Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting camp cook kills a bull … on an OTC tag … on public land … using old levergun, factory ammo

I really enjoy the geography on the Colorado Western Slope. The mountains fall of fast and the forest transitions from alpine down through ponderosa and scrub oak then pinion forest, sage and finally desert sand all within a few miles.



A cow elk’s final resting place in the pinion forest



Snow the first two days was a welcome event. We hunted the fresh snow but elk had not moved yet. Coyotes, on the other hand, were tracking up the snow and hunting in earnest.

When the snow passed I was a little surprised at the cold. I had hunted in snow in this unit before - but warmer. I am better prepared for the cold hunting places like Gunnison or Creede. One morning I was preparing to serve the crew breakfast and I could not wipe the table clean due to the cold. A damp cloth was like a mini-Zamboni that just added a fresh layer of ice to the table. I used a windshield ice scraper to clean the table in the RV. Worked well.

Over several decades I have seen my role in the hunting party change along with my physical ability. 35 years ago I was the young porter-the mule-the rookie. Later I became the scout, hunter, ramrod, hunt organizer and the recruiter of fresh legs, wrangler, and so on. These days I am mostly the camp cook and bottlewasher. The smaller the hunting party the more hats you have to wear. I drive an ancient RV that we call the chuckwagon and it has a pretty good cabin arrangement for serving meals to the crew. Picture below.



The chuckwagon doesn’t have much for heat but it has seldom needed it. Usually just cooking a meal on the stove will warm the cabin enough to have the hunters shedding their jackets. Not this season. By the end of the week I was making water by thawing frozen water jugs in cookpots on the stove.