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.

I had gotten conditioned to admiring this view from camp. I make sandwiches for the crew each day and use bagels for the bread so they don’t get crushed in their packs. I add a candy bar for desert. One morning at first light I was delivering the bagel sandwiches to the canvas tent where he guys were staging their hunt and I looked up at the clearing above.
A small herd including a bull ran across.
I ran up to the canvas tent to alert the crew.

The chase itself unfolded a strange way. I tracked the herd about 3 miles that day from camp at about 9500ft on up to 11,000ft. Snow really helped. Back in the years before back pain would wake me up every night I would compete in the Pikes Peak Marathon and even now I can still move OK for my age. To my surprise after several hours I caught up to the bull. He briefly showed himself through a gap in the timber. He had a sort of golden tint color and was probably a 5x5. He vanished through the only angle in a line of trees where I did not have a shot. As the chase proceeded he did things to shake me – like sharp turns on the spots free of snow. He was smart. I liked him. By early afternoon it appeared that he had figured out that in the deeper snow and steeper slopes he had the advantage. At timberline he had widened his lead and was heading for the patches of evergreen trees at the higher elevations. I was losing the race and I was too tired, too exposed, and too far from roads or any help.

He had won.



I began following the old logging roads back down the mountain in the direction of camp. I was hoping to hear a shot from one of the other guys. I passed the tracks of a very large bear. Several times I resisted the urge to follow fresh elk tracks heading in the opposite direction. Then a set of bull tracks going in more-or-less the same direction as me got my attention. At least by following these I’d be getting closer to camp. I had barely processed that thought when I heard a grunt and a thump from behind a small stand of spruce ahead. A bull walked into the middle of the logging trail. This bull was the same size as the one I had been chasing all day but his behavior could not be more different. It was evident that the two animals had gotten very different upbringings. The bull stood broadside and stared at me on the logging road. Fatal mistake. My offhand shot landed low on the ribcage. I followed him a short distance and put him down with an additional shot.

I’ve noticed that at the shooting range I am usually the only club member there that will practice offhand shooting. I estimate that with about 75% of the elk I’ve taken that has been the shot option available.



DIY hunt, Over-the-Counter bull tag, public land (Uncompahgre Nat’l Forest), old levergun, factory ammo – Federal Partitions. Probably the only element of the hunt that wasn’t old and ordinary (including me) was this Leupold thermal tracker.



Never needed the Leupold thermal tracker but played with it a little here.

On the previous bull I had killed, a ‘somewhat unreliable’ source told me that according to an Indian legend a bull’s penis should be thrown into the tree branches. If it hangs and does not fall to the ground then you will kill an elk again the following year. It didn’t work last time but this time who knows?



About an hour after dark we were satisfied with the field dressing we had done and asked ourselves how we would find our way down in the dark. A nice turn of events revealed that were only ½ mile from a FS road below, making this one of the easiest pack outs we had ever done.



While hunting on my buck tag a couple of days later I decided to return to the kill site. The snow surrounding the carcass had been packed down hard. The neck and ribs had been picked over, and lungs and liver were gone. Some crows jealously guarded the area and complained about my presence.



I was truly blessed this year. Like so many others here I just hope I can control some physical issues enough so that I can go again next year.

Congrats on a great bull, Alamosa! Very well written and great photos too!

Congrats on a great hunt and story.
Hang in there, getting old ain't for sissies.

Great story! How about a few pics of the "old levergun"?

Great story and hunt... thanks for taking the time to share it

Congrats on the bull! Great hunt!

Good job, Alamosa. Nice to see the older guys getting it done still! Nice bull, too.

Great story and pics. Good job!

Congratulations Alamosa! Great story telling! Fate twisting and turning around irony brought smiles to my face.

My 1st elk was an OTC tag...on public land...using an old levergun (Win 32 Spl) and factory ammo.

I love it!

Good on you Alamosa.

Great write-up.....

I'd try to find someone to half the cooking with you. You pack their lunches? Want a job? Grin....

that is motivating!!

Great story! And a dang nice bull!!!!

love the pics, thanks and congrats.

That is a great story - great job. Nice bull, nice country, nice partners. You are a lucky man.

Thanks for sharing. Nice pictures and great story. Nice bull to boot.

Congrats! Bet that was a lot more fun than cooking. A new camp cook will be needed next year, I imagine. 😎