Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hell, I'm Still Here!--by Jon Sundra

When I was in college most of my elk hunting was done in far western Montana, close to the Idaho line. Usually camped out for a few days during open week.

One trip I had just come down off the mountain after killing something, a big mule deer if I recall correctly, and was hiking back down a Forest Service road toward camp when a new Cadillac stopped, full of orange-vested hunters. Two middle-aged guys sat in the front seat, and two teenage kids in the back seat. The driver asked if I wanted a ride, and since I'd just done close to 10 miles I said sure. He also asked if I'd like a cold beer, and I said yes again. He opened the trunk, which was absolute crammed full of stuff, not just a cooler of beer and soft drinks, but their rifles in cases, "spare" hunting clothes and other stuff. If they'd killed something there wouldn't have been any place to put it.

I believe it was the next year when I was hiking down the same canyon road and ran into a guy with one of the early Subaru 4-wheel-drive station wagons. He'd just killed a spike elk on the steep mountainside above, and after dragging the gutted elk downhill to the creek next to the road, was trying to use a length of cotton clothesline tied to his Subaru bumped to pull it across the creek. He'd ease out the clutch and the elk would move maybe a foot before the clothesline would pop, and he'd get out and tied the clothesline together and try again. I helped him drag the elk across the creek, but don't what he did after that, since there wasn't much room in the Subaru, though more than there was in the Cadillac trunk. He said he'd figure something out.

Also once saw a similar Subaru in Bozeman the last week of the season, a few years later, with a bull moose strapped to the roof. The roof had caved in somewhat, which probably helped the moose stay up there. Was curious what the story was, but the Subaru was parked in front of a store with only other gawkers nearby.