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Continued....

The Suck !

I go over the highlights of what transpired in the 120 seconds of elk hunting bliss I had with Dan. Then it was time to figure out the fur extraction. Dan, ask’s me if I have a landmark on the bull because you can’t see either one from where we are standing....Sure, pard, they’re right over there 👉 pointing my finger while making a circular motion in a down direction....I’m lying ~ I knew there about’s where we’d locate hooves.

Plan was simple enough...Hike to the lower cat road I was originally on before I was raped by the earlier fog. Find the correct side of the mountain, head up into the thick stuff and hope to get eyes on or smell dead elk.

Dan’s a hard charger and takes the lead by heading up first into the brush after I assured him this was the correct hillside. Little fun fact, I’m a survivor of Vertigo. I’ve had it more than I haven’t the last 3.5 years. It’s one of the main reasons I closed my house painting company several months ago. I’m functional, but walking on uneven ground can be difficult, even without vertigo. With it, it’s like riding in a boat on the open sea. Things under my feet can feel woozy? If woozy is a word.

Anyway, we drop our rifles and dump our packs out of all non-essential items on the top of the hill we just climbed. We’ll be passing this spot several times on the way out before the night is over. Danno, makes haste by climbing through the thick shît and down onto the side hill of the clear cut the bulls should be on...

I’m 15 yards behind, eagle eyed watching Dan’s progress while tending to the woman’s work of moving and throwing any and all slash, sticks, logs and rocks outta my fûck’n way! Call it making a path and making it wide. You can’t guarantee the first path you make to locate a down animal is going to be the same path you’ll take heading out with your first load. But, if it is, I’m ahead of the game.

Pic looks sorta flat, but it’s actually the low side of the cut.



Dan, hollers at me from somewhere ahead that I can’t see, asking if I think the elk are up higher than the course we are traveling? Yeah, maybe, is my reply...Big help the Beav is being, but I don’t really know. We’re down in the shît. My nose is sniffing the air like a hound dog hoping to catch the telltale smell of a dead elk ~ nothing.

I grab a handful of young Doug Fir bows to pull myself up higher on the side hill to continue my search. Boom, I see an elk leg sticking up! I shout to Dan that I got one. The spike has been located. Within minutes Dan shouts back from ahead and above me that he’s found the 5x5. Sweet Jesus, the search is over.

Dan, comes down to me at the spike. I’ve already looked over the death bed situation. As far as having good access to work on this bull ~ it’s not too bad, sorta flat, with no deep indentation ie....HOLE. Elk seem to get sucked into these natural voids after being shot. We made a couple quick adjustments to the spikes position and he’s good to go for separating hide and quartering.

I asked Dan how far up the 5x5 is? Maybe 40 yards up ahead, but 10 yards higher. Then he breaks the news to me. It’s in a tough spot, a HOLE...Well, Fûck Me!

I don’t even want to go look. Dan, had killed a cow elk back in February of this year that I helped him get. That whore died in a hole that turned her big cow body into a pretzel on the side of a steep cut. Both of us couldn’t get enough leverage to haul her ass out of the deep root pocket she died in. I worked that elk up for him while he held a leg here, and a snout there for me. I assumed the 5x5 would be in something just as ugly.

Spike...An easy spot to work on.




While Danno starts to work on his spike, I scamper up to my bull with dread hanging over me on what I’m gonna find...Meh, not that bad. It’s in a hole, but it’s a shallow hole and the bull isn’t very big. Very doable without much fuss. I prance back down to Dan to help.

Footnote: Prance and Scamper in context means (I slowly, made my way, looking at the ground the entire way)

5x5...Not as bad as I envisioned.



It’s interesting when you have two people who are experienced hunters, but go about things differently. Trying to reach a consensus on what is best practices can become, well, interesting. This wasn’t one of those situations. We both knew what needed to get done, and we went about it with an attitude of slow is slow, fast is fast. Break these bulls down, get the quarters off the mountain and to the cat road. Then start hauling meat to the rig parked at the locked gate 1.5 miles away....Rinse, repeat 3 more times into the night.

Pic is a dead giveaway of a meat hunter...grins



Meat stacked on the cat road, ready to be loaded and hauled up and out.



Dan, took the spike out first to the cat road while I broke down the 5x5. Our path off the mountain was right where the spike lay dead. Needing a clear path, the spike was moved outta the way first.

Pic of Danno, taking a breather packing out the 5x5 at the bones of the spike. It was a theme for us in this terrain. Make 40 yards of gain, then break for a breath. A lot more huffing and puffing met us this night. Not a lot of words were passed between us, either. Talking took effort and trying to stay upright was more important. We just freighted meat and drank White Claws and water that I dropped in the road on our way back in after the first load was taken out.



Me coming out with the 3rd load of the night. I’m carrying the horns in front of me, so when I’d slip and fall, the antlers wouldn’t impale me in the guts...When we got to the cat road, Dan, and I agreed we couldn’t do a 4th load. We had one shoulder and a ham that we’d need to come back for the next morning....So close, yet so, far away.



We started the hunt with a cool and clear morning. Then we got smashed with wind and dense fog, which lifted to a high sun. Then night came and light wind and rain was our fate for the remainder of the night. Footnote: it’s ridiculous just how slippery a coastal clear cut will become when rain is added to the adventure. I’m literally telling you that a 10” long 2” around stick that is on your path while side hilling it, will drop you just as quickly as hitting ice on your front porch step...Mother Fûcking Whore was screamed many times.

Here’s a log that we’d been using as a step up and down to the 5x5 until it decided to shît the bed and separate under my boot while I’m under load with a shoulder and a meat pack. It launched me face first, almost throwing me into a full somersault. MFW!



Pic of all the meat, sans a shoulder and hindquarter finally at the rig...I’d popped 8 Advil and 4 Tylenol’s this day. I couldn’t tell you how many White Claws I drank, because I suck at math, but it was more than 5 and less than 7.



I got to bed around 10:30PM that night after squaring away the meat in refrigeration. I didn’t sleep much, getting myself up at 2AM for coffee. My body ached, but I was thinking mostly about another pack in and out that we had to do this morning....

Why didn’t we just “Embrace The Suck” and make that one last push for the final load? Well, that’s the mind game ~ Wishing you did something earlier, that you absolutely didn’t feel like you could do at the time. This morning it was “Let’s Go Brandon”...We made it up to the meat around 10AM and back to the house by almost 1PM.

I’m tired, my back is sore, and my shoulders are hating on me, but I’m gtg. It was good elk hunt.

Now it’s time to make meat.




Thanks SLM, for your curiosity in my Coastal elk hunts, otherwise I wouldn’t have hijacked Tinycocks thread about both men and women never being able to feel him during sex. 😳


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