Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting though some of you might enjoy this short story

that thread on still hunting brought back , memories ,
back in the 1980s I was teaching a friend how to still hunt thru the canyons on snowy days, I had selected my 375H&H sako carbine and he had a remington 700 in 375 H&H, we had selected a rather steep and narrow canyon with a small stream in its lower stretch that spread out into a shallow beaver pond , that was surrounded by aspen and conifer , now it was snowing fairly heavy and temps were in the low 20f range, we had split up so that each of us was moving a roughly parallel course but usually each hunter was about 150 yards up from the steam in the canyon base,and on opposite slopes and about 300-350 yards apart hopeing to see or move elk and get a shot or get close as they were most likely bedded in the conifers, and each guy moved slowly and carefully,in the aspen and conifer,cover looking at fresh tracks, occasionally we could smell elk,but had not yet seen them,but tracks were plentiful, the wind was very light but still we were walking into the wind and could see this easily in the direction of snow falling.
at one point a shale slide reached down to the stream from the rim rock up slope from a considerable distance and not wanting to expose himself or slip on the loose shale my partner had hand signaled that he was moving down to the stream until he could move up in tree cover past the shale, as he reached the lower canyon he decided to walk over to b,s, a bit about the hunt, he started walking walking across the mostly ice covered stream, carefully stepping on rocks, about 1/2 way across the 30 feet of stream he slipped and instantly found himself flat on his back in 18" of broken ice and ice cold water, he let out a scream that probably caused every elk in 1/2 mile to go cross eyed in fear,and loose control of their bowels and assume a starving tyrannosaur was stalking them and was highly pissed off.
he was soaked and ice started forming on his clothes almost instantly, we built a small fire and he stripped out of the majority of the cloths and wrung them out,and dried them out and put on a dry extra down vest and fleece jacket and extra dry socks we carried in day packs and with in 45 minutes he was essentially dry and reasonably warm again, but obviously that section of the canyon was totally elk free at that point. so after making sure he was not going into hypothermia we moved reasonably rapidly about a mile up canyon before seeing mule deer and deciding we could continue still hunting elk.
I mostly hunt canyons like this, (some have almost complete tree cover other not so much

Nice, thanks for sharing that with us !!

Nice, thanks for sharing that with us !! I like my canyons just a little bit wider. !

Fun story. Thanks for posting.

340mag:

Good story. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you and I use some of the same strategies.

KC

Nice story. What part of the country are the canyons in your pictures located.
Thanks,
Steve

Nice story there. Too bad others refrain some of their more memorable, as in around a campfire. They probably would if others wouldn't cry, "bs".

damn good story

Sounds like some of my more memorable hunts! Thanks for posting.

Colorado north / west of gypsum

you would never believe some of the dumber stuff Ive either gotten involved in or seen guys do on elk hunts, but thats hunting and how most of us learn!


heres one tip I learned, never make coffee by flash light ot the tail gate of your truck,
picture this

its about 4am opening day of ELK season, 4 guys are trying to fix a rushed breakfast on the tailgate of a pickup truck, its 10 degrees and windy and we have two rather feeble flash lights, we slept in the truck sitting up and were all 90% asleep, I pour a cup of coffee from the pot on the fire grid and grab a couple packs of POP-TARTS , throw those in my vest for breakfast as we walk into the hunt area in near total darkness and grab what I think is a packet of SWISS_MISS COCO and dump it into my 20 oz Styrofoam coffee,cup, to make moca,(I like coco/coffee mix) I take a gulp and Im just about 2/3rds into swallowing when my frozen brain starts screaming POISON, I START GAGGING and PUKE

when your minds thinking MOCA?,COCO,HOT CHOCOLATE/MIXED WITH COFFEE and you take a big gulp of hot coffee mixed with only partly dissolved raspberry, diet jello mix, your mind FREAKS OUT

its been 35 years since that morning and I still gag when I smell raspberry, and no one ever admitted throwing those packs of powdered jello mix in the food boxes, next to the packets of swiss miss coco packets

I had a similar experience, vey funny at the time.
We were working in the field in S-Central Siberia in 1985. Only instant coffee was available, highly valued and expensive to boot. One morning on a day off, the cook made some Pirozki and the guys were moving to the fire for the morning tea. Our offroad vehicle driver, a professional Siberian hunter with wrists as wide as his palms and able to lift 10 feet of the tank track, just procured a can of that sacred instant coffee and to everyone's jealousy poured himself a good smelling cup. He put sugar in it and some dried powdered milk concentrate, and stirred, waiting to savor his Pirozki. As we watched, he pulled a sip of his coffee, just to discover that... it turned into a dough: the man mixed up the can of powdered milk with a can of flour. We all had an awesome laugh and ended up having some of his instant coffee with the tasty Pirozki.

I think many of us elk hunters have a strong masochistic tendency in that we must enjoy pain, why else would we shoot an elk, down in some remote canyon, knowing full well that its likely to require several guys back packing out 60-70 pounds of meat each on several successive trips out of, LORD ONLY KNOWS, what steep or brush filled canyon, on what frequently becomes a 2-3 hour trip best described as self inflicted calisthenics and a test to see if you can self inflict a heart attack while gasping for breath on wobbly legs.
If you hunt canyons your not going to have a great deal of competition from other hunters and your chances of getting an elk improve a good deal over the guys that never get 100 yards off a logging road, but theres a price to pay in much greater physical effort.
I once turned to my partner while we were each packing out 60 plus lbs of elk meat up a steep incline that we had been climbing for over an hour , and said.....
".HOW MUCH DID THAT LICENSE COST TO DO THIS?" neither of us could continue we were laughing so hard we had to stop , and almost cry at the absurd situation

Good story. Thanks!


ddj

A hunting partner of mine slipped in a stream and got soaked a few years back. Fortunately he had just left the truck a couple hundred yards back and was able to get back to the truck and then to camp.

Much to be said for walking sticks and staying off the ice.