Halloween saw me pulling out at 6:30 in the morning for a solo ride to the annual family elk camp in SW CO. The rest of the gang had left the morning before and drove the 12 hours to Pagosa Springs to crash in a motel for the night. They would get up and head to our old campsite to set up the big wall tent and get camp squared away. I was anxious and lonely on the ride out and feeling a little bit guilty about leaving them a man short to set up camp, but with limited vacation time at a newish job they all understood.

I saw tons of deer on the way out, whitetails in OK and TX and then scads of muleys at any tinge of green vegetation in northern NM and on to the CO line. Plenty of road killed elk along from Chama to the state line as well.

I swung into the Walmart in Pagosa and swallowed hard as I put down the $661 for a nonresident bull tag, they’ve always been tough for me to stomach even when they were $476 nearly 20 years ago. The beans dad called and told me to grab were a much easier purchase at $1.15! Then it was back into the truck to make the 20 or so miles on to camp before dark.

As I pulled off the forest service road and into the clearing where camp sits it was like coming home again. My family has been using this camp spot for hunting camp since 1956, they camped at Devil’s mountain in 55 and moved over here the next year. Sadly this would be the first trip since 1955 that the founder, my Grandad, didn’t make it. He’s always been the camp superintendent, handling everything from buying the groceries and tallying everyone’s share of expenses, to supervising the trenching of the tent and construction of the schit palace out back. He stayed home due to my Grandmother’s health and we surely missed him, but I guess 63 straight years is a pretty good run.

The gang was all there, Dad and his two brothers who’ve made the trek since the 70’s, one cousin my age whose been coming for about 10 years, New Mexico cousins who showed up in the early 80’s, and friends from as far away as New York state with anywhere from 20 to 0 years with us. This was the 18th year since I started going. The stove was burning bright and they had supper going and a cold beer waiting for me after the handshakes and hugs. After supper I rolled out my bedrolls and after a couple hours of catching up and playing a few hands of dominos I turned in, happy to once again be in the place all of us wait and plan to be all year.

Friday was spent cutting wood and gathering pine knots. After that we dinked around and hunted sheds a little before once again piling in the tent for supper and dominoes. I decided to try something new this year and brought my propane deep fryer along with 10 pounds of bluecat filets, huge hit and not a scrap of fish left. We stoked the stove to keep out the single digit temps and crawled in the racks early in anticipation of the 5:30 breakfast on opening day.

Opening morning we stacked around the breakfast table, 13 of us in all, and wolfed down fried eggs, bacon, and biscuits. I told the guys that morning that I figured I would just get it over with and shoot the first legal bull I saw. I was kidding of course, I always shoot the first legal bull I get a chance at, but the new guys gave me odd looks like they weren’t quite sure. With pink in the eastern sky we all headed off to our chosen spots, places we’ve named over the years that aren’t on any map but that we all know by heart. The Big Bull bowl, Rob’s rock, Kent’s bowl, Dayne’s tree, Antler Knob, The Mine Field, surely every camp has their own landmarks like these.

Heading down the forest service road to the gate I got a sinking feeling as my wheeler suddenly died without so much as a sputter. No luck getting it to fire back up and utterly shocked since this was the first time ever that we’ve had a Honda lay down on us, dad towed me back to camp, about a mile and 30 minutes burned. I was going to tear the carb apart when a couple of the guys who weren’t hunting this year told me they’d take care of it and to just go. So I hopped on double with dad and away we went for the 5 mile ride to our jumping off point.

Once we arrived it was pretty much fully light and we had a mile or so to get to where I wanted to sit. As I loaded my rifle and checked everything Dad told me to go on and get up to my lookout and not worry about waiting for him. Taking enough time to be fairly quiet but still hustling pretty good, I was in place in 45 minutes or so. Dad soon showed up and scrambled down under the tree to sit next to me and glass. The fire we laid in the little rock fire ring we built under the tree was still set waiting to be lit from last year but it hasn’t been bad enough weather to light it in several years. We sat glassing and enjoying the morning for a good 43 minutes before Dad needed to pee and I was starting to get a little chilled so we decided to move up the slope to another tree that was in the sunshine. Just as we started to get up and grab the packs I saw movement on the other side of the bowl. “Dad, Bull by the lone pine”, I said as I grabbed my binocular. He was making his way up the slope opposite of us and I just got him in the glass long enough to see that he had plenty of browtine to be legal before I swapped binos for my rifle. I knew from ranging it previously that the lone pine right below the bull when he stopped was 376 yards. I took a rest on my knees in the sitting position, held right along the hair on top of his back as he stood broadside and sent a 130 Nosler ETip on it’s way via 270Wby. At the shot he crow hopped and went uphill to the next bench before stopping again quartered away from me. I lined his neck and front leg with the vertical crosshair and the horizontal with the top of his back again and let drive another one, this time I heard bone crunch and he went down in a heap. Bull down! at 8:45 on opening day. I’ve filled tags on opening day before but never in 45 minutes.

To be continued tomorrow.....