Cont..
The next morning I rolled out and helped with breakfast before letting everyone leave and go up for the morning hunt. A good friend who’s no relation to us but we’ve agreed to adopt because he’s a great guy, a cousin my age, my oldest uncle, and my dad agreed to meet around lunchtime and we’d gang up and go on a retrieval mission. I eased back into my bunk for an hour or so after cleaning up breakfast and stoking the wood burner.
About 11:00 I got to the rendezvous point and radioed to see if everyone was ready. Sitting on my wheeler waiting for a reply and I catch a glimpse of something 40 yards off the trail I’m parked on. Sure enough it’s a herd of cows and calves bedded in the timber and totally unconcerned with my being there. Unfortunately the one guy in camp with a cow tag was a ways off and it would have been against the rules to tell him where they were on the radio anyway. Shaking my head I rolled on down to meet the guys.
We donned pack frames and slowly made the trek to my bull keeping eyes out for more elk and then carefully looking over the kill site from a distance since Dad had opted for a bear tag over a bull. Satisfied that nothing was around we closed the last bit of distance and started loading packs. Soon we were on our our way, one whole bull elk in one load. A little more than an hour and we had it all back to the wheelers, bagged, and strapped down for the ride back to the meat pole in camp.
Interestingly enough, when we reached the kill site I noticed that one quarter was moved about a foot and one backstrap was about 3 feet from where I’d left it. Closer inspection found a single set of fox tracks in the snow and the heart, which I’d set aside since I didn’t have a bag for it, had been absconded with! Rat bastard had a whole gutpile all to himself and he takes my favorite part.
The following days I spent mostly with Dad, looking for sheds, rocks, and a bear, but definitely soaking up the scenery and enjoying good company and being away from work. Saw elk every day, unbelievable when I’m used to hunting my ass off and seeing 3 or 4 the whole trip on a normal year. Also saw a few really nice bucks, of course always when the cousin with a buck tag was far away.
On one of our afternoon strolls I came to a dirt wash and saw an antler sticking up from behind a stump. Thinking I’d found a dandy shed I headed down to it only to see the other side with it. Deadhead, I thought. Well it turned out I was mostly right. Unfortunately I found a really nice buck someone had killed and lost during the second season. Coyotes had eaten his hindquarters and the hair had started to slip but the front half of him was completely intact. Due to the open area he was in and judging by the entry and exit holes whatever dumbass shot him couldn’t have possibly looked very hard for him. He had a hole perfectly centered between the base of the neck and the shoulder with an exit the size of a silver dollar right behind the shoulder on the opposite side. No way he made it far and what a waste of a dandy buck. I pulled a city slicker move and had my picture taken with him like I’d killed him and had a good laugh on the guys at work. 😁
As the week wore on the weather was great and everyone was still seeing game, just no shot opportunities. So I hatched a plan to do a two man elk drive with Dad through a bowl that we knew some were staying in. Three guys with bull tags and my uncle with the cow tag setup on saddles in the ridge where we know they cross and Dad and I started easing up the opposite side of the bowl with the intention of just letting them get our wind or see us and nudging them the right direction. We sidehilled to the top of the bowl and swung over to come back down the middle through the thick stuff we were sure they’d be in. And they were. After we split up a little I was bee bopping along down in the dark timber when I look ahead and see a cow about 50 yards from me and sound asleep. I glass and scan for 5 minutes and finally determine she’s alone. Still there’s a guy with a cow tag less than 500 yards straight north of her sitting overlooking a trail that cuts right through a heavily used saddle, this is going to work perfectly. I backed up a ways and swung around to get directly south of her where she’d get my wind and head north. Imagine my surprise when she gets my wind and stays lying down looking at me for several minutes only to finally get up and stroll right around me and go straight south! Best laid plans and everything.
In the end the stars just didn’t align for anyone else and I ended up with the only meat on the pole. But everyone in camp had a great hunt, ate like it was Thanksgiving everyday, heard some funny jokes and fun stories of trips past, and just generally had a great time.
Our wives can’t believe how well we eat. Our menu this year included fried Walleye, baked hams, baked turkeys, beans and cornbread, thick cut pork chops, fried chicken, homemade pozole, venison chili, stroganoff, and other real home cooked meals. Breakfast was always eggs cooked to order, bacon, sausage, or home cured Canadian bacon, and biscuits aside from two mornings, one where we had pancakes and another where I whipped up a breakfast casserole with leftover ham, potatoes, bacon, and cheese. A wonderful lady from NM always volunteers to bake us a huge box of the finest cookies and spiced breads I’ve ever had. In the end grocery costs were up 80 cents a meal from last year but still incredibly reasonable for as well as we eat. In 2021 it cost $5.30 per meal per man, this year we owed $6.11 a plate.
The fuel bill liked to have killed us when we divvied it up. We burned $103 worth of propane, $431 worth of gasoline, and an unbelievable $758 worth of diesel on the 1279 mile journey from OK to CO and back. Sorry Uncle but your shiny new Duramax getting 5mpg may not be our vehicle of choice next go around.
As I alluded too in the beginning, times they are changing. There’s rumors of tag prices increasing again soon and Dad’s generation that makes up 80 percent of our group are aging out. I grew up waiting year after year to get old enough to go and when I finally started I thought it would never end. I made dad promise to try his best to stay in shape with the hope that we can keep it up long enough for his grandsons to go. So until we get completely priced out of it or we just get too old we’re going to try our best to keep it up and keep the adventure going. We’re already making plans for next fall.
