. I was depressed and started second guessing the shot, my decision, and everything else related to the events leading up to that moment. I thought I’d lost the bull. It was one of the lowest points of my hunting career.

About that time I see orange moving toward me from down the ridge. “Hear any shooting up here?” “Yep, it was me” and relayed the story. He said maybe it wasn’t as good a hit as I thought. He moved up the ridge. About 2 minutes later I hear a shot in the direction he went. I moved up the ridge and found him motioning me over. He found blood and looked up to see the bull get up and move off. He shot and stated he missed but the bull wasn’t moving too good. We devised a plan to parallel his escape route thinking he wouldn’t go far before laying back down. We moved about 50 yards and I thought I smelled him again. We didn’t jump him so I knew I had to move back to the spot we jumped him and work the blood trail. I found where he was laying and determined the bull ran the opposite way the other guy said he did. I started following tiny flecks of blood on dry ground. It took a lot of hunting to find blood. I moved about 25 yards over the next 20 minutes and looked up to see him trying to get up about 25 yards in front of me. I put a Partition tight to his shoulder. He didn’t react but still tried to get up. I put another about an inch from the first and he settled back down but wasn’t dead. I moved up and put one in his neck ending the fiasco.

As he lay:





There was no whooping and hollering; only relief and gratitude. I sat with him for a couple minutes and thought about the events leading up to this moment. NOTHING had gone according to plan – the hunt, the elk, the people, the shot. I rolled him on his side and noted the bullet hole exactly where I placed it – dead center in his brisket. He was apparently quartering slightly to me when he came around the tree. The bullet apparently only caught 1 lung and smashed his shoulder, making it immobile. He covered less than 100 yards from shot to recovery. I’m sure I was walking by him in the previous hour and he let me. It was a lesson on never giving up. The bull is the smallest bull I’ve ever killed but am grateful for him given the circumstances.

Brisket shot:



Damage:



Partition meets bone. This is a 150 Partition from a 270 moving at 3040 ft/sec at a distance of 30 feet. Don't need to worry about major bones and Partitions......



Bullet - weighs 99 grains, 66% retention.



The rest of the quartering and retrieval was fairly uneventful although the horse I used wasn’t fond of the steep ridge we climbed to get to him or taking the bull back down the same steep ridge to camp. It took a bit of coaxing. 

Upon arriving back at camp, I discovered the 4 shots I heard at 7:05 belonged to a buddy killing a decent 5x5 – and his first bull.
All said and done, my 2 week elk safari was successful. Not measured by inches of bone but by adaptability, the people I was with, the country I was able to hunt, and the adventure of it all. Plus it doesn’t hurt to have 400 lbs of elk meat in the freezer . I’d love to do it again but suspect the hall pass may be hard to acquire. I spent yesterday planning a return to both areas next year……………….

We had a couple of Campfire members on the CO hunt. They'll chime in I'm sure.