Wife and I moved from Oklahoma to San Luis Valley, Colorado, (6500') in 1960 so that fall/ winter was my first elk hunt. Hunting rifles then were either model 70 Winchesters, whatever Remington had to offer or a "sporterized" (usually butcherized) Mauser or Springfield and they were all heavyweights, compared to what we have to choose from nowadays. 30-06, of course, was the caliber of choice but some of my gang shot .270s which, back then, worked just as well as the .06. Or at least we thought so. 130 grain Silvertips in the .270s and 150 grain Remington Core-Lokts in the .06s. I think everybody I hunted with used Weaver 4X scopes and backpacks hadn't been invented yet, at least nobody I knew had one. .300 Winchester magnums hadn't made the scene yet either but when they did in 1963, nobody I hunted with got all het up to own one. What we had was plenty good. And once in a while, somebody would show up with a .300 Savage but they came up a little short in the range department so they never became real popular around there. None of us made a game out of seeing how far away from an elk we could get before opening fire but instead we did our best to get as close as possible. Pretty sorry shooters back then.
Our favorite camp site was a dry camp well above timberline and our tent or tents were canvas wall tents and one of them, a 14 X 16 had an oil heater that we used to warm the place up and to warm up some of the food our wives cooked ahead of time.
When we left camp to go hunt, we always went down hill so all of our plunder had to be carried uphill, by hand and back. A hind quarter off a big bull elk or even a small cow got pretty heavy by the time we made it back to headquarters. And we thought it was fun! Back then, a cow tag was coveted and had to be applied for. Bull license was purchased "over the counter."
Leave out from camp in the morning with a peanut butter sandwich in one pocket and an old army canteen of water strapped on which might have turned to hard water by the time you wanted a drink. Not a problem if we had snow but once in a while that didn't happen. Made for hard hunting.
Ahh, them were the days!
Sounds a little too rustic.
Travis
